5 ms·
Airbnb does this too. They give all of their employees an annual stipend to travel via Airbnb, so that they can regularly experience the app from the perspectiv
by meowface 8y ago
Airbnb does this too. They give all of their employees an annual stipend to travel via Airbnb, so that they can regularly experience the app from the perspective of a guest. I think they also provide benefits for employees who host guests, for the same reasons.
When you think about it, it seems so obvious that companies should do things like these, yet it still seems so rare. It's easy to fall out of touch with your users and product.
- throwawaymath 8y agoDo you have any idea what the stipend typically is?
- meowface 8y agoA quick Google search says it's $2000/year. Don't know if that's accurate.
- azylman 8y agoI have some friends at AirBnB and I've heard it's much more modest, like $300/yr or something. My experience with these type of "dogfooding" credits is that companies are much more generous when they're smaller, so it could be that older employees get more than newer employees.
- meowface 8y agoThat makes sense. $300 is enough to cover Airbnb housing costs for at least a few days in pretty much any location around the world, so they probably still get value out of it.
- whymauri 8y agoI think it's a 500$ coupon at the beginning of every quarter.
- alfalfasprout 8y ago$2k/year ($500 every quarter)
- mopeloi 8y agoWouldn't the equivalent be incentivizing employees to rent out their own place on Airbnb? I'm sure that plenty of Uber and Lyft employees are customers without it being a Big Deal.
- meowface 8y agoYes, that'd be the equivalent to this specific situation. Airbnb incentivizes that as well. I don't remember the exact details, but in an interview with one of the founders, he said they have a program for employees who host Airbnb guests.