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I've stayed at 22 airbnb's 11 were fine. 11 had issues most with false advertising in some form or another. One listed the wrong location and if they had listed

I've stayed at 22 airbnb's 11 were fine. 11 had issues most with false advertising in some form or another. One listed the wrong location and if they had listed the correct location I would not have rented even though the room's interior matched. A few claimed to include onsite parking but didn't which of course is very inconvenient. The last one that did that claimed "Easy Street Parking" as AirBnb's blatant lie. I usually had to park a mile way or pay for a $25 a night garage a few blocks away. One claimed wifi but was actually just stealing it from the neighbors and it only worked in a corner of the apartment if lucky. Another who I asked if their heaters worked, because a previous one was cold, said yes but when I got their the heater was as loud as a vacuum cleaner and their wifi had a notices "don't use much as it will run out". This for a place I expected to get work done. AirBnb in Japan is full of listing claiming 2 or 3 bedrooms but that actually only have 1 and this isn't a cultural issue. Look at any J-apartment rental site and there is zero ambiguity about what 1, 2, and 3 bedrooms are. It bugs me that YC appears to have absolutely no policy of conduct for the companies they fund. It's totally within their power to say in so many words "be evil and we'll pull your funding and report you to the authorities". IMO AirBnB is complicit in these issues. There is no punishment for bad listings and often AirBnB doesn't even have the options in their system to list them correctly. They even removed my review that included pictures of proof.

ilamont 7y ago
I have a similar rate with AirBnb -- 50% were great, the rest had "issues," which ranged from exaggerated claims ("minutes from downtown") to serious safety problems. Agree that Airbnb's policies (or lack of them) are contributing to the situation -- for instance, no serious punishment for false advertising. But I have a hard time dumping bad policies on YC's plate, or demanding that YC "report you to the authorities" unless criminal activity/negligence is involved.
harryh 7y ago
YC owns a tiny tiny piece of AirBnB. They definitely do not have any sort of power over the issues that you bring up.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  I would say that YC has a relatively large cultural impact, given its investment size. People outside of SV barely even know who Sequoia is, let alone care about who they fund. But a lot of people know about YC and what they are doing. While financially, YC pulling funding wouldn't have a big impact, culturally it'd be a huge bomb.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  They likely do have the power to disassociate themselves from Airbnb though. (Like, I don't think that Y Combinator owes me anything or gives a shit about what I think or whatever, I just think "they are a minority owner" is weak sauce)
- goatinaboat 7y ago
  The value of YC as an investor is not the cash they offer but the advice and guidance. As such their influence is disproportionate to their investment.
  - harryh 7y ago
    Maybe back with AirBnB was just getting started. But not anymore.
throwaway35784 7y ago
Compare that to 100% of My priceline bids being accepted by hotels that were much better than expected and at rates about half what you'd book directly. I'm so glad now after years of never booking an airbnb I can say that with pride. I never gave this scummy company a single dollar. I knew who they were from the first experience.
- puranjay 7y ago
  I've gone 100% Booking.com/Agoda and been really happy with all my bookings, and I've traveled at least 4-6 weeks every year for the last 3 years. I like being able to read 100s of reviews and not just relying on owner provided information.
lonelappde 7y ago
PG wrote an essay about how he and and Sam Altman prefer to invest in companies that run scams, as long as they aren't too evil. Remember that AirBnB's first marketing campaign was hiring women (or men using female names online) to violate Craiglist ToS to spam people posting housing listings. http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
- yesenadam 7y ago
  >...Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. ...They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. >...we asked [Sam] what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. That's what you meant?! I can't see which other part you might mean - it's only 750 words. Describing it as "an essay about how he and Sam Altman prefer to invest in companies that run scams" seems as misleading as the worst of the deceptive AirBnB descriptions written about on this page. Maybe you meant to link to a different essay.
  - kmonsen 7y ago
    I think the parents is somewhat justified, there is a very fine line between "hacking" as described here and scammy. It is almost inevitable it gets to AirBnB level if that is your thought process. Would be interesting to hear their take on issues like airbnb are facing, and if they thinking this "room owners" in these cases are also "hacking".
AJ007 7y ago
I wonder what kind of class action or civil enforcement exposure Airbnb has. Certainly this has to be revealed honestly in their S-1 docs.
edouard-harris 7y ago
> It bugs me that YC appears to have absolutely no policy of conduct for the companies they fund. They do: https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ YC founders are told to review these guidelines before we accept the investment. From the ethics page: > To maintain our community, if a founder behaves unethically during or after YC, we will revoke their YC founder status.
- singron 7y ago
  Has this ever affected anything before? Just about every organization has "we are ethical" in some document somewhere. "We always comply with local regulations" is often spouted by companies immediately after being busted for breaking regulations.
- lightedman 7y ago
  So, what about making the company return that venture funding money to boot? I can think of several YC-funded companies pretty much raping our privacy and YC does nothing to fix that.

ilamont 7y ago

I have a similar rate with AirBnb -- 50% were great, the rest had "issues," which ranged from exaggerated claims ("minutes from downtown") to serious safety problems. Agree that Airbnb's policies (or lack of them) are contributing to the situation -- for instance, no serious punishment for false advertising. But I have a hard time dumping bad policies on YC's plate, or demanding that YC "report you to the authorities" unless criminal activity/negligence is involved.

harryh 7y ago

YC owns a tiny tiny piece of AirBnB. They definitely do not have any sort of power over the issues that you bring up.

moron4hire 7y ago
I would say that YC has a relatively large cultural impact, given its investment size. People outside of SV barely even know who Sequoia is, let alone care about who they fund. But a lot of people know about YC and what they are doing. While financially, YC pulling funding wouldn't have a big impact, culturally it'd be a huge bomb.
maxerickson 7y ago
They likely do have the power to disassociate themselves from Airbnb though. (Like, I don't think that Y Combinator owes me anything or gives a shit about what I think or whatever, I just think "they are a minority owner" is weak sauce)
goatinaboat 7y ago
The value of YC as an investor is not the cash they offer but the advice and guidance. As such their influence is disproportionate to their investment.
- harryh 7y ago
  Maybe back with AirBnB was just getting started. But not anymore.

throwaway35784 7y ago

Compare that to 100% of My priceline bids being accepted by hotels that were much better than expected and at rates about half what you'd book directly. I'm so glad now after years of never booking an airbnb I can say that with pride. I never gave this scummy company a single dollar. I knew who they were from the first experience.

puranjay 7y ago
I've gone 100% Booking.com/Agoda and been really happy with all my bookings, and I've traveled at least 4-6 weeks every year for the last 3 years. I like being able to read 100s of reviews and not just relying on owner provided information.

lonelappde 7y ago

PG wrote an essay about how he and and Sam Altman prefer to invest in companies that run scams, as long as they aren't too evil. Remember that AirBnB's first marketing campaign was hiring women (or men using female names online) to violate Craiglist ToS to spam people posting housing listings. http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

yesenadam 7y ago
>...Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. ...They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination. >...we asked [Sam] what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. That's what you meant?! I can't see which other part you might mean - it's only 750 words. Describing it as "an essay about how he and Sam Altman prefer to invest in companies that run scams" seems as misleading as the worst of the deceptive AirBnB descriptions written about on this page. Maybe you meant to link to a different essay.
- kmonsen 7y ago
  I think the parents is somewhat justified, there is a very fine line between "hacking" as described here and scammy. It is almost inevitable it gets to AirBnB level if that is your thought process. Would be interesting to hear their take on issues like airbnb are facing, and if they thinking this "room owners" in these cases are also "hacking".

AJ007 7y ago

I wonder what kind of class action or civil enforcement exposure Airbnb has. Certainly this has to be revealed honestly in their S-1 docs.

edouard-harris 7y ago

> It bugs me that YC appears to have absolutely no policy of conduct for the companies they fund. They do: https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ YC founders are told to review these guidelines before we accept the investment. From the ethics page: > To maintain our community, if a founder behaves unethically during or after YC, we will revoke their YC founder status.

singron 7y ago
Has this ever affected anything before? Just about every organization has "we are ethical" in some document somewhere. "We always comply with local regulations" is often spouted by companies immediately after being busted for breaking regulations.
lightedman 7y ago
So, what about making the company return that venture funding money to boot? I can think of several YC-funded companies pretty much raping our privacy and YC does nothing to fix that.