15 ms·

How The Hell Is This My Fault?

• jamesgagan 15y ago
  Listen, someone was gonna post it.
• mindcrime 15y ago
  /me puts some popcorn on to pop, cracks open a soda, and sits back to watch the show...
  • mahmud 15y ago
    It's all fun and games until someone is homeless. Remember, a midst all this BS, there is still that woman who still doesn't have her house back.
    • mindcrime 15y ago
      I'm aware of that, but this part of the story seems to have evolved past that. I'm only referring to the "Arrington vs. pg" sub-story that's fallen out of this. I certainly don't mean to make light of what happened to the lady who's home was ransacked.
      • mahmud 15y ago
        It's a "sub-story" only if you make it to be. What you can do also is not give a shit and not look for debacles, existent or otherwise. I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc.
        • mindcrime 15y ago
          I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc. I suspect that most, if not all, of us are interested in those things. That doesn't mean one can't also appreciate certain sub elements of the story from other angles. But to be fair, maybe it's still too early and maybe emotions are still too raw (especially since the woman in question still hasn't had this resolved to her satisfaction) for any indulgence in the possibly humorous aspects of this. If so, I was wrong to post my original post, and I and apologize to anyone who is offended.
          • kelnos 15y ago
            Agreed. In the end, I want the best resolution possible for EJ, given that something terrible happened to her. But in a more abstract sense, I'm very interested in how AirBnB (as a semi-responsible party) and YC (as a seed investor) handle and respond to the situation. Here on HN we talk a lot about treating your customers well and being as transparent as possible. But something here is amiss. The victim is saying one thing, and the company and investor in that company are saying things that don't quite jive. We may never know where the truth lies exactly, but AirBnB doesn't seem to be handling this very well. Regardless of whether or not AirBnB is legally responsible, they need to step up. Personally I think the best thing for them to do is to just fix the problem. They need to reach out to EJ, and not just in the "what do you need?" sense. They need to just do things for her. She's traumatized and in a very bad, vulnerable state right now. Who wouldn't be? Asking her what she needs is not the best approach, because she likely isn't really sure what she needs. They need to just go right out and help her find a new place to live, and help her replace some of the things she's lost, to the best of their ability. I don't know if PG is checking his facts or is just trusting the AirBnB founders and telling us what he's been told by them, but, frankly, in this case, I don't care what he has to say. The AirBnB founders need to go all out on this, probably accept more responsibility for what happened than they are really responsible for, and just make it right as well as they can. It won't be perfect, but they have to show the community that the community comes first, and AirBnB's bottom line comes second. Because perhaps non-intuitively, putting the community first actually does put their bottom line first. But from what I've read and seen so far, they haven't done that.
  • ibejoeb 15y ago
    I think you're just being cheeky, but it is pretty compelling. There seem to be two positions: 1. AirBnB is a broker and carries not responsibility for the parties after the deal is done. They are sympathetic, but they are right in not commenting or otherwise participating in these affairs. 2. AirBnB is building a new model and has significant responsibility (socially, perhaps legally) for ensuring end-to-end integrity of its engagements. I think this will all go away shortly, but I think we're bound to see very similar situations with other companies that change how people interact. Seems like Arrington and pg are working on totally different information, but I suspect they're both rather removed from the situation.
• moonlighter 15y ago
  - "Brian Chesky called me and I updated that post" - "Chesky repeatedly thanked me for the updates by email and on the phone" Seems like Chesky and Lukezic spent more time talking to Arrington trying to do "PR damage control" rather than talk to their customer EJ. Which, given Arrington's new post, totally backfired, too: "At least have the decency to stand up and say you’re wrong, Airbnb, and apologize for the lies. Because hiding behind investors, and attacking the press, is both dishonorable and stupid. That’s no way to gain customer trust." Ouch. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
• bennyfreshness 15y ago
  Another example of a select few bad apples ruining it for everyone. This is such a shame. I've had great experiences with Airbnb. The last person who rented my loft left it cleaner that it was before!
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• Confusion 15y ago
  Well, that's a non sequitur drama queen title if I ever saw one. A straw man in so few words: cunning. No one is faulting Arrington for what happened to EJ. Arrington is being faulted, rightly or wrongly, for bad journalism. Bait-and-switch.
  • Confusion 15y ago
    Well, it seems I'm getting massively downvoted for calling out the inappropriateness of a title. How the hell is this my fault?
    • HardyLeung 15y ago
      In case you don't know, this is the appropriate title for this story because this is how Michael Arrington titled his. In most cases, using the original title is the way to go.
• bugsy 15y ago
  That's extremely interesting. When the victim EJ posted (was it Thursday?) about being intimidated and lied to by Airbnb, it was obviously very different from what they were saying publicly. I figured though she is very very upset about everything and overreacting. However, this new report is a second witness that Airbnb is playing dirty behind the scenes while acting all nice guy in public, and PG defending it. Probably he believes what they say, but the fact is that it's Arrington that ends up being right on these articles, but even if it wasn't, we already know the story came from EJ the victim and not Arrington anyway, so PG either didn't do proper diligence in checking before posting or is outright lying to protect his investment. I think PG is honest and just didn't check up on things, but believed what he was told by his unnamed contact at Airbnb, who is clearly angry at the victim. The unnamed Airbnb contact's attitude of anger corroborates EJ's story that she was intimidated by them. What a mess. It's obvious at this point both that PG should apologize to Arrington and Airbnb is basically done for. I am sure they have many people there trying to do the right thing but they have at least one person there in CYA mode who has basically both destroyed the company and lied to PG.
  • jamesgagan 15y ago
    I can't imagine that AirBnb are "done for" after one such incident. I think the real issue here is that HN readers, the kind who root for startups to "stick it to the man", so to speak, are disheartened to see their champions acting like the old regime. That's why this topic, and the public bun fight in the aftermath have generated so much discussion.
    • gobongo 15y ago
      I can easily imagine they are done for. Not because of the PR backlash, but because what they are doing is already quasi-illegal in a lot of places and one juicy story like this that the media, lawyers and politicians can jump on is just about all it will take to eventually remove the "quasi" part.
      • access_denied 15y ago
        Now that you are saying it, I find that it also adds to the "bad integrity" flavour of AirBnB's actions in general. How can bet your career on a half-ilegal business model? I understand sometimes you have to be "crazy" to get a company going et al, but there is still something to the fact, that these guys were ready to do it, specially after 'craigslist' and 'EJ'.
• grovulent 15y ago
  It's he said - she said - kinda stuff that ultimately we'll never get to the bottom of. But Arrington so often finds himself at the centre of these idiotic exchanges and personal attack-fests that it's very hard not to believe PG about this. It's just a real shame that the reputation of a really cool company rests on that level of exchange between folks. It must be really frustrating for them.
  • sriramk 15y ago
    No it doesn't. Their reputation rests on their users, one of whom is trashing them in public after a bad experience. Arrington/TC have published pretty much everything Chesky have told them, including letting them do a guest post.
    • petegrif 15y ago
      I agree. Articles about spats between Silicon Valley insiders are not going to determine how customers view the company.
  • mtogo 15y ago
    It's just a real shame that the reputation of a really cool company rests on that level of exchange between folks. Yeah, what a shame that completely fucking over one of your customers is enough to damage your reputation.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  • mindcrime 15y ago
    So what should I be reading instead of TechCrunch? ReadWriteWeb? GigaOM? TheStartupFoundry?
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
• Legion 15y ago
  >> Airbnb has been offering to fix it EJ said as much in the first post. But offers without follow-through are worthless. And the problem is that, from EJ's perspective at least, there has been absolutely none. And swinging a bat at Arrington won't change that.
• sriramk 15y ago
  I can't believe I'm defending Arrington here but for once, I think PG is off and Arrington is right. Arrington's editorializing has been fairly tame in this story. A lot of the mess has been due to EJ's posts and Airbnb's attempts at damage control. If you look through the original post, there are only a couple of lines where Arrington says Airbnb isn't financially responsible and that is, imho, a fair interpretation of what the spokesperson/Lukezic told him. TC has also done a fair job of publishing Airbnb's side of the story - guest posts, updating their posts, etc. Airbnb's real problem here is EJ, not Arrington. Airbnb's image isn't getting tarnished by posts on TC, it is getting tarnished by EJ's blog posts which make Airbnb's people seem cold and insensitive. If you look at PG's comments on the earlier thread, he seemed to imply that Airbnb disagreed with EJ's version of events (they called her before her second post, etc). That could be Airbnb's big problem - it seems to me they want to say EJ is lying but can't in public.
  • suprgeek 15y ago
    Seconded. It is hard to write a defense of TC given past events. However in this case they are SPOT ON. None of the stories are overtly "drama" or "editorializing" on TC's part. EJs posts are dramatic enough. PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department, not to mention trying to censor somebody by pressuring them. Taking about closing funding rounds to a person who has their house burgled and trashed is beyond ludicrous. Disappointing...all in all.
    • capdiz 15y ago
      They aren't falling short on being ethical. If you had read the very first story airbnb came out with a pretty decent explanation. I believe they were too ethical in the first place. They gave out a lot of info to be exact. To put it blantly they were overly nice and this chick is takin advantage of that. But TC did nothin wrong though.
    • sliverstorm 15y ago
      PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department Well, he is invested in them, and he is only human. While I am not saying that is why he is backing AirBnB, it's good not to forget where people are coming from and where their interests lie.
• coffeemug 15y ago
  The way many people here jumped to conclusions after the initial AirBnB story based on almost no information is really disheartening. Insulting the founders of the company, the victim, and concocting conspiracy theories based on a few paragraphs of information with barely any evidence is a really poor way to conduct oneself. Most decent people wouldn't do it in face-to-face conversations without getting to know a person at least slightly, and it's unfortunate that our psychology is built in a way that an extra layer of anonymity afforded by the internet enables a large number of people to drop all sense of tact and respect, and jump into personal attacks with very little information about the actual incident. If you're one of the people that engaged in this type of behavior, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're doing real damage to real people, while knowing almost nothing about what's actually going on, but more importantly, you're damaging your own reputation. I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers. They live and breathe positive change they bring to the world, to the point where they carry letters from customers that thanked them for saving their lives because the bank would have repossessed their home if not for AirBnB. Jumping on them because they didn't have a chance to give a complete response while handling a crisis is really uncalled for. I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding, but even if it isn't, it's really inappropriate to insult people given the information currently available. In fact, it's never appropriate to insult people, and it's best to hold back criticism until more information is available, lest you do some real damage to real people. There are some valid concerns about where personal responsibility ends and liability begins (legally and ethically), and how AirBnB's service will evolve to address these issues, but there are different ways to discuss these concerns, and discussions here so far have been nothing but poisonous. EDIT: I posted this comment in the other thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2825045 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2825045). Sorry for the crosspost, but this is getting ridiculous.
  • frossie 15y ago
    Dude, have you even read the OP? The AirBnB thing has left the building, now it is Arrington drama. Throw in PG, and this is going to be HN fodder for days. C'est la vie.
• dools 15y ago
  AirBnB: Air Bold n the Beautiful?
• nikcub 15y ago
  airbnb chose to use Techcrunch as the venue, and there is still no mention of this on their own blog or website. they should just cut it straight and adress all their users on their own site
• ImperatorLunae 15y ago
  Does anyone else see the irony in responding to pg with a list of n things? http://www.paulgraham.com/nthings.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nthings.html
• todayiamme 15y ago
  This might seem stupid, but given the line of events if I was AirBNB's founders I would do this; offer EJ my place to stay, and cook a simple meal for her. That's it. The shortfall of AirBNB over here is that they might care, but they aren't coming across as someone caring, and a little bit of empathy coupled with a genuine act of kindness will go a long way over here.
  • bugsy 15y ago
    I agree with you that is a smart approach. I think the reason they don't do anything to really fix it rather than lip service and lawyer wrangling and dirty PR tricks is they are afraid of setting a precedent. However, they should have thought that through a bit more. They are saying they've had a million rentals or some such with no incident. If that is true, covering someone's damage for the 1 in a million case should be something they can do. Let's say it costs $10,000. That's nothing compared to their profit for those million cases where it didn't happen. By not doing this they are sending several possible messages. One is that they believe that a lot more robberies are going to happen and they have been lucky so far. It's not going to be 1 in a million it's going to be 1 in a 100, and they can't afford to fix 1% of all stays that turn into robberies. This message also means they believe it is impossible to fix, they give up on the idea of ever being able to truly identify renters (the rentees are not as big an issue to identify since their names are on the deeds). I think that's crazy since it's really obvious they have been severely legally negligent in not actually acquiring real identities of renters, though they have certainly implied to rentees that it was safe as if they had. That's probably going to end up being determined by some court or consumer advocacy agency like the FTC to be a misrepresentation. The other bad message they send with this is that if they truly believe it is 1 in a million and they don't want to help her out by finding a place to stay and fixing her apartment, then they are obscenely greedy. There are costs to doing this sort of business after all, you can't just starve the business and take it all for yourself. Some money needs to be set aside for these sorts of 100% predictable and inevitable occurrences. Whoever is on their hack legal team is should be fired and they should get some real lawyers in there. Obviously they are obsessed with CYA and avoiding responsibility. If that is where they want to be fine but then they have no business running this sort of business. This business is going to have robberies, rapes and murders from time to time. They should have had a plan. Yelling "it's not our fault", threatening the victim, playing the hypocrite, and attacking people who reasonably comment on the story (and through a third party, what cowards) is absolutely not the right approach. What you mentioned is pretty good though, but it's pretty clear that was brought up and dismissed as something that might cost a couple hundred bucks they were too greedy to let go of.
• redthrowaway 15y ago
  Sorry PG, but you have a steep hill to climb if you want to defend aribnb. The crux of your (and their) problem is this: Why, if, as you say, airbnb was being as helpful as possible from the get-go, did the victim write that second post? That's it. You cannot have a claim to credibility until you answer that question. Even if that answer is, "she was paid off", the existence of her second blog post puts the lie to airbnb's (and your) claims. Either she's telling the truth, or they (and you) are. They are mutually exclusive stories. Bringing Arrington's Arringtonity into this is a red herring. The story isn't about him. There are two involved parties, here, and you've aligned yourself with airbnb. The victim's story isn't being run through the TC filter; it's there for everyone to see. So far, the collective 'you' have not addressed it, refuted her points, or shown how the two accounts are compatible. It's easy to hop on the "Michael Arrington is a sensationalistic dick" bandwagon, because he is. That doesn't address the issue, though, and it comes across as a deflection.
  • adnam 15y ago
    This is someone who thought it was a good idea to rent out their home (not just their property, their home) for a whole week, unattended, to a total stranger. The biggest mistake Airbnb have made is not overly trusting their travellers, but also their hosts.
    • dollarsigns 15y ago
      You would have a factual point if AirBnB prominently displays on relevant pages "We assume you are not stupid enough to rent out your primary residence. Make sure you don't since we are NOT in the insurance business and take NO responsibility for any damages".
      • blub 15y ago
        This is the kind of situation that leads to 'Keep away from fire' labels being added to t-shirts. To me renting your home to a stranger and then failing to check up on them for an entire week is incredibly naive. 10 year old naive. I don't care if airbnb said that they would provide 100% insurance, I would still not do this, it is simply against how I know the world works. And don't tell me about the 'good human being assumption', this is a fairytale, anyone making that assuption will get burned sooner or later.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• hluska 15y ago
  Let's engage in a little thought exercise. Pretend that you are the Airbnb victim. You live in incredible fear of psychotic criminals and identity thieves. The fear is so uncontrollable that you "spend [your] mornings recalling nightmares and breathing through panic attacks." Would you: a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low? b) go extremely public and take on a startup?
  • Steko 15y ago
    This is a silly oversimplification. If the facts are as stated the victim is justifiable in their outrage at the company. Take a step back and stop the tinfoilesque blame the victim game that you've decided to engage in.
  • vacri 15y ago
    People come in a wide variety of personalities.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • yesbabyyes 15y ago
    Would you: go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low? ... for a month, and then go extremely public and take on a startup? ... after a month. Yeah, I think I might just do that.
    • bugsy 15y ago
      I would too. The person had been playing psychological games with her via email. This is not some teenager stealing a TV, this is a psychopath that plays long games with the victim the way a cat plays with a mouse before mauling and eating it. We are not talking some routine crime, there is a very sick component here that goes way beyond normal robberies. I carry (a gun in case it's not clear) in public and know how to fight, and I would feel extremely uncomfortable in my apartment until the perps were caught and in prison, not out on bail after something as twisted as what happened. ... Oh and yeah, I would also publicly trash the company (the two things are definitely not mutually exclusive) in order to warn other innocent people so they don't have to experience the terror and abuse that I went through. Unless the company fixed things. But obviously not knowing the identity of the person that was renting means they were a major contributor to the problem so I would definitely complain loudly, from wherever I was hiding out from the psycho killer.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• ig1 15y ago
  I think perhaps the more important question here is with pg going to bat for Airbnb against Arrington, is this going to affect the long term relationship between Y Combinator and Techcrunch. Techcrunch have always provided favourable coverage to YC companies, but if that relationship is going tepid because of this affair, the negative fall-out could be far worse for YC than for AirBnB. Most consumers will forget about stories like this after a while, journalists tend to hold grudges (see Arrington vs Calcanis).
  • dredmorbius 15y ago
    Journalists get in fights. They drink and make up afterwards. I think MA's been treated worse by others. If he's worth his stripes, he'll report on other YC ventures as they deserve to be reported on. Human nature may creep in, and if YC ventures continue to act in the manner of AirBnB (as reported), I can see a justified negative slant. Now, if PG wants to sue MA and see what sort of press that generates ....
• OoTheNigerian 15y ago
  This is my little 2 cents on this whole fiasco that seems not to go away. All this would not have come to this if Airbnb guys asked themselves a simple question. How would I handle this if this happened to my sister of wife. The main problem is Airbnb had about a month to fix this before it became 'viral'. It was only the post by TC that made me realise this issue was about a month ago (30 days!). As a fan of Airbnb, (I have not used the service, but i have given them a few customers), I am a bit disappointed in the response. I do not blame them for waat happened to EJ. The problem that has happened is as a result of their reaction to what had happened. I am kind of amazed that after a month, not one of the founders has gone to see the house (they have the address) but rather they have been doing "everything" to help. This is politician talk, not startup talk. Why startups were really cool was the possibility of getting in touch with the founder of it rather than the "automated customer service of big companies". The only actionable thing Airbnb have done during the last few days fiasco is try to cover their asses. i.e change the security page, write a blog post on TC and defend themselves. Now anything they do will not be perceived in good faith but in reaction to the angry mob (as PG calls it). It is never good to be reactionary. If I were the CEO of Airbnb, I would do this: Go and look physically and look at the house. Go and look for the victim and be sincere in my apology and request for another chance to start again. Behave as if it was my sister this thing happened to. I really hope some good "no win no fee" lawyer has not got to her first. When you are successful, people are out there trying to hang you, please Airbnb, do not give them a rope. I wish you guys all the best!
  • bugsy 15y ago
    I agree with your general sentiment, but as far as visiting the house that is a very bad idea unless they are specifically invited by EJ. Otherwise they could get accused of not believing that the damage really occurred and checking up on her. It could look very bad, and would definitely be made to look bad by aggressive bloggers. There would definitely be posts and comments saying things like, "Why are their lawyers searching her house? Don't they believe she was robbed! Look at the police report you dolts, you don't have to invade her privacy! Not at a time like this you insensitive clods." If on the other hand she does invite them to see the damage, they should definitely go.
  • 15y ago
• WordSkill 15y ago
  You know, I am no cheerleader for Michael Arrington, we've certainly banged heads a few times in comment threads (it's a fun way to spend an evening) but what Paul Graham is doing here is pretty cynical: Once it became clear yesterday that the empathically-challenged kids in charge at Airbnb had no clue of how to manage the problem, and that the company was hemorrhaging tens of millions in notional value every time Brian Chesky opened his mouth and a bunch of lies and half-truths came tumbling out, the investors called an emergency meeting and tried to figure out a way out of this mess. Clearly, as the situation had been left to rot for a month, giving the victim plenty of time to become more upset and alienated, it was too late to pretend that the situation itself had been handled in any way properly. There was also no longer any subtle way to silence to victim - that bridge already been burned by the ham-fisted attempt to bully her into deleting her original post... attempts made, incredibly, OVER THE PHONE! And, as those attempts were now part of the another blog post, it was too late to act like fucking professionals, meet her in person, put her up in five star luxury while they arrange and pay to have her home cleansed, fumigated, redecorated, refurnished, blessed by a witchdoctor, whatever it took to shut her up.... it was too late for all that. So, Paul Graham, an intelligent man with a good eye for small details, noticed the one and only sliver of a chance Airbnb has to get out of this mess with it's valuation above the billion mark, rather than far below it: the universal antipathy towards Michael Arrington! So, now, the course is set and, from here on out, Airbnb and their investors are going to completely ignore the truth that it was the victim's own account which contradicts Airbnb's rapidly shifting assertions, and, instead, they are going to pretend that the whole controversy is a link-bait concoction by Silicon Valley's favorite super-villain, Dr. Arrington. What actually happened will not matter and, right now, you can bet the Paul Graham is down on his knees praying that Jason Calacanis will take the tasty Arrington bait and run this story in the other direction. Of course, the only reason this story has legs is that Chesky's article turned out to be so astonishingly and needlessly untruthful that the victim felt compelled to sit down and write a practically line-by-line rebuttal. It was truly one of the most remarkable own goals I have ever seen and, if you weren't already questioning the sanity of the CEO of a supposedly $1.3bn company not identifying, a month ago when it happened, that this could be a serious IPo blocker and, as such, promptly nailing it down, you have to wonder just how psychotic he is to have written something so bold, to have put himself in the position of being publicly exposed as a complete and utter bullshitter. So, that is why Micheal is getting it in the neck and, on this occasion, undeservedly so... but you shouldn't let that spoil your enjoyment of it ;)
• resdirector 15y ago
  I really look forward to reading a Paul Graham essay about his experience here, once the dust has settled. I know he has written about PR before, but this is probably essay-worthy in of itself (perhaps something like "in the eye of a shitstorm" or similar). I'd like to know his philosophies and how he came to his decisions to do what when, his thought processes etc.
• babebridou 15y ago
  This situation is in fact a very understandable vendetta of the unfortunate victim towards the rest of the world - and she is right - everyone should pay for what she suffered. The actual word is compassion, and there's never enough of it in the whole world for any single unfortunate person. With that said, no company with AirBnB's business model can publicly say they will assist victims whatever the cost. It's just impossible. It would be a blatant lie. They must at least maintain some sort of windshield against insurance frauds, and doing that requires tons of hard PR and legal decisions to be made, and the assistance of lawyers. And everyone hates lawyers. Companies are sometimes inherently good, sometimes not, but they should never be inherently so stupid as to sign their own commercial/financial/legal doom. You can get up from bad PR, but you can't get up from bankrupcy. Now after this argument in favor of an actual public silence, let's see what we have: 1) a victim 2) there is no 2. There is a victim and that's all. Just fix the victim. No need to go through internet flamewars or PR messes, no need to even listen to that. Airbnb should just send a team of 24/7 dedicated people with quasi carte blanche (within what the company can afford, of course) to see through that victim gets better, if that objective can even be met. If the "get better" project goes so wrong as to lead to law suits or whatnot, then let justice decide, because in the end, yes, someone has to pay for what happened, and the legal system is here to decide who should pay. Now about PR: switch the debate from a "what did AirBnB do in that situation" witch-hunt to "This is what we are doing, this is how it's going from our point of view, now what do you (Mr/Mrs Customer) think we could improve on?". Open a public discussion on your social network and dedicate someone to analyze public input. And use it the next time something like this happens (because unfortunately, it will happen again). Centralize this debate somewhere where you can handle all this information, and by "handle" I don't mean "censor" but of course "assimilate". ...and just ignore those stupid emergent flame wars between big internet guns who are mostly in for pride (white knights & trolls) and money (journalists, consultants, lobbyists & investors). Let them deal with the crap they fling around themselves, and keep focusing on the "get better" project: the victim asked specifically for your help, and that's what really matters here. Related link: an analysis of an excellent online PR crisis management by Monoprix (in French only, sorry) http://guybirenbaum.blogitexpress.com/91728/html http://guybirenbaum.blogitexpress.com/91728/html The "victim" (an employee who got fired for taking home unsold & trashed goods) explained that he "tried hard to make a fuss and a buzz" of his situation because he felt that nothing short of prosecution and trial could make him feel better. This is a case of a failing "get better" project with exemplary PR - and to be honest, it's only when the project fails that PR become important. What did Monoprix do? They centralized the debate on their Facebook page, switched the focus from "Monoprix is bad" to a laconic "here's what we are doing, tell us what we can improve on" and they have dedicated Community Managers assimilating and discussing the comments instead of censoring them.
• lancewiggs 15y ago
  Hundreds of comments and votes. But I have not seen an apology from AirBnB on HN. Perhaps I missed it, but they should be everywhere. Why don't they understand this? Why are they not incredibly active on this and other forums? Have they no conscience? Do they really not care? Is this really still seen by them as a PR problem rather than a a horrible event that they at least partially enabled and thus should feel terrible about and seek to help the victim in any and all ways they can? The success of eBay, a P2P business, was initially driven by its community, and members treated each other with respect and were happy to trade with each other. AirBnB is behaving as if it doesn't care about its community, its customers. Is that the death knell sounding? Perhaps. To me the only recourse now is a new person or team at the top, folks that actually live the desired values of the company.
  • babebridou 15y ago
    Let's be blunt: when there's a fire, the first thing that's required is to contain it. They failed at containing their public presence to a specific website/social network and now there are little flame wars sprouting everywhere and no way to adress every opinion. Unfortunately, I believe the best option at this point for AirBnB is to do nothing about it for this specific case, and brace for the next impact by preparing the field in advance (centralize comments in order to assimilate and answer public questions). This story should not be bigger than what's happened/happening to the victim - and that's huge enough already. Make her feel better first, then see what you can do about your "image". Tell your side of the story in one place and be receptive for critics. Something good can come out of this mess, but they won't find it if they think hiring more people to monitor/participate in more forums on the internet is a solution.
• kristiandupont 15y ago
  It's amazing to me how polarized the comments are even here on HN where the debate is usually very balanced. Obviously we know very little about what's going on behind the scenes right now. There are conflicting messages coming from all sides. I am not saying that EJ is lying. But calling AirBnB are completely cynical and lacking any sense of PR seems incongruent with the skills they have otherwise shown and also with the empathy that they at least managed to convey in interviews etc.
• rweba 15y ago
  This might now end up affecting not only Airbnb but also the image of Ycombinator and pg. Also the important issue here is not just the (terrible) handling of this specific incident by Airbnb but the fact that it puts into question their entire business model: Is it really smart to rent out your personal residence to a complete stranger? Does the potential benefit($$$) outweigh the significant risks(being completely violated)? Yes, they could put in some more checks but will that be enough to make people feel SAFE? Personally I think the risk is too high and the problem will only become worse as the service tries to expand to more customers and scammers become more aware of it. That nice "guest" may simply be casing the joint, copying your keys and snooping in your mail. Who needs that risk?
  • jongos 15y ago
    I dont't think this puts their business model into question at all. In fact you just described what they might do to improve, by making risk mitigation part of their model (offering to sell insurance of some kind, options for getting verified or pre-screened etc.)
  • cageface 15y ago
    I think the crucial context is even larger than that. There's a lot of anxiety in the tech community about the recent valuations of several startups. First there was the revelation that a lot of Groupon's reported "profits" are products of clever accounting. Then Color implodes after a ridiculously disproportionate funding round. And now AirBNB, the poster child of internet disintermediation of old, hidebound industries, is caught totally unprepared for a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming. I suspect I'm not the only one that thinks that there's a lot of willful ignorance underlying this boom we're all enjoying.
    • sek 15y ago
      Since LinkedIn everyone behaves like 2001, every buzz company is trying to get an IPO. Facebook, Groupon, AirBnB, Twitter and Zynga. All of them without a clean history. My feeling is they all try to go public as fast as possible as long as the Buzz is still there and don't try to create a sustainable business. All of them have bad finances or questionable business models. I would trust Zynga financially the most, but i assume they make their big bucks from people with compulsive gambling disorders. I think all these people involved know about this and they try to cash out as fast as possible. This is why everyone is so stressed.
• lwhi 15y ago
  Diversionary tactics. Not admirable but I'll still be impressed if he pulls it off.
• orionlogic 15y ago
  Sometime ago i watched a video, a panel directed by Arrington and said to myself "how could PG like this guy"(i see the Arrington way) because PG said this several times. TC really supportive and give good reviews for Ycom startups so its normal to say that i think. But for this event TC is a bit prolonging the situation. Why not talking millions of happy transactions instead of a unlucky bad one? In 2011 bad news still sells.
• badclient 15y ago
  Arrington nails it. It's the same thing I wrote yesterday in a comment: Airbnb wants to call out the victim but are holding back whether it is for legal or other reasons. I can understand them. It's hard to just sit idle when someone irrationally attacks you. At the same time, if you have a customer-business relationship, airing the customer's dirty laundry may be strategicay bad no matter how wrong she is. On the other hand, the customer can write piles and piles of questionable content. Here's what I'd love: for EJ to post the ordinal emails or to show them to techcrunch or arstechnica for an independent take on the situation. At the moment TC is just a megaphone for both parties. May be this can investigate this at the root with original communication between EJ and airbnb, assuming ej agrees to it. And if she doesn't, I would be as suspicious of her as I may be airbnb having read her posts.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• jacquesm 15y ago
  Everybody calm down please. EJ is real, she's a real person, it really did happen, just in case anybody was still wondering about that. I've passed her contact info to PG and him being the smart man that he is I'm pretty sure that he can come up with a solution that will satisfy everybody and will allow the victim to move on and get AirBNB past this crisis. Any words to the effect that AirBNB is 'setting precedent' are null and void, of course they aren't and even if they were it would not matter one bit, sometimes you just need to do the right thing, even if that hurts you financially. Sometimes lawyers are good, sometimes they muddle the water. In this case I'd advise to leave the lawyers out of it, this is an emotional train-wreck and lawyers are only going to make it worse. The future can wait until after this has been resolved to EJs satisfaction. Customer = King. Be happy that so far the mainstream press seems to be ignoring this story, the last thing you want at this point is to leave that clock ticking to the point where they do pick it up and who knows how many more EJ stories start hitting the news. Yes, this could be an isolated case, but given the numbers involved it probably isn't. Whoever lied will have to come clean about it at some point, maybe PG will owe Arrington an apology, maybe not. Note that 'offering help' and 'giving help' are two very different things, and PG has not said anywhere that AirBNB has given her help, just that they've been offering it from the beginning, it may have been an unconditional offer, or it may have been a conditional one with conditions unacceptable for EJ. If they did nothing tangible for the last 30 days that really is a problem, but that means that PG can still stand by his words. Whatever hang-ups that stop 'offering' turning in to 'given' need to be resolved immediately. Time will tell, all that depends on what really happened and other than EJ and one or two people at AirBNB nobody knows, the rest is hearsay. It is very well possible that PG is acting on incomplete or wrong info. The fact that AirBNB is willing to move to keep this out of the media during a funding round may tell us a bit about their attitude towards being truthful with investors, assuming that that is true, which we can not take as read at this point. As far as damage to the apartment, pictures with some proof would help (and would indicate the extent of the damage), and if the truth is to come out about the interaction with AirBNB then someone would have to dump their email cache. Personally I don't think that is the best way forward (other than for EJ if she's telling the truth and wants to make that more than plain, and AirBNB turns out to have not done anything tangible other than saying they will 'support her' and have 'offered help'), what this mostly needs is to be taken care of, whether that happens in the public eye or not is not relevant. I exchanged some email with the lady, EJ is right now literally scared out of her wits, concern for her safety and well being should come first, after that, when the situation has been normalized as far as possible there will be a time of reflection for everybody involved, including PG. YC companies are hitting bigger home-runs each year and with that comes a need for a more professional approach to PR. When you're dealing at this level and you have this many interactions with your customers (2 million nights booked = 4 million chances for someone to be dissatisfied) there will always be trouble. It is unavoidable, so you have to plan for it and you plan for the worst case scenarios. Luckily, there was no bodily harm in this case, the perps were gone when she returned. But that is just about the only icing on this cake, other than that there needs to be some real hard work done to set this right and to do what can be done to avoid a repetition in the future. And if there is a repetition (imo inevitable) that person should have been warned up front about the risks in an un-ambiguous way. Best of luck to all involved, especially to EJ and the AirBNB team.
• cookiecaper 15y ago
  There are a lot of long words in these posts, so I doubt anyone will read this, but I want to say it anyway. First, this whole thing just wreaks of a big disaster of miscommunication between all involved parties. Many commentators I think are being overly sensitive and pedantic (I commented yesterday on the shocking revelation that an airbnb founder would "enjoy meeting" EJ). The following points seem clear to me: * EJ's perspective is tainted by her negative experience. While she criticized the founder for an impersonal meeting request, she could have disparaged the founder just as easily had it gone the other way: "Oh, the founder sent me this mail gushing with concern... if he really cared, he would have done X and Y differently, now he is just backtracking like a coward in light of media attention" * airbnb believes that they are helping and is trying to do what's feasible, but is weighed down by concern over insurance, regulation, fault, and other pertinent issues involved in this precedent-setting incident. airbnb also is likely to (subconsciously) give a story that is perhaps unrealistically positive to one of its earliest mentors and investors, who readily believes and defends one of his earliest and most successful investments; I can't help but think there are child-parent-type instincts on that kind of relationship. * Arrington is writing the story mostly accurately, perhaps not with the rigid journalistic method that ensures precision in retelling, as we generally expect to find lacking in the casual vernacular of a blog. In fact, I think a lot of TC-related controversy stems from nothing more than the casual format that leaves much room for misreadings (and miswritings). While it may not be fun to read or write an article that follows classical journalistic procedure, there is a reason that that procedure was put in place... * Commentators jump to the defense of EJ prematurely, partly because of white-knight impulses and partly because of the victim's emotionally-charged writing. I hope that people calm down over this. We need to allow all parties involved some time, I think. This is a major thing in the history of airbnb and the logistics require careful attention -- they may not get it perfectly right, but I believe they're operating out of good faith and trying to do the right thing. I also believe EJ is struggling to get a grip on her new circumstances and would also benefit from some time apart from the sensationalism. As for PG/TC/others, it just causes volumes of unnecessary drama to get publicly entangled. I'm not sure that anything else productive can be done at this point by continuing to expound on the issue, it merely seems to create more controversy for controversy's sake.
  • 15y ago
• kyro 15y ago
  HN has been pretty disgusting the last few days: the level of schadenfreude here has hit ridiculous new highs. It seems that every time a story breaks about a successful company, a bunch of envious and disgruntled people come out of the woodwork and jump onto the bandwagon headed straight for the founders' heads. A community of seemingly intelligent and rational individuals turns into the most rabid, emotionally-charged group of catty girls I've ever seen. We only have one side of the story here. What if the've offered help and she's rejecting it? What if there are some very legitimate reasons that AirBnB is not going totally public about it? You don't know, and you have not heard the other side of the story. The same thing happened with Dropbox. You guys were so ridiculously quick to foam at the mouth with your theatrics and conspiracies. It's pretty revolting. Envy is just not a good color on many of you. Edit: Spelling. Thanks, Jacques.
  • swombat 15y ago
    At the risk of being considered a complete troll, Reddit used to be very anti-commercial (I remember some of my best posts being ripped as too commercial there), and there has been a lot of influx of people from Reddit over the last year or two. Perhaps the anti-commercialism has seeped in too.
  • jacquesm 15y ago
    It's 'schadenfreude'. This issue is very emotionally charged because: - everybody that uses AirBNB thought 'this could be me' - everybody that has a sister thinks 'that could be my sister' - everybody that runs a start-up thinks 'this could be a shakedown' (including some preposterous claims about hotel chains putting her up to this) - everybody is wondering if AirBNB is sitting on a huge stack of cash why they didn't just put it right and changed their terms of service / signup process Being the 'ebay of spaces' means that you will be doing the same things that ebay spends the most of its time on: battling fraud. AirBNB is coming of age with this incident, from now on the stakes will be raised considerably in how they deal with the reputation of their hosts and tenants. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Looking forward to the period after this incident has blown over when AirBNB will be a company that is that much stronger and that will put action to their claims of transparency and being a 'trusted marketplace'. If they can make that work they'll be fine.
• merubin75 15y ago
  He had me until the last line: "I don’t know what Paul Graham means by 'typical Arrington fashion,' but I do know this. It’s not my job to fix it when companies do stupid things." Bullshit! No, it's not your job to fix the mess other companies create through stupid policy or bad decisionmaking. But it's also not your job to pile on and stir up everybody's passions when something goes wrong. Michael Arrington is a huckster -- Walter Winchell and Drudge mixed together. For years, he's picked fights and written stories that destroy reputations. Then when he's called on to the carpet for his behavior, he reacts in the 'typical Arrington fashion,' by protesting his innocence and calling on his readers to save him. I'm not an apologist for what Airbnb did here. But Michael Arrington and TechCrunch helped fan the flames. Not because they reported on it, but becausse of the WAY they reported on it. And now when they're called on it, he reacts by wrapping himself in a flag of righteousness. Yep, smells like bullshit alright.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• chappi42 15y ago
  I see airbnb as a match-maker and consider it quite naive to entrust a 'facebook-friend-like' stranger my appartment without proper checking who this person is. Typical America were drinking hot coffee leads to lawsuits. (Which doesn't mean i'm not sorry for the person, or that risks shouldn't be stated (more) prominently, or that insurances should be here)
  • evilduck 15y ago
    Typical America were drinking hot coffee leads to lawsuits. FYI, this is a really terrible case to cite against "Typical America" unless you're trying to tear apart AirBnB, because it's a good example of a corporation trying to screw over someone they were found to have injured and held liable, as determined by a jury in a court of law. Liebeck, the victim in the "coffee lawsuit", received third degree burns to 6% of her body, required skin grafts, etc, it's not like someone just scaled their hand due to a splash or something.
• shareme 15y ago
  1. Victim is not on trial here. 2. This is not the time to score link bait points. 3. Several layers of communication that are not direct here..let the parties come to their own way of helping and implementing solutions. I would imagine it does not help the police either .. above all else. MA you are not helping just shut up.
• jellicle 15y ago
  Sounds to me like Paul Graham has made a fairly fundamental and common mistake, which is to say believing the AirBnb people when they reassure him that everything is under control and there's no fire here. Paul, if you actually read the statements made by the CEO on news.ycombinator.com, it's very clear that AirBnb are the primary, if not only, ones at fault here. I don't want to call Paul a liar, since it seems likely to me that he has just made a mistake of believing someone else. But he's putting his own reputation behind AirBnb, and AirBnb is lying. That's unwise. Let me compare a different response that I'm familiar with. A friend of mine had her apartment destroyed in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. Insurance companies came and set up booths in Manhattan and were cutting checks left and right, without even SEEING the damage. My friend had a check in her hand on 9/13 if I recall correctly. She didn't get in to SEE her own apartment until a month later, and the insurance company didn't see it until much later than that. As of today and yesterday, there are articles in newspapers across the land. There are phrases like "As of Friday afternoon, Airbnb had not returned calls from The [Washington] Post requesting comment." - that's a quote from a WashPost story, of course. One thing I know: when the Washington Post calls and a company has something good to say about themselves, they take the call (calls, actually). It's apparent from the latest newspaper stories that AirBnb is now reacting in a cover-it-up fashion - they're trying to offer the woman a sum of money with the condition that she shut up. That's fine, I guess - very corporate of them. But frankly I expected better. I guess I sort of expected that even if AirBnb was being dumb, that when the first article hit news.yc, that someone would call them and straighten them out. Instead it seems that PG, also, is blinded by "going to be as big as Ebay".
  • true_religion 15y ago
    Air BNB is specifically not an insurrance company. They technically have no obligation to pay in the case of any damage. For them, the best possible course of action was to bury this case. However, now that it's come into the public light they're torn between (a) trying to re-iterate to everyone that they do not have liability and (b) trying to look good by doing the "Right Thing". As a business owner, I feel for them. As a human being, I feel for her. I too am torn, and think that there is going to be no satisfactory resolution to this situation. Someone is not going to come away 'whole', and most likely it will be AirBNB.
• trotsky 15y ago
  I wish Arrington didn't try to make himself the story so much - I know it's his schtick but it's very distracting from the actual story here. He's obviously on HN regularly - if he had a problem with the way he was characterized in a HN comment the easiest way to respond to that is right there. Anyone reading pg's comment would see his rebuttal, pg would see it, and people could directlly make up their own minds. Instead he makes a "oh god look at this liar" TC post because he enjoys using his bully pulpit to shape public opinion. No wonder he lets people like MG call out random CSR lies on twitter and get them fired at AT&T.
  • HardyLeung 15y ago
    In his own forum, unprovoked, PG called MA "bullshit", "in typical Arrington fashion", "not cool". In his own forum, MA responded and made a big deal of out this comment. I think it is a fair response. Not to mention, why would anyone expect MA to not jump on it?
• chailatte 15y ago
  Why is it left to PG to defend AirBnB? Why aren't the founders handling the PR? Why isn't AirBnb implementing solutions 5 weeks ago to prevent this from happening again to their users? Why haven't their users heard about this until now? Why don't we have any tangible proof that AirBnb is actually helping this poor woman? If no, why don't they do it now, instead of saying they are trying? Are there any grownups in AirBnb? This is not a side project selling cereals that you have fun with anymore. It's a real business! What a sad, pathetic group of people. 1000X valuation for a company that lets 'daddy' do all the dirty work, while they go hide in the corner.
• realou 15y ago
  Hello. It seems that this Airbnb business model is a bit flawed because it requires a level of trust from customers which cannot be obtained in the world we currently live in. How to add trust? many solutions exist. One such solution could be, for example, to have ALL the rented properties daily cleaned up by Airbnb-hired people (contracted 3rd party companies will be happy to do this in most civilized cities). This would be a cool service the renters would appreciate, and would provide the rentees at least some level of trust their home is not being vandalized. A concierge service could also help. I am sure many other ways exits to add Trust to the model. This must become Airbnb's most valuable product feature... This should be considered an important "enabling technology" without which the business cannot survive in the long run.
• meinthecity 15y ago
  The tragedy about this is that everyone involved here could have done something to avoid this except maybe EJ. In order of culpability, here are the mistakes they made: AirBnB's clearly inexperienced leadership has done a horrible job at communication. Sadly, this makes any real action they have taken to help the victim irrelevant to the public. Then again, their business has a fundamental risk, one of crime, which they seem unprepared to address or mitigate. Given their past resourcefulness, I have a feeling they will find ways to improve their product to make this less likely. I am not so sure about their ability to improve their communication. Michael Arrington's job is to draw more eyeballs to TechCrunch and he invariably picks stoking controversy over responsible journalism. If it wasn't already clear to everyone including pg that he will do this at any cost, it should be now. Michael could have done some real journalism and talked to the police to find out more details, probed AirBnB for more details up front and may be even the victim on the one hand. On the other hand he should certainly have avoided comparing AirBnB to scamville, I don't think anyone thinks AirBnB is scamming users. But that's just who he is. He also takes great pleasure in calling people names. Notice that his latest post about pg has "Liar" emblazoned on the top. Can't say I expected any different, given his past behavior but at least pg will remove his blinders now that Arrington is treating him exactly like he treats non-luminaries. The fact that PG had to jump into the public fray may have seemed inevitable given AirBnB's incompetent response, but it is almost always a bad tactic to have multiple people presenting the public face of a company. Even minor differences between what they say will be highlighted and will cause more confusion. PG even made the tactical mistake of responding emotionally to Arrington's "make the story more interesting without giving a shit about anyone else" approach, but in the long run this is a good thing. As I said, he'll now remove his blinders about Arrington. EJ is not at fault except that she should have known that she was taking this risk when she rented her home to complete strangers sight unseen. This may be a flaw in AirBnB's model and their lack of focus on safety on their site, but if EJ had been my 6' 5" wrestler brother, I'd have waited a sufficient amount of time before giving him a knock upside the head and asking him what he expected when he handed over keys to an apartment that held all his belongings to a complete stranger while he was abroad. If EJ were my sister I'd tell her the same thing, minus the knock upside the head!
• puppetaccount 15y ago
  To AirBnB: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
• NIL8 15y ago
  Arrington and TC irritate the crap out of me! There was a time when I loved to read TC, but now they are so obnoxiously arrogant and dirty that it makes me cringe to see links from them in HN posts. Why would they drop Paul Graham's name into this empty story? Can someone explain to me how this is anybody's fault other than the jerk that robbed the lady (and maybe the lady's naïveté)? I know AirBnB has made a lot of people angry with their business tactics, but how are they responsible for this crime? Can you imagine if the Hampton Inn sued Expedia for someone vandalizing a hotel room or expecting restitution from Kayak for what a vandal did in their hotel? AirBnB should listen to their lawyers and not accept responsibility for the act of a criminal or the poor judgement of a user.
  • ceejayoz 15y ago
    > Why would they drop Paul Graham's name into this empty story? Paul Graham waded into it by posting on HN[1] with a statement that directly contradicts the victim's version of events. It's relevant, and TechCrunch covering it should come as no surprise to anyone. > I know AirBnB has made a lot of people angry with their business tactics, but how are they responsible for this crime? Per PG's post: "Airbnb has been offering to fix it..." Whether or not they're legally responsible, they've got a PR problem on their hands. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721
• ajays 15y ago
  Here is something I don't understand. San Francisco is a tiny city (heck, I've walked from one end to the other; it's just 7 miles x 7 miles, or 11km x 11km for the rest of you). Most of the principles in this sad tale live in San Francisco. HOW HARD IS IT TO JUST WALK OVER AND MEET THIS PERSON?? Instead of relying on PR and telephones and email and blogs; just walk over, give her a hug, talk to her and treat her right! Put a human touch on all this interaction, people! It's not like she's living in Podunk, Nebraska (no offense to Nebraskans) and out of reach. She's living right here! Close your laptops. Put down your iPhones. Just meet her in person and solve her problems. I am willing to bet that a face-2-face with the principles will solve more problems than all the articles in TC, blog posts, etc.
  • forensic 15y ago
    Nobody lives or works in San Franciso. Silicon Valley is not SF. The Bay Area is this big sprawling suburb that is a pain in the ass to get around in.
    • ajays 15y ago
      Are you kidding me, or just trolling? I live in San Francisco. There are tons of people who live _and_ work in San Francisco. From AirBnB's page: "Airbnb HQ is located in the heart of San Francisco, CA."
      • forensic 15y ago
        Was exaggerating. Point is that SV != SF.
• bane 15y ago
  Is it just me or has this entire debacle resulted in an awful lot of beating up of otherwise upstanding HNers and armchair novice PR advice based on a case full of conflicting details where apparently nobody has the complete story? I'm actually finding this entire thing distasteful from all possible sides. I'd rather just wait and see what happens while the various parties work this out in relative private.
• 9oliYQjP 15y ago
  Long term, this kind of problem isn't going away for AirBnB. To ignore it would be as foolish as a retailer avoiding the problem of shrink. To treat this case like it is an isolated, unique event, is also ridiculous. AirBnB might be tremendously safe. But so is flying, and people have irrational fears of flying because the odd disaster happens. Airlines have entire disaster teams in place to handle these rare events. Honestly, I think a big problem here is that you have men handling a situation in which they were completely oblivious to the feelings of their customer. Men can't possibly appreciate the sense of vulnerability most women have walking down the street alone at night, let alone the sense of violation that occurs from events like this. What the woman in question implied in her blog post was anger that the men were cold and not paying attention to her feelings. My advice would be to find a woman with great customer service experience and give her authority to personally handle this situation, in-person. That would take care of the immediate problem. Long term, AirBnB needs to develop a strategy for handling these sort of cases. Reports of insurance being offered is a good first step. But they need to think about having disaster teams in place similar to the ones airlines and insurance companies have. They are in the same boat as these companies; when something goes wrong, it goes very very wrong. That leaves people in severe distress and it takes more than just a standard customer service response to deal with situations like this.
• larrys 15y ago
  Maybe PG/YC/Airbnb see this for what it is. A great deal of notoriety that will help this startup after the situation lands on the front page of every major paper as well as the nightly news. Then will come EJ on 20/20, morning shows etc. telling her story as a word of caution. Airbnb will respond that they've fixed the problem though. Then even your aunt will know about airbnb. What's that publicity worth. In the end, this won't hurt it will help. (Think of all the weird stuff selling on ebay like dead bodies, dead body parts etc that were constantly publicized many years ago. At times it seemed like there were new stories weekly.)
• rmason 15y ago
  I remember seeing Jack Welch being interviewed once about the press. He said for successful people it's a cycle - they're either building you up or tearing you down. If AirBnB wasn't so successful their problem wouldn't be news. If he hasn't done it already you will see PG bring in a top PR person who is experienced in handling a crisis. Not just to get AirBnB out of trouble but to be a resource for future YC companies in handling episodes of this sort. Quite frankly I am shocked their VC's aren't helping them out this way.
• djloche 15y ago
  The key problem is that MA is reading 'we're not legally liable' as 'we're not going to help her'. There is a huge difference between the two. Companies go out of their way to fix issues where they have no legal obligation to do so. However, they can still claim that they have no legal obligation with the offended parties to do so, they're just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts (and reputation of the business going forward).
• maurycy 15y ago
  Let me start with a very simple sentence: people are good. The AirBnB service depends on this simple premise. This is the first axiom of their business. No matter how insured everyone is, the axiom has to hold. Otherwise, you end up with an infinite streak of disputes. If you invite strangers to your home, then you assume that people are good, either. It is that simple. Frankly, only a good person would invite strangers to her home. It might be slightly too naive, but it does not change the fact it takes a lot of good faith, and trust. (It might be too much, I agree, but it is not her fault, as it was not BitCoin begginers' mistake to commit into the idea of the digital currency _too much_. It is more experienced ones' responsibility to share their knowledge.) Once you find the property destroyed, your world view is going to collapse. It turns out, basically, that some people are not good. What's worse, bad people were physically close to you, just few days ago. It is _extremely_ stressful. Here and there I've read comments suggesting that EJ extrapolates a bit. Even if so, so what? She is so distressed, I'm very surprised that there's so little understanding about her current position. The way the AirBnB folks behave does not reveal that they do genuiely believe that people are good. The way the public sees it right now is that they're very cautious, as well as lawyers, and all that stuff, is rather a defensive, and unsafe, behaviour. While I somehow understand them, the problem is that the service relies on the assumption that people are good. After all, it is about _sharing your property with complete strangers from Internet_ (no matter if it is your home, or the other one.) The reason why the story reads so bad is that it mixes up the social context of sharing per se, with the formal context, relying on lawyers and PR firms. All comments points out that getting her a new property sets a precedence for further refunds are totally off the took. To come up with such comment, it takes to view the world as a distrustful place. The view that, basically, contradicts the whole idea. To me, the whole story is about nerds facing social complexities. The business they've created is not about numbers (i.e. brokering rooms, without having to incur the costs of building a hotel), but about sharing. The sharing, in nearly all cases, of single most valuable thing in your life. I'm so frightened with lack of common sense. First of all, the AirBnB folks should ensure her that people are good. I mean, people _are_ good. That the unfortunate event was a nightmarish accident, not the correct image of the world (no BS here, as, statistically speaking, the event is an outlier.) Ensuring someone that the world is a trustful place definitely does not involve communicating publicly, or privately, with lawyers, or PR companies. I don't know how to explain this but it is all about showing that you're a human (of course, it still makes sense to speak with a lawyer before, though to avoid some simple misunderstaindg.) We don't know her. We have no idea what are the actions necessary in order to make her safe. I think, though, it takes nothing more than showing your real, not faked, care, and, what comes as a surprise, asking her, not a PR company. Once this is solved, the community should be somehow informed about the solution. If she wants to, EJ could write the explanation. She would have control over the amount of private informations shared, giving her power she has lost due to the abuse. Also, the really case closed means a good story about the world within that people are good. Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense to offer her a job. She is an extremely talented writer, and seems to care about people. The AirBnB business operates heavily in the social context, so so good person, coming from inside, would be priceless for a now a bit dry company. Of course, meanwhile it makes sense to get constant updates on legal implications. This is mostly the internal process, though. It takes very little to commit an honest legal mistake, so it cannot hurt (keep in mind to ask EJ is she needs legal help, too.) The same goes with the PR firm. I'm under impression, though, they would recommend similar steps to me. The PR folks I know are really good people. It might be that EJ does not want to speak with the founders anymore. There is already a lot of misunderstanding, and I would understand her if they've lost her trust. If so, either the investors or the directors should step in. I realize that it sounds _too much_. However, PG is already involved, and members of both groups signal that there is a more mature instance that overlooks the things to be fine. I do not believe that the solution cannot be reached. It does. It takes, though, understanding that people are good. (On a more formal side, the reason why it was really a bad idea to mention lawyers publicly is that the AirBnB itself operates within a grey area. Depending on the local laws, the service is either illegal or not covered with all hospitality laws. It means that signing up the property to the service takes valuying the social relationships more than legal matters. It cannot be otherwise given that, it turns out, some guests were completely anonymous (guests of the guests?), to say nothing about lack of cameras in most buildings. The lawyers, and formalities, raised so frequently create a state of understandable confusion. If renting the property is dubiously insurable (I'm not sure whether insurers were that happy if knew that they insure hotel rooms per se; the fact has to spread, yet, though), and there are no legal protections, there is nothing but the social trust to rely on.) That said, I wish all the parties involved the best. I wish EJ only good things from now. ;-) And, I wish AirBnB more luck, as they've faced a huge sh*t-storm, and I like their service for the reason it relies on _good_ behaviour.
• capdiz 15y ago
  After reading the lady's blog. airbnb dudes you really screwed up. You dare suggest she takes her blog down. I had actually defended airbnb yesterday before reading her side of the story. But am now inclined to believe that you guys screwed up and need to do some damage control.
• Shenglong 15y ago
  do you really think they are so dumb that they don’t realize it’s not worth the bad PR to save money and effort in this situation? I'm siding with pg on this one. I can't imagine any intelligent person making this PR trade-off just for some cash. I don't want to analyze the he-said-she-said, but I've been up to date since this went viral, and I don't see any logiacl reason that AirBnb would refuse to pay for her expenses. Think about it logically... rather than emotionally.