6 ms·

This is the most intelligent comment I've seen about this whole business. The phenomenon isn't limited to YC companies-- we saw it in e.g. the reaction to Zuck

by pg 15y ago

This is the most intelligent comment I've seen about this whole business. The phenomenon isn't limited to YC companies-- we saw it in e.g. the reaction to Zuckerberg (at 20 or whatever) calling users "dumb fucks" and to Biz and Ev (jokingly) asking if they could cut in the food line at Facebook-- but the problem is at its worst with YC companies because we have to scale back on moderation. When users work themselves into a frenzy over an ordinary issue and upvote a stream of mostly duplicate stories about it, we can just kill most of them. But with controversies about YC companies we can't or we'll get accused of censorship. I don't know if there's a solution. We may just have to resign ourselves to the collective IQ of HN decreasing for a few days whenever there is a controversy involving a YC company.

thaumaturgy 15y ago
A comment that broadly accuses the HN community of jealousy, and questions the motives of everyone commenting, is the most intelligent comment you've seen about this? Huh. > ...an ordinary issue... Nice. I think this is a good illustration of part of what's wrong here. To the woman whose life has been upended by this, this is not "an ordinary issue". Similarly, everyone that's said so far that this has not been handled as gracefully as it could have been, and that there might be something we could all learn from that, should not be dismissed as just being envious of another company.
- jmtame 15y ago
  A comment that broadly accuses the HN community of jealousy, and questions the motives of everyone commenting, is the most intelligent comment you've seen about this? Actually, it is. Nobody here should be making personal attacks or accusations without knowing the full story. And nobody here knows the full story, yet everyone feels entitled to act as Airbnb's PR team. It reminds me of the redesign attempts where the guy comes in and says "here's what you should do!" and they don't really understand why the decisions were formed or what lead up to them. Weren't we just here with Groupon and Yelp being ripped apart for supposedly being involved in extortion? It turned out to be a bunch of flailing business owners who were on their way down, Groupon and Yelp were just the catalyst. For every one of those complaints, you can find another happy business owner who says those companies have helped them tremendously. What do we see now? This woman is pissed off, and you can see another person who had the same problem happen to his apartment. Everything stolen, horrible experience. With meth addicts. Exact same story, Airbnb settled, he's happy and using Airbnb again. Airbnb has no financial obligation to this woman. Yet we all still feel entitled to let them know how to run their business because of what happened to one of their customers, and with hardly any information. As if that's bad enough, some people have gone as far as calling Brian psychotic. I hope you realize how absurd that sounds to those of us who know him.
- pg 15y ago
  By ordinary issue I meant one not involving a YC company. E.g. software patents.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
dhbanes 15y ago
Well, this certainly clears it up. To those of you who have been concerned with Airbnb and PG's actions over the past few days... it's just because you're jealous and stupid. Classy, Paul.
- pg 15y ago
  It's a kind of stupidity I myself have fallen prey to in the past. One of the things I learned from being one of the earliest users of reddit is how easy it is to let indignation cloud one's judgment. Time after time I'd be led into angrily upvoting some story, only to learn later that things were not at all as they seemed initially. After many years of being faked out, I gradually learned to reserve judgment when my indignation buttons were (intentionally or unintentionally) being pressed, but I still had incomplete information.
  - ximeng 15y ago
    I'm more curious than angry, I want to know AirBnb's side of the story. Unfortunately brianchesky's comments here are brief and he ignores the replies: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=brianchesky http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=brianchesky AirBnb are giving low-key responses given the coverage it's received. Perhaps this is for privacy or legal reasons, or for PR / reputation reasons, or they don't think their response will be perceived as adequate by the so-called "angry mob" here. Maybe it's just they don't think it's any of our business how they deal with this situation. The incomplete information you mention is frustrating. I'm sure many people here like me would like to know how a company should deal with this kind of PR - and personal - crisis, and were hopeful we'd see more of this played out in public after EJ's blog. The visibility this story has received from the upvotes on the TechCrunch, FT, and blog post stories has led to us getting more information than we otherwise would have had. Are we really being manipulated or "faked out" into voting, or is it not a rational response given that the visibility tends to lead to more information leaking out?
    - badclient 15y ago
      My guess is that it is for privacy and legal reasons. They cannot make public details about their conversation with a customer they have a contract with without potentially violating privacy agreements. The best they can do is release fluff pieces or remain completely silent. They went with the former though between those two choices, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Now the accuser can easily clear all this up by publishing her original communication with airbnb and their exact responses. Instead she continues to post summations which the public here seems to take as a definitive word(wrongly, in my view). I've a hunch that when the dust settles, we'll be reading a lot of mea culpas from HN users who rushed to judgement against airbnb.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
o1iver 15y ago
I don't see how it is an intelligent comment. I actually think it is a misinterpretation of the issue. Yes, people are disappointed by how AirBnB reacted to the situation, but they are also ashamed by how such an example of entrepreneurial innovation and guts has turned into an example of cover-ups and lack of empathy. Entrepreneurs are supposed to be the young innovative idealistic types and not the cigar-smoking country-club bosses plotting the best way of covering up something that went wrong. Had AirBnB reacted differently this whole situation would not have exploded. I myself am astounded that they have not come out with some kind of statement. They are letting this small fire turn into a huge forest fire (FT and USAToday for God's sake...)
TillE 15y ago
> I don't know if there's a solution. There's a very obvious solution: Airbnb need to do the right thing. Right now. Publicly and privately. It's really not hard. Whatever they've done wrong in the past few weeks, they can make right pretty quickly, and the conversation will shift just as quickly. Until then? All public evidence indicates they're still doing the wrong thing. Really, what do you expect? This is an issue of basic human empathy, and the apparent lack thereof. Business issues have been very much a secondary concern in all discussions about this.
- tptacek 15y ago
  You didn't read his comment. I'll simplify it for you: you have no idea whether Airbnb has done the right thing by this customer, but you seem to have no trouble telling everyone how simple this issue is to dispose of.
  - nknight 15y ago
    Has Airbnb even claimed to have actually done anything? I've seen empty words and no action or even claim of action. Have I missed something? The full story is pretty irrelevant. What we have is clearly sufficient to know that Airbnb doesn't have a clue how to handle this, either with regard to the particular customer, or the wider PR disaster.
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by pg 15y ago

thaumaturgy 15y ago

A comment that broadly accuses the HN community of jealousy, and questions the motives of everyone commenting, is the most intelligent comment you've seen about this? Huh. > ...an ordinary issue... Nice. I think this is a good illustration of part of what's wrong here. To the woman whose life has been upended by this, this is not "an ordinary issue". Similarly, everyone that's said so far that this has not been handled as gracefully as it could have been, and that there might be something we could all learn from that, should not be dismissed as just being envious of another company.

jmtame 15y ago
A comment that broadly accuses the HN community of jealousy, and questions the motives of everyone commenting, is the most intelligent comment you've seen about this? Actually, it is. Nobody here should be making personal attacks or accusations without knowing the full story. And nobody here knows the full story, yet everyone feels entitled to act as Airbnb's PR team. It reminds me of the redesign attempts where the guy comes in and says "here's what you should do!" and they don't really understand why the decisions were formed or what lead up to them. Weren't we just here with Groupon and Yelp being ripped apart for supposedly being involved in extortion? It turned out to be a bunch of flailing business owners who were on their way down, Groupon and Yelp were just the catalyst. For every one of those complaints, you can find another happy business owner who says those companies have helped them tremendously. What do we see now? This woman is pissed off, and you can see another person who had the same problem happen to his apartment. Everything stolen, horrible experience. With meth addicts. Exact same story, Airbnb settled, he's happy and using Airbnb again. Airbnb has no financial obligation to this woman. Yet we all still feel entitled to let them know how to run their business because of what happened to one of their customers, and with hardly any information. As if that's bad enough, some people have gone as far as calling Brian psychotic. I hope you realize how absurd that sounds to those of us who know him.
pg 15y ago
By ordinary issue I meant one not involving a YC company. E.g. software patents.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

dhbanes 15y ago

Well, this certainly clears it up. To those of you who have been concerned with Airbnb and PG's actions over the past few days... it's just because you're jealous and stupid. Classy, Paul.

pg 15y ago
It's a kind of stupidity I myself have fallen prey to in the past. One of the things I learned from being one of the earliest users of reddit is how easy it is to let indignation cloud one's judgment. Time after time I'd be led into angrily upvoting some story, only to learn later that things were not at all as they seemed initially. After many years of being faked out, I gradually learned to reserve judgment when my indignation buttons were (intentionally or unintentionally) being pressed, but I still had incomplete information.
- ximeng 15y ago
  I'm more curious than angry, I want to know AirBnb's side of the story. Unfortunately brianchesky's comments here are brief and he ignores the replies: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=brianchesky http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=brianchesky AirBnb are giving low-key responses given the coverage it's received. Perhaps this is for privacy or legal reasons, or for PR / reputation reasons, or they don't think their response will be perceived as adequate by the so-called "angry mob" here. Maybe it's just they don't think it's any of our business how they deal with this situation. The incomplete information you mention is frustrating. I'm sure many people here like me would like to know how a company should deal with this kind of PR - and personal - crisis, and were hopeful we'd see more of this played out in public after EJ's blog. The visibility this story has received from the upvotes on the TechCrunch, FT, and blog post stories has led to us getting more information than we otherwise would have had. Are we really being manipulated or "faked out" into voting, or is it not a rational response given that the visibility tends to lead to more information leaking out?
  - badclient 15y ago
    My guess is that it is for privacy and legal reasons. They cannot make public details about their conversation with a customer they have a contract with without potentially violating privacy agreements. The best they can do is release fluff pieces or remain completely silent. They went with the former though between those two choices, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Now the accuser can easily clear all this up by publishing her original communication with airbnb and their exact responses. Instead she continues to post summations which the public here seems to take as a definitive word(wrongly, in my view). I've a hunch that when the dust settles, we'll be reading a lot of mea culpas from HN users who rushed to judgement against airbnb.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

o1iver 15y ago

I don't see how it is an intelligent comment. I actually think it is a misinterpretation of the issue. Yes, people are disappointed by how AirBnB reacted to the situation, but they are also ashamed by how such an example of entrepreneurial innovation and guts has turned into an example of cover-ups and lack of empathy. Entrepreneurs are supposed to be the young innovative idealistic types and not the cigar-smoking country-club bosses plotting the best way of covering up something that went wrong. Had AirBnB reacted differently this whole situation would not have exploded. I myself am astounded that they have not come out with some kind of statement. They are letting this small fire turn into a huge forest fire (FT and USAToday for God's sake...)

TillE 15y ago

> I don't know if there's a solution. There's a very obvious solution: Airbnb need to do the right thing. Right now. Publicly and privately. It's really not hard. Whatever they've done wrong in the past few weeks, they can make right pretty quickly, and the conversation will shift just as quickly. Until then? All public evidence indicates they're still doing the wrong thing. Really, what do you expect? This is an issue of basic human empathy, and the apparent lack thereof. Business issues have been very much a secondary concern in all discussions about this.

tptacek 15y ago
You didn't read his comment. I'll simplify it for you: you have no idea whether Airbnb has done the right thing by this customer, but you seem to have no trouble telling everyone how simple this issue is to dispose of.
- nknight 15y ago
  Has Airbnb even claimed to have actually done anything? I've seen empty words and no action or even claim of action. Have I missed something? The full story is pretty irrelevant. What we have is clearly sufficient to know that Airbnb doesn't have a clue how to handle this, either with regard to the particular customer, or the wider PR disaster.

sdfwefsdfe 15y ago

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