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A Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Basic Human Decency

311 points by joshfraser 15y ago

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rguzman 15y ago
Arguing against the supposed behaviors of a "current breed of silicon valley wunderkinds" seems, at best, like a straw man. Do Paul Carr or Sara Lacy really know founders and their companies that well? Pieces like this make my blood boil a little bit -- Carr, Lacy, and the like profit from being the peanut-gallery for the "wunderkids" while taking cheap shots against them without complete information. So much for basic human decency.
- rdl 15y ago
  I assure you, vastly more sketchiness existed among founders in 1996-2000 (mainly, the MBA types) than either web 2.0 boom 1.0 (2004-2007) or now.
  - palish 15y ago
    You say that like it's an excuse for the current behavior.
    - rguzman 15y ago
      What current behavior? Can you be specific?
      - palish 15y ago
        Airbnb saying the word "funding" to EJ was damning. But they didn't just do that. They asked her to shut down her blog post, or put a positive spin to "complete the story". And they did that because they were more concerned about their funding than about her home being utterly destroyed via their service.
        rguzman 15y ago
        Okay, so they made a very bad PR mistake in asking her to put a positive spin on her writing. That seems to be mostly bad for themselves and their investors. Not sure where the lack of human decency is in that. Also, there is no applicable generalization here -- this is one very unfortunate instance, not a current breed of wunderkids.
        rdl 15y ago
        Their issue, like most other startups, is that they're focused on growth, building cool stuff, changing the world, etc., and probably have a hard time slowing down to handle an exception successfully. Also maybe having a hard time empathizing with a really distraught person (which isn't really a skill set most people outside the clergy, ER, military, etc. are going to need, at least professionally). For most startups, handling the worst case as well as possible (i.e. above a minimum standard) isn't the goal; it's to handle the best cases exceptionally well, or to handle the average or 90th percentile or whatever really well.
- jcc80 15y ago
  The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move. Carr is saying that they could be awesome people but that they clearly lost their way here. Unless you think the woman is a complete liar...which I for one - with incomplete information, do not.
  - rguzman 15y ago
    > The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move. My point is that he does not have complete information about the situation. Neither do I. Neither do you. I don't really get why airbnb is on trial here. Something very unfortunate happened. They might've made a PR blunder. Maybe they could have a system with more emphasis on security, probably at the expense of volume. Whatever... it is their company, it makes us hosts good money and us travelers have better experiences. Nobody is obligated to use airbnb. We the users are not the victims of startup founders, like Carr dramatizes in the post, we're just users. We use the services because we derive more value from them than they cost. There is no "social contract" between founders and users.
    - deleted 15y ago
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    - jcc80 15y ago
      Personally, I do not need "complete information" - whatever that is. I doubt I could express another opinion again if that was the standard. Airbnb is on trial, I think, because people think they acted like jerks in trying to get someone to be quiet. Internet folk generally do not like people who try to silence others. Regarding their actual obligations - as far as I'm concerned and legally, the risk is on the host. Of course, for their own benefit it'd probably be a good idea to help her out.
toisanji 15y ago
this is getting quite old
- deleted 15y ago
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TY 15y ago
TL:DR: Paul mourns " a not-too-distant past where technology entrepreneurs created things to make the world a better or more interesting place, not just because they wanted to make a billion dollars." And this is in the past because: "To make money — real money — at this game you have to attract millions, or tens of millions, of users. And when you’re dealing with those kinds of numbers, it’s literally impossible not to treat your users as pieces of data. It’s ironic, but depressingly unsurprising, that web 2.0 is using faux socialization and democratization to create a world where everyone is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet." And finally: "In the final analysis, a billion dollars isn’t actually all that cool. What’s cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost." Sometimes Paul has an interesting insight, but it's buried so deep in multiple layers of ranting that it's impossible to get there without a significant amount of willpower and spare time. Please feel free to insert the "short letter" quote here... EDIT: and please do feel free to add a comment why you are downvoting my comment.
- cageface 15y ago
  The term "rant" is so wildly overused lately that it's lost virtually all meaning. Whether you agree with it or not, this is an argument, not a rant.
  - deleted 15y ago
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  - Groxx 15y ago
    What's the argument they're making? And even if there is one, it's lost in the "the past rules, the present sucks, and the future will suck more" that permeates every sentence. Heck, arguably, every rant has an argument - having one doesn't make it not-a-rant. edit: I'm actually curious what you think it is, I don't see one aside from "don't lose your soul" - but that's not an argument. That's advice. Who, or what, are they arguing against, and what is their counter-argument?
    - cageface 15y ago
      Really? Is this so hard? The argument in a nutshell: technology is wonderful but the initial promise of "web 2.0" has encouraged corporate greed and unethical behavior instead of empowering users as many of us had hoped. Specific recent cases of this phenomenon were cited in support of the argument. Help yourself to some rants here: http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classicrants/classicrants.html http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classicrants/classi...
lawnchair_larry 15y ago
It's true, Craig Newmark is definitely the coolest founder.
nobnoobody 15y ago
I have NO opinion or interest in this matter other than to sit back and watch it all unfold. After everything pg/yc related just in the last 24-30 hours, I just thought people would be interested in seeing pg's only response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826570 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826570 It was placed after the main flurry of traffic on that post from what I could tell.
- veyron 15y ago
  The only response that matters is the CEO's response. PG's response is, at the end of the day, an investor's response. It will always be construed as an investor's response
trotsky 15y ago
It's a rather compelling monologue until you realize it's published at Tech Crunch, a division of AOL that demonstrates much of the same behavior that AOL's Huff Post does, is run by a wanna-be Angel / VC, and regularly shills for vacuous startups who happen to have met the right TC writer over drinks. Sure, there are problems in SV tech - and there always will be when people are making a lot of money. But when your paper is for the most part happy in a co-dependent relationship with all of this and only cries foul when your editor gets his feathers ruffled by someone like Paul Graham disputing their reporting - you're not doing any of us any particular favors.
- domador 15y ago
  And yet the author chides the Huffington Post itself. It's harder to cry out "hypocrisy!" in this case. (I don't know to what degree Paul Carr would represent TechCrunch in general. At the very least Mr. Carr is not a corporate cog--or so I hope.)
blackboxxx 15y ago
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? --Mark 8:36
bmac27 15y ago
I don't understand the singling out of Web 2.0 as some kind of outlier in the history of capitalist enterprise. As if the Rothchilds & Morgans of the world were saintly characters who didn't see their customers the same way while they were coercing government entities to tip the scales in their favor. The rest of the piece was fine, if not another instance of piling on. But I couldn't get over that initial thought.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  Nobody claimed that the Rothschilds and the Morgans were saints - but the undercurrent that has powered the technology revolution (and the way the industry likes to be portrayed in the media) is that of educated people, wielding the powers of science and technology for the betterment of lives. In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be better than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it. This attitude is reflected in the industry's shunning of traditional business culture, the constant focus on passion (that even bureaucratic giants like Intel are embracing as a public persona) Web 2.0 has mostly failed that test, so far, IMO. I'm inclined to side with the author. I'll buy that Facebook has revolutionized socialization and communication... but who else is willing to step up to the "dramatically disrupted and made better" plate? Funnily enough, I see AirBNB as one of the better startups to come out of this bubble - they tapped into enormous unrealized demand (for both hosts and travelers) in an innovative way, put enormous pressure on the slow, lumbering, and inefficient hotel industry... if anything AirBNB represents the startups that the author is looking for. My real complaint is the masses upon masses of "we're like X, with social!" startups.
  - bmac27 15y ago
    "In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be better than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it." Well I never bought into that narrative from the get go so I wasn't taken aback by something like this taking place. Science & technology are tools. Those wielding the tools still have the ultimate say in whether or not a company does good or evil. And as there were a hundred years (or more) ago, there will be folks that abuse this power and those who empower others with it.
zarify 15y ago
I'm glad he led with the irony bit, considering the irony of someone on TC spending a paragraph calling someone out on link bait headlines.
Groxx 15y ago
>Worse than that, I’m nostalgic. Good lord. He says it, but I don't think he knows it. Those glasses aren't just rose tinted, he's looking straight into the flower and believing he's looking at the world in the past. If he'd been born ±X years ago, he'd be saying the same thing about 32+X years ago. It doesn't mean the world's going to shit and all you people suck except the ones that don't, it means you've discovered something crappy about the world you didn't realize before, and you've failed to apply it to the past. Just because you didn't notice it before doesn't mean it didn't exist before. Jeez, if you're going to have an epiphany, go all the way with it; otherwise it's worthless.
- jblow 15y ago
  I think it actually is different now. When I was in college (1989-1993), people did CS stuff because they thought computers were cool and could do things that were kind of amazing. Some were more visionary than others, of course. There was a vague idea that you could make a lot of money doing it, but it wasn't why one did things. Now it seems the opposite of that. Especially here. Everyone is all startup, startup, startup. Honestly it makes me feel a bit ill, because there is very little talk of why one might do things and what is ultimately important. I do think the support network built up by YC is great, and it is really exciting to see that young people just out of school can find support to go and do something new and interesting. But I think the actual projects coming out of this process are usually kind of bankrupt when it comes to things that I value. I went to YC Demo Day a year ago with the intention to definitely invest, but I got so disheartened by the projects being presented that I never ended up investing anything. (Actually I wanted to write a check to Leftronic but they never returned my email.)
  - frossie 15y ago
    I think it actually is different now. Oh yes it is different now. You know what's different? That you can be a housebound lonely widow and be able to share your needlework tips with somebody an ocean away. That you can be gay in a small town and not think you are the only person who feels like that in the world. That you can be a kid in a remote village, and sitting outside the closed town hall, leech the wi-fi so you can look at the space station video from NASA. That you can be a parent whose kid is having chemotherapy and can find people who can tell you how to nurture its failing appetite. I don't care how many money-grubbing heartless villains (real or imaginary) there are on the internet, if someone thinks its net contribution to mankind is negative, they must have led a lucky life.
JSig 15y ago
For me, this whole situation comes down to personal responsibility. It was EJ's decision to let a stranger stay in her home. No one made her do this. While it is unfortunate that this happened to her, she should have realized the risk. If others don't like the risk/reward they should not use the service. If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down. EJ's problem is her own. AirBnb's problem existed long before EJ.
- stonemetal 15y ago
  If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would set a send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down. in that vein: If EJ were to bail them out(alter her blog as they requested), it would send a signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction(hello nuclear waste site!). I don't think this is a road she wants to go down. What happened to EJ was horrible but predictable. The fact that AirBnb has no response plan for such a situation is amazing, like dynamite factory without a ban on open flame or smoking while in the factory amazing.
murz 15y ago
"We take it for granted now that the most popular online publications rely on search engine traffic for their survival." "..blindly approve any headline that name-checks a trending topic or two." "..we are reminded of the grimy truth: making money with online content is a question of attracting millions of eyeballs, whatever the moral cost." I can't believe I just read that on TechCrunch.
- jamesteow 15y ago
  Talk about being in a glass house...
  - panacea 15y ago
    I encourage introspection. Even laced with irony.
temphn 15y ago
For those just tuning in, Paul Carr has been bashing AirBnB since last summer: http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/25/fawlty-logic/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/25/fawlty-logic/ And has a vested interest in their failure: Disclosure: I like hotels a lot – and I’ve spent much of my life in them. Both of my parents are career-long hoteliers, first managing large corporate chain units and now owning their own hotel in the UK. And now he's accusing these poor guys of "losing their souls". This whole internet lynch mob thing is scary. Let's remember that they didn't trash the apartment, they just set up a CRUD site with a good UI that got really popular. How exactly are they more responsible than Faith Clifton, the criminal who ransacked the apartment and who they helped SFPD arrest? Seriously, some extreme hyperbole here.
- hello_moto 15y ago
  Internet lynch mob is scary? what about real-life mob? Apparently it is today's norm.
- SonicSoul 15y ago
  not familiar with Paul Carr, so i'm glad you brought this up, thanks. But i don't think he was lynching AirBnB for lack of accountability. Rather, he said that it was cold blooded for a co-founder to call and ask her to stop giving them a bad name right before a funding round. (i've also read somewhere else that he was trying to ask her to put a positive twist).
  - kailashbadu 15y ago
    Had the AirBnB been able to hush the victim by offering her a juicy paycheck, it would have been a textbook example of crisis management. That the arrangement didn't work out and the lady chose to divulge the details of the deal gone sour, the co-founders are being labelled cold blooded for offering the deal in the first place. I think it's just plain bad luck that AirBnB could not come up with a compensation package good enough to muffle the victim.
- jmspring 15y ago
  I'm not sure how one's interest in staying hotels necessitates a vested interest in seeing AirBnB fail. I'm pretty sure there are people in the "hotel industry" that have also used services like VRBO or AirBnB for lodging. Personally, I read Paul's article more in the sense that technology isn't important, remembering the human component in all this. If one is a company founder, your users are more than just data points. Disclaimer - like Paul, I actually enjoy using a fountain pen. Specifically to the AirBnB fiasco? I don't know who or what is right here, it is an issue between an individual and a company that will require the two of them working together to resolve the situation. I've used AirBnB a few times (as someone staying somewhere) and plan on using them in the future. That said, I use as much caution as I can in booking a place -- reviews are important. This particular story being turned into a YC/HN vs TC issue is silly. News is useful, but again AirBnB and EJ need to resolve this between themselves.
atdt 15y ago
I think it's very important that readers and contributors of this site scrutinize their emotional response to this article. Moral criticism is very hard to swallow. When it is leveled against a community, it is natural for the community to close ranks and lick its wounds. If you prick us, do we not bleed? etc. So you should expect to find eloquent and moving defenses of the current state of the vocation, and you should expect to find them compelling. But I think a far more useful response to this article is to do a bit of soul-searching. The amounts of money pouring into the industry are staggering. There are extremely powerful incentives for us to avert our attention from the warping influence it has had on our values. Many of us -- myself included -- consider ourselves very lucky to be shielded from the economic chaos and instability that is destroying so many lives in other industries, and the thought of forfeiting this safety is exactly as terrifying as the thought that it is rightfully ours is seductive. There is a lot in this article I disagree with, but like the author I am also scandalized that so much talent is squandered in pursuit of an IPO. There is so many astonishingly brilliant and creative people on this site whose time would be much better spent on problems of real social and intellectual significance, problems of lasting significance for the well-being of our species. In a free society people have a right to choose in which direction they spend their energies. But we cannot, in the name of individual choice, ignore the enormous shaping influence of social forces on the course of human life. Much of our behavior over these past few years has been driven by the fact that money is the surest measure of success in our industry, and I would bet a kidney that a lot of people here are nagged by a suspicious that there is something deeply perverse about this. And if you're one of these people, I'd like to propose to you that one way to change things is to start having more honest discussions about this with colleagues, and to be a little more courageous about recognizing success when its measure is lives bettered rather than money raised. I've been a complete coward about this, and I feel gross about myself as a result. But I'm committed to changing.
- ddw 15y ago
  Thank you for writing this. I think the Airbnb story itself is getting kind of stale, but it's continuing to garner discussion on this site and elsewhere because of the underlining issue, namely that valuations and revenues shouldn't over cede just treating people well. And that we should try to resolve an issue not just because our company will take a PR hit if we don't, but because it's the right thing to do. The two aren't mutually exclusive. If we don't do this then we're no better than the slimiest corporations because we're chasing a dollar and nothing else.
pvarangot 15y ago
At least Carr is straightforward enough to get the get into the underlying discussion, being in my opinion if current "web 2.0 OMG croudsourcing community-building" technologies are really better for the people, or only better for investors. I'm amazed this point is raised so clearly by a rather trollish and old fashioned media outlet as TC, and mostly avoided by most HN users, who seem more concerned about discussing PR and fingerpointing.
kyro 15y ago
A nice read if you've got some extra time to spend on the toilet. If you get sick of Angry Birds, of course.
SeoxyS 15y ago
I have very mixed feelings about this column. On the one hand, Paul Carr is a brilliant writer and I'm a huge fan of his work. I also agree with him on a lot of his argument. On the other hand, I respect Paul Graham a lot more than I do Michael Arrington. He loses me at this paragraph: Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT’S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP!
- Hisoka 15y ago
  On the other hand, when PG says they're run by very nice guys, it's irritating 'cause it's an empty statement. We don't care if they're nice. Everyone thinks they're nice in this world. Nothing special about being nice.
- nl 15y ago
  Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT’S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP! How does that lose you? By all accounts that is pretty much what has occurred: AirBNB staff have contacted both EJ and TechCrunch asking them to go easy on the coverage. No one denies that, right?
  - SeoxyS 15y ago
    Maybe I have a lingering hope that Airbnb staff couldn't possibly be that stupid…
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sorbus 15y ago
"Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story." How the hell is he getting that from the article linked there? It's a long rant about PG posting something on HN claiming how the article it was a comment on is inaccurate. In no way is that "investors ... lean[ing] on publications ... to stop reporting the story."
tlrobinson 15y ago
Oh please, TechCrunch thrives on this kind of controversy.
tholex 15y ago
Ok. I don't comment on Hacker News much, but this article sent me reeling. <rant> The sheer hypocrisy in this thing is unbelievable. First of all, TechCrunch has already stated their opinion on AirBnB, and even published follow-ups attacking the pro-AirBnB counterarguments. Fine. You don't like them. We get it, there have been like 10 posts including the words "scandal", "fiasco", and "the plot thickens", despite an almost total lack of actual information. Yeah, it's a shitty situation so let the police, EJ, and AirBnB work it out. You think they won't have a post-mortem? Please. This article, however, kills me. He bashes Huffington Post's decision solely on the title. With a title like "You know what's not cool? A Billion Dollars. You know what's cool? Basic human decency", TC is playing the same game here. Except they're even cheesier in their delivery. The only other example of lack of "basic decency" presented in this article is AirBnB, which anyone coming from HN could probably see a mile away. Same quotes, same rhetoric. Could you possibly be caring about anything except getting more eyeballs on your site? Please, go watch some Alexis Ohanian talks. Make a good product. Engage people. Don't bash your own bread-and-butter techniques like you're on some higher moral ground. The AirBnB guys made a big product, and it's been super convenient to me. They're reaching the point where their popularity leads to difficulty in control and direction. This just happens to be the same effect touched on in that Amy Winehouse article. Hey TechCrunch? You are getting really bad at journalism and your opinions are nothing but twitter fodder. </endrant>
keiferski 15y ago
Not sure why this has turned into another airbnb discussion. It was only a few paragraphs of the post, which was for the most part valid. Attacking the author's background or interests is completely beyond the point, and at some level, only supports his argument; nothing could be more petty.
da5e 15y ago
Carr's phony sentimentality is exactly what ej didn't do. She wrote measured, balanced prose, which was very convincing for me.
jjmaxwell4 15y ago
What about all of the great things that AirBnB has done for people? Think of the savings travellers have experienced, the revenue people have been able to get for empty apartments. On the scale of it, nearly all of AirBnB's users benefit from the experience. So while the founders have made millions and millions of dollars, society in general has also greatly benefited from the service. That's how most industries work; the people who use the service win, as does the company. Value is added. Its horrible that this person's house got ransacked, and maybe the founders handled it poorly, but on the whole they have created a great service that makes "the world a better or more interesting place".
Hyena 15y ago
This all seems pretty blown out of proportion. EJ rented her house to a stranger. That stranger trashed the house and robbed her. The listing service botched their PR badly and only got around to doing the right thing after some missteps. This was all pretty inevitable and unfortunate. How is this not the story of every corporate disaster? How are we switching from "a firm is a way to turn very smart people into a very dumb organization" to "these people are soulless"?
Confusion 15y ago
Paul Carr fails at being a decent human being. Three blocks down the street, someone's husband got killed a month ago and the lone mother can't make ends meet with three children to take care of. Someone elderly lost all her children, whom she counted on to take care of her in her old day. Some fourteen year old orphan living on the streets just got raped. They are all hungry and alone. That's just down the street. In Somalia, children are dying of hunger by the hundreds. In between those fates, there is plenty of suffering that's much, much worse than some incident where someone with plenty of friends, funds, food and a future had a bad experience. Basically decent human beings put things in perspective and reserve judgment. They try to support EJ by calling upon AirBnB to take certain actions and lament it when that doesn't happen. What they don't do is make this into the worlds current biggest problem and act as if those not taking their proposed actions are minions of Satan himself. Someone disagrees with you on how to handle this case: big deal. If you're so convinced you're right: strike a deal with EJ to fund her trial costs and be repaired after she gets compensated. Put your money where your mouth is and preferably instead of where your mouth is currently. Basically decent human beings don't get their way by shouting the loudest from a high profile website. The people that trashed that house suck. Michael Arrington and Paul Carr suck for their inflammatory and unconstructive reporting. AirBnB sucks for not handling the situation more gracefully: for God's sake, hire someone specialized in disaster mitigation. There's dozens of people out there that do nothing else but resolve such cases. Throw a cool 150K in and be done with it. Your worst mistake is trying to handle this personally. But all of this really should not be so important to the vast majority of us that the top stories for the past few days have been about this case. A reasoned analysis of the various ways in which AirBnB could (have) handle(d) this situation and the ethical and business consequences of those ways, that's something that would be interesting. Mud slinging and shouting matches aren't, even if some reasonable arguments are being shouted all ways.
Gatsky 15y ago
On top of all this, as far as I can tell, Airbnb is not doing anything to help the Somali famine. The cheapest listing they have in Kenya is $10 a night, well beyond the scope of any of the thousands of refugees pouring out of war-torn Somalia. I think we should criticize Airbnb for their lack of action in Somalia. Corporate 'ethics' is one of the greatest modern disasters. The most powerful and wealthy people in society routinely crush individuals, wreak ecological havok, sell harmful products, manipulate the law and just plain cheat, lie and steal. By those standards, it doesn't seem that Airbnb has done anything particularly unexpected.
ajj 15y ago
Come on folks, how is all this half-information bashing better than trial by media? We don't know exactly what happened. There are various incentives for both parties to say things that may / may not have happened. AirBnB needs to be careful to make sure they are not the target of a lawsuit. The conversation that they had with EJ can be misrepresented. Or they may even be worse than what this shows. Who knows? Why are we, a bunch who would normally need citations to believe that humans need water to survive, engaging in such ludicrous trial-by-media with hardly any validated information?
Joeri 15y ago
This article misses the point. Technology is a tool, it's implication for morality is not decided by the sort of technology we have, but how we use it. This may sound weird from a software developer, but we don't need more technology. As a species, we can solve all the problems in the world with the technology we have today. We just collectively refuse to. When you hit your thumb with a hammer, you don't blame the hammer company, you blame yourself. If facebook didn't improve social cooperation, it's not facebook's fault, it's the facebook users' fault.
Vivtek 15y ago
I dunno - this is a pretty hysterical piece. Weren't there capitalist bastards in the world before the Internet? I guess Standard Oil isn't a concept any more.
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311 points by joshfraser 15y ago

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Arguing against the supposed behaviors of a "current breed of silicon valley wunderkinds" seems, at best, like a straw man. Do Paul Carr or Sara Lacy really know founders and their companies that well? Pieces like this make my blood boil a little bit -- Carr, Lacy, and the like profit from being the peanut-gallery for the "wunderkids" while taking cheap shots against them without complete information. So much for basic human decency.

rdl 15y ago
I assure you, vastly more sketchiness existed among founders in 1996-2000 (mainly, the MBA types) than either web 2.0 boom 1.0 (2004-2007) or now.
- palish 15y ago
  You say that like it's an excuse for the current behavior.
  - rguzman 15y ago
    What current behavior? Can you be specific?
    - palish 15y ago
      Airbnb saying the word "funding" to EJ was damning. But they didn't just do that. They asked her to shut down her blog post, or put a positive spin to "complete the story". And they did that because they were more concerned about their funding than about her home being utterly destroyed via their service.
      - rguzman 15y ago
        Okay, so they made a very bad PR mistake in asking her to put a positive spin on her writing. That seems to be mostly bad for themselves and their investors. Not sure where the lack of human decency is in that. Also, there is no applicable generalization here -- this is one very unfortunate instance, not a current breed of wunderkids.
      - rdl 15y ago
        Their issue, like most other startups, is that they're focused on growth, building cool stuff, changing the world, etc., and probably have a hard time slowing down to handle an exception successfully. Also maybe having a hard time empathizing with a really distraught person (which isn't really a skill set most people outside the clergy, ER, military, etc. are going to need, at least professionally). For most startups, handling the worst case as well as possible (i.e. above a minimum standard) isn't the goal; it's to handle the best cases exceptionally well, or to handle the average or 90th percentile or whatever really well.
jcc80 15y ago
The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move. Carr is saying that they could be awesome people but that they clearly lost their way here. Unless you think the woman is a complete liar...which I for one - with incomplete information, do not.
- rguzman 15y ago
  > The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move. My point is that he does not have complete information about the situation. Neither do I. Neither do you. I don't really get why airbnb is on trial here. Something very unfortunate happened. They might've made a PR blunder. Maybe they could have a system with more emphasis on security, probably at the expense of volume. Whatever... it is their company, it makes us hosts good money and us travelers have better experiences. Nobody is obligated to use airbnb. We the users are not the victims of startup founders, like Carr dramatizes in the post, we're just users. We use the services because we derive more value from them than they cost. There is no "social contract" between founders and users.
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  - jcc80 15y ago
    Personally, I do not need "complete information" - whatever that is. I doubt I could express another opinion again if that was the standard. Airbnb is on trial, I think, because people think they acted like jerks in trying to get someone to be quiet. Internet folk generally do not like people who try to silence others. Regarding their actual obligations - as far as I'm concerned and legally, the risk is on the host. Of course, for their own benefit it'd probably be a good idea to help her out.

toisanji 15y ago

this is getting quite old

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TY 15y ago

TL:DR: Paul mourns " a not-too-distant past where technology entrepreneurs created things to make the world a better or more interesting place, not just because they wanted to make a billion dollars." And this is in the past because: "To make money — real money — at this game you have to attract millions, or tens of millions, of users. And when you’re dealing with those kinds of numbers, it’s literally impossible not to treat your users as pieces of data. It’s ironic, but depressingly unsurprising, that web 2.0 is using faux socialization and democratization to create a world where everyone is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet." And finally: "In the final analysis, a billion dollars isn’t actually all that cool. What’s cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost." Sometimes Paul has an interesting insight, but it's buried so deep in multiple layers of ranting that it's impossible to get there without a significant amount of willpower and spare time. Please feel free to insert the "short letter" quote here... EDIT: and please do feel free to add a comment why you are downvoting my comment.

cageface 15y ago
The term "rant" is so wildly overused lately that it's lost virtually all meaning. Whether you agree with it or not, this is an argument, not a rant.
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- Groxx 15y ago
  What's the argument they're making? And even if there is one, it's lost in the "the past rules, the present sucks, and the future will suck more" that permeates every sentence. Heck, arguably, every rant has an argument - having one doesn't make it not-a-rant. edit: I'm actually curious what you think it is, I don't see one aside from "don't lose your soul" - but that's not an argument. That's advice. Who, or what, are they arguing against, and what is their counter-argument?
  - cageface 15y ago
    Really? Is this so hard? The argument in a nutshell: technology is wonderful but the initial promise of "web 2.0" has encouraged corporate greed and unethical behavior instead of empowering users as many of us had hoped. Specific recent cases of this phenomenon were cited in support of the argument. Help yourself to some rants here: http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classicrants/classicrants.html http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/classic/classicrants/classi...

lawnchair_larry 15y ago

It's true, Craig Newmark is definitely the coolest founder.

nobnoobody 15y ago

I have NO opinion or interest in this matter other than to sit back and watch it all unfold. After everything pg/yc related just in the last 24-30 hours, I just thought people would be interested in seeing pg's only response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826570 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826570 It was placed after the main flurry of traffic on that post from what I could tell.

veyron 15y ago
The only response that matters is the CEO's response. PG's response is, at the end of the day, an investor's response. It will always be construed as an investor's response

trotsky 15y ago

It's a rather compelling monologue until you realize it's published at Tech Crunch, a division of AOL that demonstrates much of the same behavior that AOL's Huff Post does, is run by a wanna-be Angel / VC, and regularly shills for vacuous startups who happen to have met the right TC writer over drinks. Sure, there are problems in SV tech - and there always will be when people are making a lot of money. But when your paper is for the most part happy in a co-dependent relationship with all of this and only cries foul when your editor gets his feathers ruffled by someone like Paul Graham disputing their reporting - you're not doing any of us any particular favors.

domador 15y ago
And yet the author chides the Huffington Post itself. It's harder to cry out "hypocrisy!" in this case. (I don't know to what degree Paul Carr would represent TechCrunch in general. At the very least Mr. Carr is not a corporate cog--or so I hope.)

blackboxxx 15y ago

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? --Mark 8:36

bmac27 15y ago

I don't understand the singling out of Web 2.0 as some kind of outlier in the history of capitalist enterprise. As if the Rothchilds & Morgans of the world were saintly characters who didn't see their customers the same way while they were coercing government entities to tip the scales in their favor. The rest of the piece was fine, if not another instance of piling on. But I couldn't get over that initial thought.

potatolicious 15y ago
Nobody claimed that the Rothschilds and the Morgans were saints - but the undercurrent that has powered the technology revolution (and the way the industry likes to be portrayed in the media) is that of educated people, wielding the powers of science and technology for the betterment of lives. In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be better than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it. This attitude is reflected in the industry's shunning of traditional business culture, the constant focus on passion (that even bureaucratic giants like Intel are embracing as a public persona) Web 2.0 has mostly failed that test, so far, IMO. I'm inclined to side with the author. I'll buy that Facebook has revolutionized socialization and communication... but who else is willing to step up to the "dramatically disrupted and made better" plate? Funnily enough, I see AirBNB as one of the better startups to come out of this bubble - they tapped into enormous unrealized demand (for both hosts and travelers) in an innovative way, put enormous pressure on the slow, lumbering, and inefficient hotel industry... if anything AirBNB represents the startups that the author is looking for. My real complaint is the masses upon masses of "we're like X, with social!" startups.
- bmac27 15y ago
  "In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be better than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it." Well I never bought into that narrative from the get go so I wasn't taken aback by something like this taking place. Science & technology are tools. Those wielding the tools still have the ultimate say in whether or not a company does good or evil. And as there were a hundred years (or more) ago, there will be folks that abuse this power and those who empower others with it.

zarify 15y ago

I'm glad he led with the irony bit, considering the irony of someone on TC spending a paragraph calling someone out on link bait headlines.

Groxx 15y ago

>Worse than that, I’m nostalgic. Good lord. He says it, but I don't think he knows it. Those glasses aren't just rose tinted, he's looking straight into the flower and believing he's looking at the world in the past. If he'd been born ±X years ago, he'd be saying the same thing about 32+X years ago. It doesn't mean the world's going to shit and all you people suck except the ones that don't, it means you've discovered something crappy about the world you didn't realize before, and you've failed to apply it to the past. Just because you didn't notice it before doesn't mean it didn't exist before. Jeez, if you're going to have an epiphany, go all the way with it; otherwise it's worthless.

jblow 15y ago
I think it actually is different now. When I was in college (1989-1993), people did CS stuff because they thought computers were cool and could do things that were kind of amazing. Some were more visionary than others, of course. There was a vague idea that you could make a lot of money doing it, but it wasn't why one did things. Now it seems the opposite of that. Especially here. Everyone is all startup, startup, startup. Honestly it makes me feel a bit ill, because there is very little talk of why one might do things and what is ultimately important. I do think the support network built up by YC is great, and it is really exciting to see that young people just out of school can find support to go and do something new and interesting. But I think the actual projects coming out of this process are usually kind of bankrupt when it comes to things that I value. I went to YC Demo Day a year ago with the intention to definitely invest, but I got so disheartened by the projects being presented that I never ended up investing anything. (Actually I wanted to write a check to Leftronic but they never returned my email.)
- frossie 15y ago
  I think it actually is different now. Oh yes it is different now. You know what's different? That you can be a housebound lonely widow and be able to share your needlework tips with somebody an ocean away. That you can be gay in a small town and not think you are the only person who feels like that in the world. That you can be a kid in a remote village, and sitting outside the closed town hall, leech the wi-fi so you can look at the space station video from NASA. That you can be a parent whose kid is having chemotherapy and can find people who can tell you how to nurture its failing appetite. I don't care how many money-grubbing heartless villains (real or imaginary) there are on the internet, if someone thinks its net contribution to mankind is negative, they must have led a lucky life.

JSig 15y ago

For me, this whole situation comes down to personal responsibility. It was EJ's decision to let a stranger stay in her home. No one made her do this. While it is unfortunate that this happened to her, she should have realized the risk. If others don't like the risk/reward they should not use the service. If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down. EJ's problem is her own. AirBnb's problem existed long before EJ.

stonemetal 15y ago
If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would set a send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down. in that vein: If EJ were to bail them out(alter her blog as they requested), it would send a signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction(hello nuclear waste site!). I don't think this is a road she wants to go down. What happened to EJ was horrible but predictable. The fact that AirBnb has no response plan for such a situation is amazing, like dynamite factory without a ban on open flame or smoking while in the factory amazing.

murz 15y ago

"We take it for granted now that the most popular online publications rely on search engine traffic for their survival." "..blindly approve any headline that name-checks a trending topic or two." "..we are reminded of the grimy truth: making money with online content is a question of attracting millions of eyeballs, whatever the moral cost." I can't believe I just read that on TechCrunch.

jamesteow 15y ago
Talk about being in a glass house...
- panacea 15y ago
  I encourage introspection. Even laced with irony.

temphn 15y ago

For those just tuning in, Paul Carr has been bashing AirBnB since last summer: http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/25/fawlty-logic/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/25/fawlty-logic/ And has a vested interest in their failure: Disclosure: I like hotels a lot – and I’ve spent much of my life in them. Both of my parents are career-long hoteliers, first managing large corporate chain units and now owning their own hotel in the UK. And now he's accusing these poor guys of "losing their souls". This whole internet lynch mob thing is scary. Let's remember that they didn't trash the apartment, they just set up a CRUD site with a good UI that got really popular. How exactly are they more responsible than Faith Clifton, the criminal who ransacked the apartment and who they helped SFPD arrest? Seriously, some extreme hyperbole here.

hello_moto 15y ago
Internet lynch mob is scary? what about real-life mob? Apparently it is today's norm.
SonicSoul 15y ago
not familiar with Paul Carr, so i'm glad you brought this up, thanks. But i don't think he was lynching AirBnB for lack of accountability. Rather, he said that it was cold blooded for a co-founder to call and ask her to stop giving them a bad name right before a funding round. (i've also read somewhere else that he was trying to ask her to put a positive twist).
- kailashbadu 15y ago
  Had the AirBnB been able to hush the victim by offering her a juicy paycheck, it would have been a textbook example of crisis management. That the arrangement didn't work out and the lady chose to divulge the details of the deal gone sour, the co-founders are being labelled cold blooded for offering the deal in the first place. I think it's just plain bad luck that AirBnB could not come up with a compensation package good enough to muffle the victim.
jmspring 15y ago
I'm not sure how one's interest in staying hotels necessitates a vested interest in seeing AirBnB fail. I'm pretty sure there are people in the "hotel industry" that have also used services like VRBO or AirBnB for lodging. Personally, I read Paul's article more in the sense that technology isn't important, remembering the human component in all this. If one is a company founder, your users are more than just data points. Disclaimer - like Paul, I actually enjoy using a fountain pen. Specifically to the AirBnB fiasco? I don't know who or what is right here, it is an issue between an individual and a company that will require the two of them working together to resolve the situation. I've used AirBnB a few times (as someone staying somewhere) and plan on using them in the future. That said, I use as much caution as I can in booking a place -- reviews are important. This particular story being turned into a YC/HN vs TC issue is silly. News is useful, but again AirBnB and EJ need to resolve this between themselves.

atdt 15y ago

I think it's very important that readers and contributors of this site scrutinize their emotional response to this article. Moral criticism is very hard to swallow. When it is leveled against a community, it is natural for the community to close ranks and lick its wounds. If you prick us, do we not bleed? etc. So you should expect to find eloquent and moving defenses of the current state of the vocation, and you should expect to find them compelling. But I think a far more useful response to this article is to do a bit of soul-searching. The amounts of money pouring into the industry are staggering. There are extremely powerful incentives for us to avert our attention from the warping influence it has had on our values. Many of us -- myself included -- consider ourselves very lucky to be shielded from the economic chaos and instability that is destroying so many lives in other industries, and the thought of forfeiting this safety is exactly as terrifying as the thought that it is rightfully ours is seductive. There is a lot in this article I disagree with, but like the author I am also scandalized that so much talent is squandered in pursuit of an IPO. There is so many astonishingly brilliant and creative people on this site whose time would be much better spent on problems of real social and intellectual significance, problems of lasting significance for the well-being of our species. In a free society people have a right to choose in which direction they spend their energies. But we cannot, in the name of individual choice, ignore the enormous shaping influence of social forces on the course of human life. Much of our behavior over these past few years has been driven by the fact that money is the surest measure of success in our industry, and I would bet a kidney that a lot of people here are nagged by a suspicious that there is something deeply perverse about this. And if you're one of these people, I'd like to propose to you that one way to change things is to start having more honest discussions about this with colleagues, and to be a little more courageous about recognizing success when its measure is lives bettered rather than money raised. I've been a complete coward about this, and I feel gross about myself as a result. But I'm committed to changing.

ddw 15y ago
Thank you for writing this. I think the Airbnb story itself is getting kind of stale, but it's continuing to garner discussion on this site and elsewhere because of the underlining issue, namely that valuations and revenues shouldn't over cede just treating people well. And that we should try to resolve an issue not just because our company will take a PR hit if we don't, but because it's the right thing to do. The two aren't mutually exclusive. If we don't do this then we're no better than the slimiest corporations because we're chasing a dollar and nothing else.

pvarangot 15y ago

At least Carr is straightforward enough to get the get into the underlying discussion, being in my opinion if current "web 2.0 OMG croudsourcing community-building" technologies are really better for the people, or only better for investors. I'm amazed this point is raised so clearly by a rather trollish and old fashioned media outlet as TC, and mostly avoided by most HN users, who seem more concerned about discussing PR and fingerpointing.

kyro 15y ago

A nice read if you've got some extra time to spend on the toilet. If you get sick of Angry Birds, of course.

SeoxyS 15y ago

I have very mixed feelings about this column. On the one hand, Paul Carr is a brilliant writer and I'm a huge fan of his work. I also agree with him on a lot of his argument. On the other hand, I respect Paul Graham a lot more than I do Michael Arrington. He loses me at this paragraph: Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT’S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP!

Hisoka 15y ago
On the other hand, when PG says they're run by very nice guys, it's irritating 'cause it's an empty statement. We don't care if they're nice. Everyone thinks they're nice in this world. Nothing special about being nice.
nl 15y ago
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT’S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP! How does that lose you? By all accounts that is pretty much what has occurred: AirBNB staff have contacted both EJ and TechCrunch asking them to go easy on the coverage. No one denies that, right?
- SeoxyS 15y ago
  Maybe I have a lingering hope that Airbnb staff couldn't possibly be that stupid…

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sorbus 15y ago

"Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story." How the hell is he getting that from the article linked there? It's a long rant about PG posting something on HN claiming how the article it was a comment on is inaccurate. In no way is that "investors ... lean[ing] on publications ... to stop reporting the story."

tlrobinson 15y ago

Oh please, TechCrunch thrives on this kind of controversy.

tholex 15y ago

Ok. I don't comment on Hacker News much, but this article sent me reeling. <rant> The sheer hypocrisy in this thing is unbelievable. First of all, TechCrunch has already stated their opinion on AirBnB, and even published follow-ups attacking the pro-AirBnB counterarguments. Fine. You don't like them. We get it, there have been like 10 posts including the words "scandal", "fiasco", and "the plot thickens", despite an almost total lack of actual information. Yeah, it's a shitty situation so let the police, EJ, and AirBnB work it out. You think they won't have a post-mortem? Please. This article, however, kills me. He bashes Huffington Post's decision solely on the title. With a title like "You know what's not cool? A Billion Dollars. You know what's cool? Basic human decency", TC is playing the same game here. Except they're even cheesier in their delivery. The only other example of lack of "basic decency" presented in this article is AirBnB, which anyone coming from HN could probably see a mile away. Same quotes, same rhetoric. Could you possibly be caring about anything except getting more eyeballs on your site? Please, go watch some Alexis Ohanian talks. Make a good product. Engage people. Don't bash your own bread-and-butter techniques like you're on some higher moral ground. The AirBnB guys made a big product, and it's been super convenient to me. They're reaching the point where their popularity leads to difficulty in control and direction. This just happens to be the same effect touched on in that Amy Winehouse article. Hey TechCrunch? You are getting really bad at journalism and your opinions are nothing but twitter fodder. </endrant>

keiferski 15y ago

Not sure why this has turned into another airbnb discussion. It was only a few paragraphs of the post, which was for the most part valid. Attacking the author's background or interests is completely beyond the point, and at some level, only supports his argument; nothing could be more petty.

da5e 15y ago

Carr's phony sentimentality is exactly what ej didn't do. She wrote measured, balanced prose, which was very convincing for me.

jjmaxwell4 15y ago

What about all of the great things that AirBnB has done for people? Think of the savings travellers have experienced, the revenue people have been able to get for empty apartments. On the scale of it, nearly all of AirBnB's users benefit from the experience. So while the founders have made millions and millions of dollars, society in general has also greatly benefited from the service. That's how most industries work; the people who use the service win, as does the company. Value is added. Its horrible that this person's house got ransacked, and maybe the founders handled it poorly, but on the whole they have created a great service that makes "the world a better or more interesting place".

Hyena 15y ago

This all seems pretty blown out of proportion. EJ rented her house to a stranger. That stranger trashed the house and robbed her. The listing service botched their PR badly and only got around to doing the right thing after some missteps. This was all pretty inevitable and unfortunate. How is this not the story of every corporate disaster? How are we switching from "a firm is a way to turn very smart people into a very dumb organization" to "these people are soulless"?

Confusion 15y ago

Paul Carr fails at being a decent human being. Three blocks down the street, someone's husband got killed a month ago and the lone mother can't make ends meet with three children to take care of. Someone elderly lost all her children, whom she counted on to take care of her in her old day. Some fourteen year old orphan living on the streets just got raped. They are all hungry and alone. That's just down the street. In Somalia, children are dying of hunger by the hundreds. In between those fates, there is plenty of suffering that's much, much worse than some incident where someone with plenty of friends, funds, food and a future had a bad experience. Basically decent human beings put things in perspective and reserve judgment. They try to support EJ by calling upon AirBnB to take certain actions and lament it when that doesn't happen. What they don't do is make this into the worlds current biggest problem and act as if those not taking their proposed actions are minions of Satan himself. Someone disagrees with you on how to handle this case: big deal. If you're so convinced you're right: strike a deal with EJ to fund her trial costs and be repaired after she gets compensated. Put your money where your mouth is and preferably instead of where your mouth is currently. Basically decent human beings don't get their way by shouting the loudest from a high profile website. The people that trashed that house suck. Michael Arrington and Paul Carr suck for their inflammatory and unconstructive reporting. AirBnB sucks for not handling the situation more gracefully: for God's sake, hire someone specialized in disaster mitigation. There's dozens of people out there that do nothing else but resolve such cases. Throw a cool 150K in and be done with it. Your worst mistake is trying to handle this personally. But all of this really should not be so important to the vast majority of us that the top stories for the past few days have been about this case. A reasoned analysis of the various ways in which AirBnB could (have) handle(d) this situation and the ethical and business consequences of those ways, that's something that would be interesting. Mud slinging and shouting matches aren't, even if some reasonable arguments are being shouted all ways.

Gatsky 15y ago

On top of all this, as far as I can tell, Airbnb is not doing anything to help the Somali famine. The cheapest listing they have in Kenya is $10 a night, well beyond the scope of any of the thousands of refugees pouring out of war-torn Somalia. I think we should criticize Airbnb for their lack of action in Somalia. Corporate 'ethics' is one of the greatest modern disasters. The most powerful and wealthy people in society routinely crush individuals, wreak ecological havok, sell harmful products, manipulate the law and just plain cheat, lie and steal. By those standards, it doesn't seem that Airbnb has done anything particularly unexpected.

ajj 15y ago

Come on folks, how is all this half-information bashing better than trial by media? We don't know exactly what happened. There are various incentives for both parties to say things that may / may not have happened. AirBnB needs to be careful to make sure they are not the target of a lawsuit. The conversation that they had with EJ can be misrepresented. Or they may even be worse than what this shows. Who knows? Why are we, a bunch who would normally need citations to believe that humans need water to survive, engaging in such ludicrous trial-by-media with hardly any validated information?

Joeri 15y ago

This article misses the point. Technology is a tool, it's implication for morality is not decided by the sort of technology we have, but how we use it. This may sound weird from a software developer, but we don't need more technology. As a species, we can solve all the problems in the world with the technology we have today. We just collectively refuse to. When you hit your thumb with a hammer, you don't blame the hammer company, you blame yourself. If facebook didn't improve social cooperation, it's not facebook's fault, it's the facebook users' fault.

Vivtek 15y ago

I dunno - this is a pretty hysterical piece. Weren't there capitalist bastards in the world before the Internet? I guess Standard Oil isn't a concept any more.

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