7 ms·

Airbnb’s CEO spent 6 months living in his rentals and found the core problem

36 points by alex_young 3y ago

deterministic 3y ago
“CEOs on average, just 6% of their time is spent with frontline teams and 3% with customers. They spend 72% of their time in meetings.‘ That’s the problem with most businesses right there.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  One could argue those 3% and 6% are included in the 72%..
jbverschoor 3y ago
So basically he never read or heard about any average review or complaint? It is the not the lowest 10% Airbnb is a bad deal and a bad experience As a founder, he then could’ve hired any random ceo to do his job
- voakbasda 3y ago
  How could he read a bad review when AirBnb systematically deletes them?
the_cramer 3y ago
> CEOs face a real risk of operating in a bubble and never seeing the actual world their workers face,” the authors write. “Spending time with the rank and file and with savvy external frontline constituencies is an indispensable way to gain reliable information on what is really going on in the company and in the industry.” Soo much this. I've seen so many decisions that make work at the front line harder. They mean good they want to achieve a target but often it's a lack of information which worsens the effectiveness of decisions
tomas789 3y ago
AirBnB used to be a great option compared to hotels. This gap is probably reversed at this point and hotels are becoming once again the preferred choice for many. AirBnB's disadvantages are mostly about very high price on per-night basis, high cleaning fees and many (often unreasonable) requirements from the hosts. Mostly regarding cleanliness upon departure. That being said I think from my personal experience that there is a bigger problem with the service. I got a very bad experience from a relatively new all-5-star host. The host lied to us and AirBnB, tried to get more than $1000 for various claims and so on. At the end AirBnB did a very poor job at mediating the claim. Then I wrote a review. I tried to be as objective as possible. AirBnB simply deleted the review. They didn't ask us to correct anything or anything. They straight out deleted it. I believe that by doing so AirBnB is misleading both guests and their investors. This creates an impression that the service is better than it actually is. That is likely inflating their stock price. I personally believe that there should be a class action lawsuit or Hindenburg research paper about this for them to do anything about this.
- doix 3y ago
  I wonder if this is mostly a US problem. I've been staying exclusively in Airbnbs around Africa/Asia for the last 2 years (usually a month at a time) and have never had any of these problems. The prices were always _significantly_ cheaper than trying to stay a hotel suite or any other option. The only thing cheaper were long term rentals, but they are harder to find/organize, especially as a foreigner. I never had any cleaning requirements. I didn't trash any places, but I didn't leave them spotless. Sometimes, if I was in a rush I wouldn't have time to take the trash out before leaving. I never had any complaints from hosts, and most of my reviews claim that I am extremely tidy/clean guest. My biggest issue with Airbnb is that the filtering/search doesn't work well. There isn't a penalty for "lying" (stretching the truth?) about certain things. Too many people put "Dedicated workspace" despite having no dedicated workspace. Some people are too honest and don't put "dedicated workspace" despite having what I would consider a great dedicated workspace. It means I have to manually sit and look through the pictures to figure out if I'd have anywhere to work or not. I know a lot of people like to work from cafe's, but personally I hate doing that.
  - 3y ago
rdtsc 3y ago
This sounds like a PR piece to deflect from issues and complaints people have been having. “Oh look, he has been struggling with those, too”. “The issues are definitely noticed by the CEO now.” And it also throws in an advertisement for some upcoming new features at the end.
sfmike 3y ago
he should do it again.
onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]
emadda 3y ago
I released an improved AirBnB search a few months back: https://stay100.app https://stay100.app
- GuardianCaveman 3y ago
  I can't get the filter for max price to work.
  - emadda 3y ago
    Sometimes price is missing from the AirBnB API for some searches/locales. Are you able to send me the AirBnB search URL?
nprateem 3y ago
I've never used Airbnb since they screwed me over. If something isn't right they just don't care. I don't trust them at all.
thunkshift1 3y ago
Airbnb search is broken af and full of dark patterns to force feed consumers app preferred listings and/or maximize user ‘engagement’ on app. Pretty basic options missing from app search: - sort by price. SORT not filter. - search by categories. These are only available in the landing page feed and disappear when you search for a particular place Another dark pattern: minimum number of nights.
__lbracket__ 3y ago
stopped trusting start ups a long time ago
latchkey 3y ago
So the 'fix' to the insane prices is to offer co-habitation with 'safety features'? How about just going the full distance and share beds while we are at it. I bet it is super weird to have the CEO come in and demand all sorts of changes because he did the thing that his product team probably should have done themselves.
- antigirl 3y ago
  thats just a re-marketing strategy for private rooms only. That itself didn't sell as well so the've remarketed it to make it sound more appealing. Some of the changes [he tweeted them] have been great. But i think the price and nuance makes hotels a better and cheaper option. For short stays at least
darkwizard42 3y ago
The article title is a lot of clickbait, but the core user-need driven approach to building features should resonate with most builder audiences on this site. Honestly, I'm really not sure what the product team was doing if they weren't noticing these issues coming up over and over and over again in user feedback. Anyone who stays in Airbnbs 10 times will encounter at least one or two of these core issues across their stays (crazy cleaning fees, additional contracts needing to be signed after booking, weird and extensive checkout steps). For the last 2-3 years Airbnb has publicly announced a set of improvements on the platform. Yes, these should have been fixed ages ago, but I commend Chesky and the Airbnb team for actually taking action. Price transparency, visibility of check-out steps beforehand, improvement around single rooms (true OG Air Bed and Breakfast style) are welcome steps and, in my humble opinion, I think Airbnb should continue to pivot away from hotels (standardized boring experiences) and lean into the uniqueness of each room/home.
- user_named 3y ago
  Those weird fees etc are obvious and likely known by the product team. It's likely they were imposed by the business, not originating with the product team. As such they also couldn't remove them.
- dgreensp 3y ago
  Yeah, I mean it’s fine for the CEO to focus on higher-level things if someone below them is aware of the problems and working on them, or making sure that the product decisions are based on the experiencing of using the product… The article seems overly congratulatory. He could just get coffee with someone who uses AirBnB a lot and they could probably tell him exactly what sucks about it. Maybe even one of his own employees. Lots of engineers use AirBnB, and the AirBnB app apparently has a thousand engineers working on it.
  - kevviiinn 3y ago
    No no, you need to hire consulting firms to get that level of insight my friend
- firesteelrain 3y ago
yarg 3y ago
There're very few businesses where this sort of dogfooding is viable, Airbnb's domain is such that the dude could effectively work ~24 hours a day with almost no overhead. > And Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi got behind the wheel and moonlighted as a driver during the pandemic, which led him to "reevaluate every single assumption that we’ve made I bet he didn't try surviving on Uber pay.
- tennisflyi 3y ago
  > And Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi got behind the wheel and moonlighted as a driver during the pandemic, which led him to "reevaluate every single assumption that we’ve made Most of those are made with a huge amount of privilege.
- mint2 3y ago
  If an executive trying the product leads to revelations about many assumptions, doesn’t that actually mean the executive has failed at building a good management team and structure as the principle revelation? Although given that track record, it’s clear that root cause revelation will not register.
- j_crick 3y ago
  > reevaluate every single assumption Oh wow, took a whole executive to figure that out /s
slaw 3y ago
I also found the core AirBnb problem, negative reviews are deleted, everything is close to 5 stars. So I search for apartments on booking.com instead.
Glawen 3y ago
I do cycling trips with my 10 year old son, we need a simple and cheap solution to spend a night in a different place every day. The requirements are: two beds or big double bed, cheap and breakfast included if possible. I never found anything on Airbnb to satisfy my needs, an hotel was always the cheaper and easier option. I'm always checking Airbnb as it has rooms in small towns along our way that would make our trip easier. The very few places on Airbnb cheaper than the hotel usually required a 10-20km detour. And I'm not even counting the extra steps needed which make Airbnb a bad choice, like the message to convince your host to accept your booking, the need to communicate with him about your arrival time, analysing the photos to figure out if you have one or two beds, the house rules about cleaning etc..
- marak830 3y ago
  It's simple(and I'm not arguing against you, just adding further). Hotels were cfated to fill a niche. Airbnb added "by a computer" after the essentially. So many things they bypasswd were solved issues, or non issues. The actual value add core, is so slender, that only the absolute breathless could have had something to market. Fyi I have used their services greater than 10 times, and frankly, I would have been served better by using a hotel, each time.
  - andreareina 3y ago
    Airbnb is good for its original raison d'etre: spare bedrooms. When it's whole units you're operating a (probably un- or poorly-regulated) hotel and competing against professionals.
    - carlmr 3y ago
      With groups they're still somewhat unbeatable. Usually the price of hotel rooms scales roughly linearly with the number of people you have with you. With 6-8 people airbnb is almost always less than half the price of a hotel. And you can cook together, which often adds to the savings, as well as having a common room to hang out in the evening. Hotels are usually not that nice to hang out in.

36 points by alex_young 3y ago

“CEOs on average, just 6% of their time is spent with frontline teams and 3% with customers. They spend 72% of their time in meetings.‘ That’s the problem with most businesses right there.

karmakurtisaani 3y ago
One could argue those 3% and 6% are included in the 72%..

jbverschoor 3y ago

So basically he never read or heard about any average review or complaint? It is the not the lowest 10% Airbnb is a bad deal and a bad experience As a founder, he then could’ve hired any random ceo to do his job

voakbasda 3y ago
How could he read a bad review when AirBnb systematically deletes them?

the_cramer 3y ago

> CEOs face a real risk of operating in a bubble and never seeing the actual world their workers face,” the authors write. “Spending time with the rank and file and with savvy external frontline constituencies is an indispensable way to gain reliable information on what is really going on in the company and in the industry.” Soo much this. I've seen so many decisions that make work at the front line harder. They mean good they want to achieve a target but often it's a lack of information which worsens the effectiveness of decisions

tomas789 3y ago

AirBnB used to be a great option compared to hotels. This gap is probably reversed at this point and hotels are becoming once again the preferred choice for many. AirBnB's disadvantages are mostly about very high price on per-night basis, high cleaning fees and many (often unreasonable) requirements from the hosts. Mostly regarding cleanliness upon departure. That being said I think from my personal experience that there is a bigger problem with the service. I got a very bad experience from a relatively new all-5-star host. The host lied to us and AirBnB, tried to get more than $1000 for various claims and so on. At the end AirBnB did a very poor job at mediating the claim. Then I wrote a review. I tried to be as objective as possible. AirBnB simply deleted the review. They didn't ask us to correct anything or anything. They straight out deleted it. I believe that by doing so AirBnB is misleading both guests and their investors. This creates an impression that the service is better than it actually is. That is likely inflating their stock price. I personally believe that there should be a class action lawsuit or Hindenburg research paper about this for them to do anything about this.

doix 3y ago
I wonder if this is mostly a US problem. I've been staying exclusively in Airbnbs around Africa/Asia for the last 2 years (usually a month at a time) and have never had any of these problems. The prices were always _significantly_ cheaper than trying to stay a hotel suite or any other option. The only thing cheaper were long term rentals, but they are harder to find/organize, especially as a foreigner. I never had any cleaning requirements. I didn't trash any places, but I didn't leave them spotless. Sometimes, if I was in a rush I wouldn't have time to take the trash out before leaving. I never had any complaints from hosts, and most of my reviews claim that I am extremely tidy/clean guest. My biggest issue with Airbnb is that the filtering/search doesn't work well. There isn't a penalty for "lying" (stretching the truth?) about certain things. Too many people put "Dedicated workspace" despite having no dedicated workspace. Some people are too honest and don't put "dedicated workspace" despite having what I would consider a great dedicated workspace. It means I have to manually sit and look through the pictures to figure out if I'd have anywhere to work or not. I know a lot of people like to work from cafe's, but personally I hate doing that.
- 3y ago

rdtsc 3y ago

This sounds like a PR piece to deflect from issues and complaints people have been having. “Oh look, he has been struggling with those, too”. “The issues are definitely noticed by the CEO now.” And it also throws in an advertisement for some upcoming new features at the end.

sfmike 3y ago

he should do it again.

onetokeoverthe 3y ago

[dead]

emadda 3y ago

I released an improved AirBnB search a few months back: https://stay100.app https://stay100.app

GuardianCaveman 3y ago
I can't get the filter for max price to work.
- emadda 3y ago
  Sometimes price is missing from the AirBnB API for some searches/locales. Are you able to send me the AirBnB search URL?

nprateem 3y ago

I've never used Airbnb since they screwed me over. If something isn't right they just don't care. I don't trust them at all.

thunkshift1 3y ago

Airbnb search is broken af and full of dark patterns to force feed consumers app preferred listings and/or maximize user ‘engagement’ on app. Pretty basic options missing from app search: - sort by price. SORT not filter. - search by categories. These are only available in the landing page feed and disappear when you search for a particular place Another dark pattern: minimum number of nights.

__lbracket__ 3y ago

stopped trusting start ups a long time ago

latchkey 3y ago

So the 'fix' to the insane prices is to offer co-habitation with 'safety features'? How about just going the full distance and share beds while we are at it. I bet it is super weird to have the CEO come in and demand all sorts of changes because he did the thing that his product team probably should have done themselves.

antigirl 3y ago
thats just a re-marketing strategy for private rooms only. That itself didn't sell as well so the've remarketed it to make it sound more appealing. Some of the changes [he tweeted them] have been great. But i think the price and nuance makes hotels a better and cheaper option. For short stays at least

darkwizard42 3y ago

The article title is a lot of clickbait, but the core user-need driven approach to building features should resonate with most builder audiences on this site. Honestly, I'm really not sure what the product team was doing if they weren't noticing these issues coming up over and over and over again in user feedback. Anyone who stays in Airbnbs 10 times will encounter at least one or two of these core issues across their stays (crazy cleaning fees, additional contracts needing to be signed after booking, weird and extensive checkout steps). For the last 2-3 years Airbnb has publicly announced a set of improvements on the platform. Yes, these should have been fixed ages ago, but I commend Chesky and the Airbnb team for actually taking action. Price transparency, visibility of check-out steps beforehand, improvement around single rooms (true OG Air Bed and Breakfast style) are welcome steps and, in my humble opinion, I think Airbnb should continue to pivot away from hotels (standardized boring experiences) and lean into the uniqueness of each room/home.

user_named 3y ago
Those weird fees etc are obvious and likely known by the product team. It's likely they were imposed by the business, not originating with the product team. As such they also couldn't remove them.
dgreensp 3y ago
Yeah, I mean it’s fine for the CEO to focus on higher-level things if someone below them is aware of the problems and working on them, or making sure that the product decisions are based on the experiencing of using the product… The article seems overly congratulatory. He could just get coffee with someone who uses AirBnB a lot and they could probably tell him exactly what sucks about it. Maybe even one of his own employees. Lots of engineers use AirBnB, and the AirBnB app apparently has a thousand engineers working on it.
- kevviiinn 3y ago
  No no, you need to hire consulting firms to get that level of insight my friend
firesteelrain 3y ago

yarg 3y ago

There're very few businesses where this sort of dogfooding is viable, Airbnb's domain is such that the dude could effectively work ~24 hours a day with almost no overhead. > And Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi got behind the wheel and moonlighted as a driver during the pandemic, which led him to "reevaluate every single assumption that we’ve made I bet he didn't try surviving on Uber pay.

tennisflyi 3y ago
> And Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi got behind the wheel and moonlighted as a driver during the pandemic, which led him to "reevaluate every single assumption that we’ve made Most of those are made with a huge amount of privilege.
mint2 3y ago
If an executive trying the product leads to revelations about many assumptions, doesn’t that actually mean the executive has failed at building a good management team and structure as the principle revelation? Although given that track record, it’s clear that root cause revelation will not register.
j_crick 3y ago
> reevaluate every single assumption Oh wow, took a whole executive to figure that out /s

slaw 3y ago

I also found the core AirBnb problem, negative reviews are deleted, everything is close to 5 stars. So I search for apartments on booking.com instead.

Glawen 3y ago

I do cycling trips with my 10 year old son, we need a simple and cheap solution to spend a night in a different place every day. The requirements are: two beds or big double bed, cheap and breakfast included if possible. I never found anything on Airbnb to satisfy my needs, an hotel was always the cheaper and easier option. I'm always checking Airbnb as it has rooms in small towns along our way that would make our trip easier. The very few places on Airbnb cheaper than the hotel usually required a 10-20km detour. And I'm not even counting the extra steps needed which make Airbnb a bad choice, like the message to convince your host to accept your booking, the need to communicate with him about your arrival time, analysing the photos to figure out if you have one or two beds, the house rules about cleaning etc..

marak830 3y ago
It's simple(and I'm not arguing against you, just adding further). Hotels were cfated to fill a niche. Airbnb added "by a computer" after the essentially. So many things they bypasswd were solved issues, or non issues. The actual value add core, is so slender, that only the absolute breathless could have had something to market. Fyi I have used their services greater than 10 times, and frankly, I would have been served better by using a hotel, each time.
- andreareina 3y ago
  Airbnb is good for its original raison d'etre: spare bedrooms. When it's whole units you're operating a (probably un- or poorly-regulated) hotel and competing against professionals.
  - carlmr 3y ago
    With groups they're still somewhat unbeatable. Usually the price of hotel rooms scales roughly linearly with the number of people you have with you. With 6-8 people airbnb is almost always less than half the price of a hotel. And you can cook together, which often adds to the savings, as well as having a common room to hang out in the evening. Hotels are usually not that nice to hang out in.