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Airbnb is the ebay of housing, creating liquid markets for unused or unwanted goods without taking on any inventory, risk or capital. This is a service that lit

Airbnb is the ebay of housing, creating liquid markets for unused or unwanted goods without taking on any inventory, risk or capital. This is a service that literally prints money - and so long as they don't get Meg Whitman as their CEO - they won't fuck up. I wouldn't be surprised if they surpassed eBay within the decade in terms of net profit. Next up on the liquid market list should be cars. Any other markets out there that need liquidity? Goods that aren't used or assets that lay dormant? I'm all ears.

felipemnoa 14y ago
Did a bit of search on Meg Whitman. I found this on Wikipedia: Whitman served as president and chief executive officer of eBay from 1998 to 2008. During her ten years with the company, she oversaw expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. Doesn't seem too bad. Not trolling or anything but why do you think she is so bad?
- confluence 14y ago
  http://exiledonline.com/how-meg-whitman-failed-her-way-to-the-top-at-ebay-collecting-billions-while-nearly-destroying-the-company/ http://exiledonline.com/how-meg-whitman-failed-her-way-to-th... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/undoing-meg-whitmans-ebay/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/undoing-meg-whitman... Third cause successes can hide failures rather well. Companies can succeed despite their absolutely atrocious leadership - not because of it. Both she and Carly Fiorina were two of the worst things that could've happened to eBay and HP respectively (Meg Whitman for both). They are nasty pieces of work. Balmer is another example - he is single-handedly going to destroy a $200 billion dollar corporation and no one is stopping him. Hell they'd save a lot of money by making me CEO :D.
  - eddy_chan 14y ago
    I'd add Stephen Elop to that list as well, he will be judged in due time
  - Evbn 14y ago
    That is an election year hit piece on a fringe blog (alter net) Whitman led eBay to incredible valuations (6x from 1998 IPO to 2005), until the bizarre Skype flop, and as the MS buyout showed, Skype was run by some very clever crooks. https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:EBAY&rlz=1Y1PGWF_en___US489 https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:EBAY&#...
    - jaggederest 14y ago
      As a user, that's roughly the timespan during which eBay went from the marketplace to being more or less irrelevant. When Craigslist beats you based on user interface, you know you have issues.
eddy_chan 14y ago
When you create a company that acts as an agent or marketplace between 2 parties you have to take on some of the risk in the transaction if you're profiting from it. AirBnB struck a goldmine in apartments cos it's pretty hard to 'steal' an apartment and take it away or damage it beyond all repair through normal expected use. I would gather most places are 'uninsured' for the duration of the sublease because the normal conditions have been broken but owners feel that that is a risk worth taking on for the expected return. Cars that sit around are a different story - I feel for these guys http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing-service-higear-shuts-down-due-to-theft/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing-service-... but the truth of the matter is that with the next tier of high value illiquid stuff below apartments such as luxury cars and boats the perceived risk of letting somebody 'borrow' it is much higher. It is entirely feasible that whatever you're leasing out could get destroyed/sunk/totaled/stolen in normal use for its intended purpose. To provide such a market you would have to provide the insurance that goes with it and that's the hard bit. This is why zipcar et al has stitched up the lower end of the car market. The car is 'common property' and they have the insurance to cover all who drive it. Not saying it shouldn't be done - I'd actually love to build AirBnB for boats cos I sail but I can't afford my own boat or the charter prices being asked.
- billiamram 14y ago
  Cars also lose value through continued use much more rapidly than "space". Doubling the utilization rate of a car may halve its usable lifetime. There's also the issue of liability and risk to the user. A poorly maintained car might be dangerous to drive and difficult to recognize.
- dnr 14y ago
  There are boats listed on airbnb. I've rented one.
billiamram 14y ago
Aside from the insurance coverage, Airbnb appears to reduce risk for involved parties by humanizing the transactions. They encourage getting to know your host, and I'd imagine people are more likely to respect other people's property when they are aware of and can relate to the person behind the space. Even before transactions take place, users are encouraged to have rich profiles and social connections to demonstrate reliability and facilitate trust. There may be potential for this sort of humanization in other areas where the perceived risk of a transaction currently outweighs the benefit. One way to think about it may be to consider things that you borrow from a friend. Airbnb covers the sleep on a friend's couch/spare bed niche quite well. Some interesting things I can think of... perhaps using space on a more granular level such as holding a meeting in a conference room or watching a movie on a home theater system. Things like renting parking spaces might be interesting as well in some areas where parking is very limited.

felipemnoa 14y ago

Did a bit of search on Meg Whitman. I found this on Wikipedia: Whitman served as president and chief executive officer of eBay from 1998 to 2008. During her ten years with the company, she oversaw expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. Doesn't seem too bad. Not trolling or anything but why do you think she is so bad?

confluence 14y ago
http://exiledonline.com/how-meg-whitman-failed-her-way-to-the-top-at-ebay-collecting-billions-while-nearly-destroying-the-company/ http://exiledonline.com/how-meg-whitman-failed-her-way-to-th... http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/undoing-meg-whitmans-ebay/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/undoing-meg-whitman... Third cause successes can hide failures rather well. Companies can succeed despite their absolutely atrocious leadership - not because of it. Both she and Carly Fiorina were two of the worst things that could've happened to eBay and HP respectively (Meg Whitman for both). They are nasty pieces of work. Balmer is another example - he is single-handedly going to destroy a $200 billion dollar corporation and no one is stopping him. Hell they'd save a lot of money by making me CEO :D.
- eddy_chan 14y ago
  I'd add Stephen Elop to that list as well, he will be judged in due time
- Evbn 14y ago
  That is an election year hit piece on a fringe blog (alter net) Whitman led eBay to incredible valuations (6x from 1998 IPO to 2005), until the bizarre Skype flop, and as the MS buyout showed, Skype was run by some very clever crooks. https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:EBAY&rlz=1Y1PGWF_en___US489 https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:EBAY&#...
  - jaggederest 14y ago
    As a user, that's roughly the timespan during which eBay went from the marketplace to being more or less irrelevant. When Craigslist beats you based on user interface, you know you have issues.

eddy_chan 14y ago

When you create a company that acts as an agent or marketplace between 2 parties you have to take on some of the risk in the transaction if you're profiting from it. AirBnB struck a goldmine in apartments cos it's pretty hard to 'steal' an apartment and take it away or damage it beyond all repair through normal expected use. I would gather most places are 'uninsured' for the duration of the sublease because the normal conditions have been broken but owners feel that that is a risk worth taking on for the expected return. Cars that sit around are a different story - I feel for these guys http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing-service-higear-shuts-down-due-to-theft/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/luxury-car-sharing-service-... but the truth of the matter is that with the next tier of high value illiquid stuff below apartments such as luxury cars and boats the perceived risk of letting somebody 'borrow' it is much higher. It is entirely feasible that whatever you're leasing out could get destroyed/sunk/totaled/stolen in normal use for its intended purpose. To provide such a market you would have to provide the insurance that goes with it and that's the hard bit. This is why zipcar et al has stitched up the lower end of the car market. The car is 'common property' and they have the insurance to cover all who drive it. Not saying it shouldn't be done - I'd actually love to build AirBnB for boats cos I sail but I can't afford my own boat or the charter prices being asked.

billiamram 14y ago
Cars also lose value through continued use much more rapidly than "space". Doubling the utilization rate of a car may halve its usable lifetime. There's also the issue of liability and risk to the user. A poorly maintained car might be dangerous to drive and difficult to recognize.
dnr 14y ago
There are boats listed on airbnb. I've rented one.

billiamram 14y ago

Aside from the insurance coverage, Airbnb appears to reduce risk for involved parties by humanizing the transactions. They encourage getting to know your host, and I'd imagine people are more likely to respect other people's property when they are aware of and can relate to the person behind the space. Even before transactions take place, users are encouraged to have rich profiles and social connections to demonstrate reliability and facilitate trust. There may be potential for this sort of humanization in other areas where the perceived risk of a transaction currently outweighs the benefit. One way to think about it may be to consider things that you borrow from a friend. Airbnb covers the sleep on a friend's couch/spare bed niche quite well. Some interesting things I can think of... perhaps using space on a more granular level such as holding a meeting in a conference room or watching a movie on a home theater system. Things like renting parking spaces might be interesting as well in some areas where parking is very limited.