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Here is the thing, in the 90's people would look at Amazon.com and be amused, mystified and scandalized by what the company was valued at, when compared to gian

Here is the thing, in the 90's people would look at Amazon.com and be amused, mystified and scandalized by what the company was valued at, when compared to giants like Borders or Radio Shack, with so many more employees/stores/etc. Turned out that intuition was wrong, and Amazon's way of doing things completely overtook the brick and mortar way not only in books and electronics, but for pretty much every product category. Then again, people probably thought the same way about Webvan vs say Safeway, and they were absolutely right in that case. So, here is the question, is AirBnB an Amazon or a Webvan? Is Marriott a Borders or a Safeway?

atmosx 12y ago
The valuation thing is silly, but there are many silly things around, so why just bother with that and not something else? But the fact that a company with ~ 50 employees (not talking about AirBNB but generally about the IT sector) generates a revenue comparable to a company (in the 90s or 80s or 60s) with 500.000 employees is a very real problem. If the modern society doesn't make to overcome this somehow, I see dark times ahead.
- cma 12y ago
  Airbnb does have hundreds of thousands of hosts that are getting some of the revenue too. Looking at gross receipts double counts and doesn't make too much sense in sounding the alarmism.
  - atmosx 12y ago
    > Airbnb does have hundreds of thousands of hosts [...] Not sure if we're in the same page here: An "AirBNB host" and an "employee" are not the same thing. If you think that they are, then the problem I was trying to describe is deeper than I thought.
    - cma 12y ago
      My point was you are looking at gross revenue, when they are really a booking agent, so they only get about 3% of that revenue after reimbursing hosts. Hosts do the cleaning, service, etc. that makes up the bulk of the 200,000 employee number for Marriott. If you want to compare net profit instead of gross revenue and say it is sick, I don't think the 200,000 employees would care, since their pay subtracts from Marriott's profit.

atmosx 12y ago

The valuation thing is silly, but there are many silly things around, so why just bother with that and not something else? But the fact that a company with ~ 50 employees (not talking about AirBNB but generally about the IT sector) generates a revenue comparable to a company (in the 90s or 80s or 60s) with 500.000 employees is a very real problem. If the modern society doesn't make to overcome this somehow, I see dark times ahead.

cma 12y ago
Airbnb does have hundreds of thousands of hosts that are getting some of the revenue too. Looking at gross receipts double counts and doesn't make too much sense in sounding the alarmism.
- atmosx 12y ago
  > Airbnb does have hundreds of thousands of hosts [...] Not sure if we're in the same page here: An "AirBNB host" and an "employee" are not the same thing. If you think that they are, then the problem I was trying to describe is deeper than I thought.
  - cma 12y ago
    My point was you are looking at gross revenue, when they are really a booking agent, so they only get about 3% of that revenue after reimbursing hosts. Hosts do the cleaning, service, etc. that makes up the bulk of the 200,000 employee number for Marriott. If you want to compare net profit instead of gross revenue and say it is sick, I don't think the 200,000 employees would care, since their pay subtracts from Marriott's profit.