I'm aware of that, but this part of the story seems to have evolved past that. I'm only referring to the "Arrington vs. pg" sub-story that's fallen out of this.
I certainly don't mean to make light of what happened to the lady who's home was ransacked.
It's a "sub-story" only if you make it to be. What you can do also is not give a shit and not look for debacles, existent or otherwise.
I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc.
I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc.
I suspect that most, if not all, of us are interested in those things. That doesn't mean one can't also appreciate certain sub elements of the story from other angles. But to be fair, maybe it's still too early and maybe emotions are still too raw (especially since the woman in question still hasn't had this resolved to her satisfaction) for any indulgence in the possibly humorous aspects of this. If so, I was wrong to post my original post, and I and apologize to anyone who is offended.
Agreed. In the end, I want the best resolution possible for EJ, given that something terrible happened to her.
But in a more abstract sense, I'm very interested in how AirBnB (as a semi-responsible party) and YC (as a seed investor) handle and respond to the situation. Here on HN we talk a lot about treating your customers well and being as transparent as possible.
But something here is amiss. The victim is saying one thing, and the company and investor in that company are saying things that don't quite jive. We may never know where the truth lies exactly, but AirBnB doesn't seem to be handling this very well.
Regardless of whether or not AirBnB is legally responsible, they need to step up. Personally I think the best thing for them to do is to just fix the problem. They need to reach out to EJ, and not just in the "what do you need?" sense. They need to just do things for her. She's traumatized and in a very bad, vulnerable state right now. Who wouldn't be? Asking her what she needs is not the best approach, because she likely isn't really sure what she needs. They need to just go right out and help her find a new place to live, and help her replace some of the things she's lost, to the best of their ability.
I don't know if PG is checking his facts or is just trusting the AirBnB founders and telling us what he's been told by them, but, frankly, in this case, I don't care what he has to say. The AirBnB founders need to go all out on this, probably accept more responsibility for what happened than they are really responsible for, and just make it right as well as they can. It won't be perfect, but they have to show the community that the community comes first, and AirBnB's bottom line comes second. Because perhaps non-intuitively, putting the community first actually does put their bottom line first. But from what I've read and seen so far, they haven't done that.
I think you're just being cheeky, but it is pretty compelling. There seem to be two positions:
1. AirBnB is a broker and carries not responsibility for the parties after the deal is done. They are sympathetic, but they are right in not commenting or otherwise participating in these affairs.
2. AirBnB is building a new model and has significant responsibility (socially, perhaps legally) for ensuring end-to-end integrity of its engagements.
I think this will all go away shortly, but I think we're bound to see very similar situations with other companies that change how people interact. Seems like Arrington and pg are working on totally different information, but I suspect they're both rather removed from the situation.
- "Brian Chesky called me and I updated that post"
- "Chesky repeatedly thanked me for the updates by email and on the phone"
Seems like Chesky and Lukezic spent more time talking to Arrington trying to do "PR damage control" rather than talk to their customer EJ. Which, given Arrington's new post, totally backfired, too:
"At least have the decency to stand up and say you’re wrong, Airbnb, and apologize for the lies. Because hiding behind investors, and attacking the press, is both dishonorable and stupid. That’s no way to gain customer trust."
Ouch. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
Another example of a select few bad apples ruining it for everyone. This is such a shame. I've had great experiences with Airbnb. The last person who rented my loft left it cleaner that it was before!
Well, that's a non sequitur drama queen title if I ever saw one. A straw man in so few words: cunning. No one is faulting Arrington for what happened to EJ. Arrington is being faulted, rightly or wrongly, for bad journalism. Bait-and-switch.
In case you don't know, this is the appropriate title for this story because this is how Michael Arrington titled his. In most cases, using the original title is the way to go.
That's extremely interesting. When the victim EJ posted (was it Thursday?) about being intimidated and lied to by Airbnb, it was obviously very different from what they were saying publicly. I figured though she is very very upset about everything and overreacting. However, this new report is a second witness that Airbnb is playing dirty behind the scenes while acting all nice guy in public, and PG defending it. Probably he believes what they say, but the fact is that it's Arrington that ends up being right on these articles, but even if it wasn't, we already know the story came from EJ the victim and not Arrington anyway, so PG either didn't do proper diligence in checking before posting or is outright lying to protect his investment. I think PG is honest and just didn't check up on things, but believed what he was told by his unnamed contact at Airbnb, who is clearly angry at the victim. The unnamed Airbnb contact's attitude of anger corroborates EJ's story that she was intimidated by them. What a mess. It's obvious at this point both that PG should apologize to Arrington and Airbnb is basically done for. I am sure they have many people there trying to do the right thing but they have at least one person there in CYA mode who has basically both destroyed the company and lied to PG.
I can't imagine that AirBnb are "done for" after one such incident. I think the real issue here is that HN readers, the kind who root for startups to "stick it to the man", so to speak, are disheartened to see their champions acting like the old regime. That's why this topic, and the public bun fight in the aftermath have generated so much discussion.
I can easily imagine they are done for. Not because of the PR backlash, but because what they are doing is already quasi-illegal in a lot of places and one juicy story like this that the media, lawyers and politicians can jump on is just about all it will take to eventually remove the "quasi" part.
Now that you are saying it, I find that it also adds to the "bad integrity" flavour of AirBnB's actions in general. How can bet your career on a half-ilegal business model? I understand sometimes you have to be "crazy" to get a company going et al, but there is still something to the fact, that these guys were ready to do it, specially after 'craigslist' and 'EJ'.
This whole thing really shows the character of Airbnb in general. First there was the issue with spamming people on craigs list (PG also defended this action) and now this, next there will be something else and im sure that PG will come to their defense again. I understand he has to say whatever he needs to say to protect his investment but a little objectivity would nice.
You know, I assumed that much of what she said was a misinterpretation of events based on emotional stress like you say since their public face was completely different from the aggressive stance they (at least one of them) were taking in private. However, that changed after reading the Arrington article because it is now corroborated that they do in fact have people there taking an aggressive stance, and who are lying to PG since what PG said is definitely not true.
I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there.
...with how Arrington now casts the spokesman's statement...
Airbnb’s Christopher Lukezic told me on Wednesday that the company was not responsible for EJ’s losses, that they are just a service to match people and that they were helping the police find the people who did this.
There's a subtle but very important difference: 'not responsible' is not the same as 'their help ends there'.
Did Arrington choose to punish the 'no comment' by using words carefully chosen to make AirBnb look worse? His latest post does not disprove that hypothesis!
And when Arrington says, "What he said is what I wrote [above], and what was in the original post", well that's not true. The original post had a stronger implication AirBnb wasn't helping. Which is exactly what PG was objecting to.
Mmm, he's showing a bit of lack of journalistic integrity here. He should have quoted himself and maybe mention the possible mis understanding.
Right now it seems that the whole situation is full or misunderstanding due to massive lack of communication between the people who are actually involved. EJ, AirBnB and SFPD seem to not be exchanging what they know very well. That was echoed in EJ's 2nd post where she says that the police might be giving different info to AirBnB and what not.
It's he said - she said - kinda stuff that ultimately we'll never get to the bottom of.
But Arrington so often finds himself at the centre of these idiotic exchanges and personal attack-fests that it's very hard not to believe PG about this.
It's just a real shame that the reputation of a really cool company rests on that level of exchange between folks. It must be really frustrating for them.
No it doesn't. Their reputation rests on their users, one of whom is trashing them in public after a bad experience. Arrington/TC have published pretty much everything Chesky have told them, including letting them do a guest post.
EJ said as much in the first post. But offers without follow-through are worthless. And the problem is that, from EJ's perspective at least, there has been absolutely none. And swinging a bat at Arrington won't change that.
I can't believe I'm defending Arrington here but for once, I think PG is off and Arrington is right.
Arrington's editorializing has been fairly tame in this story. A lot of the mess has been due to EJ's posts and Airbnb's attempts at damage control.
If you look through the original post, there are only a couple of lines where Arrington says Airbnb isn't financially responsible and that is, imho, a fair interpretation of what the spokesperson/Lukezic told him. TC has also done a fair job of publishing Airbnb's side of the story - guest posts, updating their posts, etc.
Airbnb's real problem here is EJ, not Arrington. Airbnb's image isn't getting tarnished by posts on TC, it is getting tarnished by EJ's blog posts which make Airbnb's people seem cold and insensitive.
If you look at PG's comments on the earlier thread, he seemed to imply that Airbnb disagreed with EJ's version of events (they called her before her second post, etc). That could be Airbnb's big problem - it seems to me they want to say EJ is lying but can't in public.
Seconded. It is hard to write a defense of TC given past events. However in this case they are SPOT ON.
None of the stories are overtly "drama" or "editorializing" on TC's part. EJs posts are dramatic enough.
PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department, not to mention trying to censor somebody by pressuring them.
Taking about closing funding rounds to a person who has their house burgled and trashed is beyond ludicrous.
Disappointing...all in all.
They aren't falling short on being ethical. If you had read the very first story airbnb came out with a pretty decent explanation. I believe they were too ethical in the first place. They gave out a lot of info to be exact. To put it blantly they were overly nice and this chick is takin advantage of that. But TC did nothin wrong though.
It's also possible he thinks he is acting in good faith. It's possible that AirBnB gave a different story to PG, when he asked what was going on, and they complained about how the press was misrepresenting them. PG then blogs their excuses, having taken them as gospel.
I'm really surprised how definitive PG sounds. He's not saying "The CEO reassured me in a private chat ...", he's acting like he was a fly on the wall, and saw it all take place.
pg once cited Mark Twain's "Corn-pone Opinons" essay in a link from "What You Can't Say". I expect he's already given thought to his own biases here, and yes we also ought to remain aware of that.
He's not a drama queen. The people saying so are the VCs upset after he posted about their secret conspiracy meetings, which they denied, and it all was true. The VC community has it in for him since then and will do anything to attack the guy, who is one of the only credible writers left in this field full of vipers and narcissists.
I am not questioning his credibility, I'm questioning his presentation. I'm doing it several levels deep in a comment thread because I don't think it's an incredibly important point, though I do think it's worth making.
For example:
"1. What the hell?" is a dramatic and confrontational expression of anger, frustration, and indignation. Justified or not, it reads like a flame war, not journalism.
"There's no reason [AirBnB] couldn't be as big as Ebay." Paul Graham in published email to Fred Wilson. http://paulgraham.com/airbnb.html
PG is a thinking man, and an effective one at that. Reading (not that deeply) between the lines, clearly every sensible person initially "has doubts" about the concept, but then apparently meeting the team is supposed to address those doubts.
Sounds like the AirBnB team are excellent as bs'ing people.
And dear PG:
Cheering for AirBnB to become as big as eBay circa 2009's business plan seems to indicate that even the adults here were not giving any weight to the safety and security issues inherent in an eBay scale operation. I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts about this topic (if any) that informed your decision.
I just don't think that's a fair characterization. Obviously right in the midst of the police's own investigation airbnb's lawyers advised them not to make characterizations that would get ahead of the investigation. PG wanted to make that clear, and the news coverage wouldn't let that rest.
The way many people here jumped to conclusions after the initial AirBnB story based on almost no information is really disheartening. Insulting the founders of the company, the victim, and concocting conspiracy theories based on a few paragraphs of information with barely any evidence is a really poor way to conduct oneself. Most decent people wouldn't do it in face-to-face conversations without getting to know a person at least slightly, and it's unfortunate that our psychology is built in a way that an extra layer of anonymity afforded by the internet enables a large number of people to drop all sense of tact and respect, and jump into personal attacks with very little information about the actual incident. If you're one of the people that engaged in this type of behavior, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You're doing real damage to real people, while knowing almost nothing about what's actually going on, but more importantly, you're damaging your own reputation.
I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers. They live and breathe positive change they bring to the world, to the point where they carry letters from customers that thanked them for saving their lives because the bank would have repossessed their home if not for AirBnB. Jumping on them because they didn't have a chance to give a complete response while handling a crisis is really uncalled for.
I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding, but even if it isn't, it's really inappropriate to insult people given the information currently available. In fact, it's never appropriate to insult people, and it's best to hold back criticism until more information is available, lest you do some real damage to real people.
There are some valid concerns about where personal responsibility ends and liability begins (legally and ethically), and how AirBnB's service will evolve to address these issues, but there are different ways to discuss these concerns, and discussions here so far have been nothing but poisonous.
Dude, have you even read the OP? The AirBnB thing has left the building, now it is Arrington drama. Throw in PG, and this is going to be HN fodder for days. C'est la vie.
I think the problem is that in an information vacuum rumours and speculation can easily take hold.
The lack of a complete, definitive account from AirBnB (that is also consistent with EJ's) means that those curious about the event have to speculate about what REALLY happened - a recipe for nastiness.
Edit:
Also consider how many doubted EJ's account as well - or even that anything actually happened. More speculation due to the lack of clarity regarding this event.
Please don't lead off with telling us not to jump to conclusions, and then laying out your conclusion for us.
> I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers.
> * I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding*
People aren't all good or all bad, and sometimes good people do bad things. Even people you admire. It doesn't mean they're bad people, or that you're a bad judge of character. It just means they screwed up.
You made a judgment about the character of the AirBNB folks and seem unwilling to question them now. But you haven't met the victim, and you're more than willing to imply that this is her misunderstanding while masking this in the faux compassion of saying she's just traumatized.
It's not a matter of questioning people you admire or not, it's a matter of reserving judgment and not making personal attacks until you know all the facts from both parties.
He's giving you another damn perspective: that from his personal experience, he's seen the AirBnB folks to be good people and that maybe we don't have the full story; so it's unfair to launch an all out attack on them. And how do you respond? Yeah, well, good people can be bad, too! Now you're just finding any way to rationalize your jugement of the situation.
He said there are valid concerns here, but is urging people to consider that there may be other factors.
I agree. Everyone thinks they're "nice, good, honest" people. Being nice is easy. Being emotionally intelligent is hard. It's not enough to be sincere. The person who works and slaves at their day job until they're 50 and have a heart attack is sincere, but is unintelligent.
Quick advice, that has nothing to do with AirBnB specifically:
> I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers.
Don't judge someone's genuineness by listening to them speak or promoting their testimonials. Watch what they actually do.
This might seem stupid, but given the line of events if I was AirBNB's founders I would do this; offer EJ my place to stay, and cook a simple meal for her. That's it.
The shortfall of AirBNB over here is that they might care, but they aren't coming across as someone caring, and a little bit of empathy coupled with a genuine act of kindness will go a long way over here.
I think the reason they don't do anything to really fix it rather than lip service and lawyer wrangling and dirty PR tricks is they are afraid of setting a precedent. However, they should have thought that through a bit more. They are saying they've had a million rentals or some such with no incident. If that is true, covering someone's damage for the 1 in a million case should be something they can do. Let's say it costs $10,000. That's nothing compared to their profit for those million cases where it didn't happen. By not doing this they are sending several possible messages. One is that they believe that a lot more robberies are going to happen and they have been lucky so far. It's not going to be 1 in a million it's going to be 1 in a 100, and they can't afford to fix 1% of all stays that turn into robberies. This message also means they believe it is impossible to fix, they give up on the idea of ever being able to truly identify renters (the rentees are not as big an issue to identify since their names are on the deeds). I think that's crazy since it's really obvious they have been severely legally negligent in not actually acquiring real identities of renters, though they have certainly implied to rentees that it was safe as if they had. That's probably going to end up being determined by some court or consumer advocacy agency like the FTC to be a misrepresentation. The other bad message they send with this is that if they truly believe it is 1 in a million and they don't want to help her out by finding a place to stay and fixing her apartment, then they are obscenely greedy. There are costs to doing this sort of business after all, you can't just starve the business and take it all for yourself. Some money needs to be set aside for these sorts of 100% predictable and inevitable occurrences.
Whoever is on their hack legal team is should be fired and they should get some real lawyers in there. Obviously they are obsessed with CYA and avoiding responsibility. If that is where they want to be fine but then they have no business running this sort of business. This business is going to have robberies, rapes and murders from time to time. They should have had a plan. Yelling "it's not our fault", threatening the victim, playing the hypocrite, and attacking people who reasonably comment on the story (and through a third party, what cowards) is absolutely not the right approach. What you mentioned is pretty good though, but it's pretty clear that was brought up and dismissed as something that might cost a couple hundred bucks they were too greedy to let go of.
I genuinely don't know the truth, but this reminds me of something Sivers 'wrote http://sivers.org/the-mob ( if I was Brian Chesky then I would ask for his advice. That man has a way with people. )
"(the rentees are not as big an issue to identify since their names are on the deeds)"
Keep in mind the other story doing the rounds here about the guy in Germany who go stuck with fraudulent rentees charging him money to stay in a house they didn't own, and having to deal with the house owner showing up and asking what he was ding there...
The thing is, there's no reason why it should cost 10k bucks in the first place. Okay, well, unless there are travel costs included.
Fact is, before anything else, this is a personal matter, so do it as a person - ideally on your spare time (if you ever can make some) with your personal funds if you can - everyone will accept a founder doing this, it will not engage any responsibility/liability whatsoever, it will not establish any precedent, and it will change the reception radically, for both the victim, the company and the public.
This is a person offering another person to meet, talk aaaaaand 3 years from now we have "Beds & Breaks" hitting the theatres, a movie loosely based on real facts, starring...
In San Francisco it can easily cost $10K to get situated into a new apartment. The average rent is $2300, so $6900 and broker fees just to move in. Plus, she needs all new stuff.
I meant for the company. It's not needed to involve the company's money in this case.
As a side note, how big are those appartments in San Francisco? Here in Paris for that kind of money each month you get 60 square meters and no single person can afford those. Most live in a third or a half of this surface.
That's very interesting, thanks for showing a typical example. They state they require verifiable 3.5 x income to rent ratio. This means you must make at least $2395 x 3.5 x 12 = $100,590 in order to be allowed to rent this dinky old 1 bedroom that appears to have been constructed on the roof of a parking garage.
they are afraid of it to become systematic, that's why they are trying to keep it secret that they are helping her materially etc, but it really doesn't need to:
such a thing happened for the first time, the next times anybody suffered would have to blame only themselves, because they knew the EJ story but handled their keys to stranger without the extensive check.
I think the original sin in all this was yanking the original AirBnB support person who was helping EJ and replacing this contact with CYA bullshit. From EJ's perspective it probably looked very much like AirBnB turning their back on the problem and clamming up. At that point, any offer of financial help just looks like AirBnB trying to pay her to go away.
Sorry PG, but you have a steep hill to climb if you want to defend aribnb.
The crux of your (and their) problem is this: Why, if, as you say, airbnb was being as helpful as possible from the get-go, did the victim write that second post?
That's it. You cannot have a claim to credibility until you answer that question. Even if that answer is, "she was paid off", the existence of her second blog post puts the lie to airbnb's (and your) claims. Either she's telling the truth, or they (and you) are. They are mutually exclusive stories.
Bringing Arrington's Arringtonity into this is a red herring. The story isn't about him. There are two involved parties, here, and you've aligned yourself with airbnb. The victim's story isn't being run through the TC filter; it's there for everyone to see. So far, the collective 'you' have not addressed it, refuted her points, or shown how the two accounts are compatible.
It's easy to hop on the "Michael Arrington is a sensationalistic dick" bandwagon, because he is. That doesn't address the issue, though, and it comes across as a deflection.
This is someone who thought it was a good idea to rent out their home (not just their property, their home) for a whole week, unattended, to a total stranger. The biggest mistake Airbnb have made is not overly trusting their travellers, but also their hosts.
You would have a factual point if AirBnB prominently displays on relevant pages "We assume you are not stupid enough to rent out your primary residence. Make sure you don't since we are NOT in the insurance business and take NO responsibility for any damages".
This is the kind of situation that leads to 'Keep away from fire' labels being added to t-shirts.
To me renting your home to a stranger and then failing to check up on them for an entire week is incredibly naive. 10 year old naive.
I don't care if airbnb said that they would provide 100% insurance, I would still not do this, it is simply against how I know the world works.
And don't tell me about the 'good human being assumption', this is a fairytale, anyone making that assuption will get burned sooner or later.
Your post is a bit cynical. Most people are good in most interpersonal matters. This doesn't mean that you should take the gamble, however, on something as personal and important as your primary residence. We should recognize that while most people will not trash your home if you let them stay there without any supervision for a whole week, some people will. I don't know the exact proportion, but even if the chance is small, you may want to think carefully about whether you want to take that chance.
It's important to have a belief that most people are not looking to screw up your life specifically. It's also important to not be so naive that you take dangerous gambles, like the ones made in EJ's story. Better safe than sorry.
There's an important equilibrium to be struck here.
Call me old fashioned, but I personally believe that we, the technical elite who effortlessly can integrate new tech into our lives and understand the deeper implications of technology being used -- here is looking at you Google founders in context of privacy -- are a form of a pseudo nobility and have responsibilities to our less fortunate brethren (who yes, sometimes DO need big warning stickers on comforters and coffee cups containing excessively hot liquids).
imho, this affair is simply a manifestation of a larger problem:
No, the biggest mistake AirBnB has is not following PR 101 - get all the bad facts out at once, then start spinning up some positive stories. Feed reporters a narrative, and give them lots of headlines to use, or they will start thinking of ones themselves.
Day 1: A woman had her house trashed by a rogue guest. We do not believe we are legally responsible for this. All AirBnB users, while this is an isolated incident, please take care when taking in guests, especially if they are new users. See our guide to safer AirBnB here...
Day 2: We are working with the police, and have turned over all details relevant to the case. We are also in talks with the unfortunate host, seeing what we can do to help her with through this difficult time. If you wish to leave a supportive note to here, please leave it here:
Day 3. As we have stated, we do not believe we are liable for these actions. However, we overhauling our safety information, and offering support to the victim.
...
Really, it's not hard. OK, it is hard if you think you did no wrong, and everyone should see it from your point of view.
> Why, if, as you say, airbnb was being as helpful as possible from the get-go, did the victim write that second post?
Speculation:
Airbnb offered money and support if she agreed not to sue them and not to feed the press the negative story about the service. She refuses to commit to this, they refuse to pay her without it. None of the two parties wants to be transparent about this part of communication. Technically, no one lied.
That's the first plausible explanation I've seen that at least partially bridges the gaps in the two stories. Still, that scenario doesn't match airbnb's claims. They claim they've been helpful and supportive throughout this. If that was limited to being nice for the first few days then trying to buy her silence, that's nowhere close to how they've characterized it.
Let's engage in a little thought exercise. Pretend that you are the Airbnb victim. You live in incredible fear of psychotic criminals and identity thieves. The fear is so uncontrollable that you "spend [your] mornings recalling nightmares and breathing through panic attacks."
Would you:
a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low?
I would too. The person had been playing psychological games with her via email. This is not some teenager stealing a TV, this is a psychopath that plays long games with the victim the way a cat plays with a mouse before mauling and eating it. We are not talking some routine crime, there is a very sick component here that goes way beyond normal robberies. I carry (a gun in case it's not clear) in public and know how to fight, and I would feel extremely uncomfortable in my apartment until the perps were caught and in prison, not out on bail after something as twisted as what happened. ... Oh and yeah, I would also publicly trash the company (the two things are definitely not mutually exclusive) in order to warn other innocent people so they don't have to experience the terror and abuse that I went through. Unless the company fixed things. But obviously not knowing the identity of the person that was renting means they were a major contributor to the problem so I would definitely complain loudly, from wherever I was hiding out from the psycho killer.
The criminals already know everything about her (real name, likely her social security number, etc), what on earth does she have to lose by "extremely public" blogging?
I think perhaps the more important question here is with pg going to bat for Airbnb against Arrington, is this going to affect the long term relationship between Y Combinator and Techcrunch.
Techcrunch have always provided favourable coverage to YC companies, but if that relationship is going tepid because of this affair, the negative fall-out could be far worse for YC than for AirBnB. Most consumers will forget about stories like this after a while, journalists tend to hold grudges (see Arrington vs Calcanis).
This is my little 2 cents on this whole fiasco that seems not to go away.
All this would not have come to this if Airbnb guys asked themselves a simple question. How would I handle this if this happened to my sister of wife.
The main problem is Airbnb had about a month to fix this before it became 'viral'. It was only the post by TC that made me realise this issue was about a month ago (30 days!).
As a fan of Airbnb, (I have not used the service, but i have given them a few customers), I am a bit disappointed in the response. I do not blame them for waat happened to EJ. The problem that has happened is as a result of their reaction to what had happened.
I am kind of amazed that after a month, not one of the founders has gone to see the house (they have the address) but rather they have been doing "everything" to help. This is politician talk, not startup talk. Why startups were really cool was the possibility of getting in touch with the founder of it rather than the "automated customer service of big companies".
The only actionable thing Airbnb have done during the last few days fiasco is try to cover their asses. i.e change the security page, write a blog post on TC and defend themselves. Now anything they do will not be perceived in good faith but in reaction to the angry mob (as PG calls it). It is never good to be reactionary.
If I were the CEO of Airbnb, I would do this:
Go and look physically and look at the house.
Go and look for the victim and be sincere in my apology and request for another chance to start again.
Behave as if it was my sister this thing happened to.
I really hope some good "no win no fee" lawyer has not got to her first.
When you are successful, people are out there trying to hang you, please Airbnb, do not give them a rope.
I agree with your general sentiment, but as far as visiting the house that is a very bad idea unless they are specifically invited by EJ. Otherwise they could get accused of not believing that the damage really occurred and checking up on her. It could look very bad, and would definitely be made to look bad by aggressive bloggers. There would definitely be posts and comments saying things like, "Why are their lawyers searching her house? Don't they believe she was robbed! Look at the police report you dolts, you don't have to invade her privacy! Not at a time like this you insensitive clods." If on the other hand she does invite them to see the damage, they should definitely go.
So how would they help this person? Reimburse her? AirBnb is technically not liable for those damages right? So how much do they give her? If it's too little it might be insulting. Too much and people would still complain about irreparable emotional damage.
They said they're trying to help catch the perpetrator right? In my eyes that's all they really can do and the only thing that matters. The damages are primarily the girl's responsibility but the criminal is partially Airbnb's fault.
I believe the answer to the question "what can AirBnb do?" is really only somewhere deep within the subconsciousness of the victim, and can't be found in a book, nor on an internet forum. Just move your butt and go ask her in person what she needs. Chances are, the first things the victim needs is in the likes of a roof and some emotional council - a cup of coffee, a discussion, a phone number and maybe a few hundred bucks for immediate expenses can help pave the way for the next steps, which are damage assessment and recovery.
It's cheap, considerate and probably much more effective than a simple "sorry" press release. And it has nothing, nothing to do with legal responsibility/liability at this point. When someone is distressed enough to ask specifically for my help, it's the kind of things I'd eagerly do, whether it's my fault or not.
She does not seem to have accepted Airbnb's financial compensations... So I don't think that's the issue.
I'm almost absolutely certain Airbnb would have asked the question "How can we make this right?" Anyone would ask that question.
What I suspect is that the girl was not able to answer that question when Airbnb asked it and thus doesn't know what she needs to fix this situation. So naturally she needs an outlet and so she blogged about it.
You know, I am no cheerleader for Michael Arrington, we've certainly banged heads a few times in comment threads (it's a fun way to spend an evening) but what Paul Graham is doing here is pretty cynical:
Once it became clear yesterday that the empathically-challenged kids in charge at Airbnb had no clue of how to manage the problem, and that the company was hemorrhaging tens of millions in notional value every time Brian Chesky opened his mouth and a bunch of lies and half-truths came tumbling out, the investors called an emergency meeting and tried to figure out a way out of this mess.
Clearly, as the situation had been left to rot for a month, giving the victim plenty of time to become more upset and alienated, it was too late to pretend that the situation itself had been handled in any way properly.
There was also no longer any subtle way to silence to victim - that bridge already been burned by the ham-fisted attempt to bully her into deleting her original post... attempts made, incredibly, OVER THE PHONE!
And, as those attempts were now part of the another blog post, it was too late to act like fucking professionals, meet her in person, put her up in five star luxury while they arrange and pay to have her home cleansed, fumigated, redecorated, refurnished, blessed by a witchdoctor, whatever it took to shut her up.... it was too late for all that.
So, Paul Graham, an intelligent man with a good eye for small details, noticed the one and only sliver of a chance Airbnb has to get out of this mess with it's valuation above the billion mark, rather than far below it: the universal antipathy towards Michael Arrington!
So, now, the course is set and, from here on out, Airbnb and their investors are going to completely ignore the truth that it was the victim's own account which contradicts Airbnb's rapidly shifting assertions, and, instead, they are going to pretend that the whole controversy is a link-bait concoction by Silicon Valley's favorite super-villain, Dr. Arrington. What actually happened will not matter and, right now, you can bet the Paul Graham is down on his knees praying that Jason Calacanis will take the tasty Arrington bait and run this story in the other direction.
Of course, the only reason this story has legs is that Chesky's article turned out to be so astonishingly and needlessly untruthful that the victim felt compelled to sit down and write a practically line-by-line rebuttal. It was truly one of the most remarkable own goals I have ever seen and, if you weren't already questioning the sanity of the CEO of a supposedly $1.3bn company not identifying, a month ago when it happened, that this could be a serious IPo blocker and, as such, promptly nailing it down, you have to wonder just how psychotic he is to have written something so bold, to have put himself in the position of being publicly exposed as a complete and utter bullshitter.
So, that is why Micheal is getting it in the neck and, on this occasion, undeservedly so... but you shouldn't let that spoil your enjoyment of it ;)
However, there is alternative that looks possible(not knowing enough about the story to feel sure about the truth) which is that our victim has lied through her teeth in pursuit of Payout From BigCo - entirely possible given Airbnb's current prominence, and given the wildly over-the-top nature of the story we've been told(worst guests ever, worst service ever, etc). The Airbnb team recognized it for what it is, and chose to fight it. So now they have to battle their way through the bad PR.
I really look forward to reading a Paul Graham essay about his experience here, once the dust has settled. I know he has written about PR before, but this is probably essay-worthy in of itself (perhaps something like "in the eye of a shitstorm" or similar).
I'd like to know his philosophies and how he came to his decisions to do what when, his thought processes etc.
This situation is in fact a very understandable vendetta of the unfortunate victim towards the rest of the world - and she is right - everyone should pay for what she suffered. The actual word is compassion, and there's never enough of it in the whole world for any single unfortunate person.
With that said, no company with AirBnB's business model can publicly say they will assist victims whatever the cost. It's just impossible. It would be a blatant lie. They must at least maintain some sort of windshield against insurance frauds, and doing that requires tons of hard PR and legal decisions to be made, and the assistance of lawyers. And everyone hates lawyers. Companies are sometimes inherently good, sometimes not, but they should never be inherently so stupid as to sign their own commercial/financial/legal doom. You can get up from bad PR, but you can't get up from bankrupcy.
Now after this argument in favor of an actual public silence, let's see what we have:
1) a victim
2) there is no 2. There is a victim and that's all.
Just fix the victim. No need to go through internet flamewars or PR messes, no need to even listen to that. Airbnb should just send a team of 24/7 dedicated people with quasi carte blanche (within what the company can afford, of course) to see through that victim gets better, if that objective can even be met. If the "get better" project goes so wrong as to lead to law suits or whatnot, then let justice decide, because in the end, yes, someone has to pay for what happened, and the legal system is here to decide who should pay.
Now about PR: switch the debate from a "what did AirBnB do in that situation" witch-hunt to "This is what we are doing, this is how it's going from our point of view, now what do you (Mr/Mrs Customer) think we could improve on?". Open a public discussion on your social network and dedicate someone to analyze public input. And use it the next time something like this happens (because unfortunately, it will happen again). Centralize this debate somewhere where you can handle all this information, and by "handle" I don't mean "censor" but of course "assimilate".
...and just ignore those stupid emergent flame wars between big internet guns who are mostly in for pride (white knights & trolls) and money (journalists, consultants, lobbyists & investors). Let them deal with the crap they fling around themselves, and keep focusing on the "get better" project: the victim asked specifically for your help, and that's what really matters here.
Related link: an analysis of an excellent online PR crisis management by Monoprix (in French only, sorry) http://guybirenbaum.blogitexpress.com/91728/html
The "victim" (an employee who got fired for taking home unsold & trashed goods) explained that he "tried hard to make a fuss and a buzz" of his situation because he felt that nothing short of prosecution and trial could make him feel better. This is a case of a failing "get better" project with exemplary PR - and to be honest, it's only when the project fails that PR become important. What did Monoprix do? They centralized the debate on their Facebook page, switched the focus from "Monoprix is bad" to a laconic "here's what we are doing, tell us what we can improve on" and they have dedicated Community Managers assimilating and discussing the comments instead of censoring them.
I think their treatment of the victim is really a sideshow. The real issue here is that the underlying assumption that it was relatively safe to let total strangers into your home has been publicly shattered.
Give it time, and people will get out in the streets again (terrorist attacks), people will eat meat again (mad cow disease), people will buy cucumber again (killing cucumber), strangers will shake hands again (H1N1 influenza), hell, people will even go visit Chernobyl as tourists.
It's not a "real" issue, it's more of a temporary difficulty. AirBnB's business exists since the dawn of time. A setback, if you prefer.
The naive level of trust on which they've built their business is gone. I think they can survive this but not without some significant structural changes.
To think a business can only survive if the savvy feel at ease is itself naive, though. Most people in the world are deliciously ignorant about the dangers of any activity. People still take hitchhikers for a ride, still cross the road without looking, still share their public details on Facebook for everyone to see, and still use Bed and Breakfast services, still get on one night stands with complete strangers.
Change is often a good thing, but I don't think they should make hasty "significant structural change" because it's clearly not what's needed right now. Subtle evolution is much better to improve trust.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 246 ms ] threadRemember, a midst all this BS, there is still that woman who still doesn't have her house back.
I certainly don't mean to make light of what happened to the lady who's home was ransacked.
I'm more interested in how the issue is resolved, not how it's escalated. Does the women get compensated? what does this mean for the future of online business that, literally, makes its way into our living rooms? will legislation result? new insurance products? etc.
I suspect that most, if not all, of us are interested in those things. That doesn't mean one can't also appreciate certain sub elements of the story from other angles. But to be fair, maybe it's still too early and maybe emotions are still too raw (especially since the woman in question still hasn't had this resolved to her satisfaction) for any indulgence in the possibly humorous aspects of this. If so, I was wrong to post my original post, and I and apologize to anyone who is offended.
But in a more abstract sense, I'm very interested in how AirBnB (as a semi-responsible party) and YC (as a seed investor) handle and respond to the situation. Here on HN we talk a lot about treating your customers well and being as transparent as possible.
But something here is amiss. The victim is saying one thing, and the company and investor in that company are saying things that don't quite jive. We may never know where the truth lies exactly, but AirBnB doesn't seem to be handling this very well.
Regardless of whether or not AirBnB is legally responsible, they need to step up. Personally I think the best thing for them to do is to just fix the problem. They need to reach out to EJ, and not just in the "what do you need?" sense. They need to just do things for her. She's traumatized and in a very bad, vulnerable state right now. Who wouldn't be? Asking her what she needs is not the best approach, because she likely isn't really sure what she needs. They need to just go right out and help her find a new place to live, and help her replace some of the things she's lost, to the best of their ability.
I don't know if PG is checking his facts or is just trusting the AirBnB founders and telling us what he's been told by them, but, frankly, in this case, I don't care what he has to say. The AirBnB founders need to go all out on this, probably accept more responsibility for what happened than they are really responsible for, and just make it right as well as they can. It won't be perfect, but they have to show the community that the community comes first, and AirBnB's bottom line comes second. Because perhaps non-intuitively, putting the community first actually does put their bottom line first. But from what I've read and seen so far, they haven't done that.
1. AirBnB is a broker and carries not responsibility for the parties after the deal is done. They are sympathetic, but they are right in not commenting or otherwise participating in these affairs.
2. AirBnB is building a new model and has significant responsibility (socially, perhaps legally) for ensuring end-to-end integrity of its engagements.
I think this will all go away shortly, but I think we're bound to see very similar situations with other companies that change how people interact. Seems like Arrington and pg are working on totally different information, but I suspect they're both rather removed from the situation.
Seems like Chesky and Lukezic spent more time talking to Arrington trying to do "PR damage control" rather than talk to their customer EJ. Which, given Arrington's new post, totally backfired, too:
"At least have the decency to stand up and say you’re wrong, Airbnb, and apologize for the lies. Because hiding behind investors, and attacking the press, is both dishonorable and stupid. That’s no way to gain customer trust."
Ouch. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_i...
They sound to me like she's slightly walking back her criticism of AirBnb, attributing it, at least in part, to the emotional stress she was feeling.
I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there.
...with how Arrington now casts the spokesman's statement...
Airbnb’s Christopher Lukezic told me on Wednesday that the company was not responsible for EJ’s losses, that they are just a service to match people and that they were helping the police find the people who did this.
There's a subtle but very important difference: 'not responsible' is not the same as 'their help ends there'.
Did Arrington choose to punish the 'no comment' by using words carefully chosen to make AirBnb look worse? His latest post does not disprove that hypothesis!
And when Arrington says, "What he said is what I wrote [above], and what was in the original post", well that's not true. The original post had a stronger implication AirBnb wasn't helping. Which is exactly what PG was objecting to.
Right now it seems that the whole situation is full or misunderstanding due to massive lack of communication between the people who are actually involved. EJ, AirBnB and SFPD seem to not be exchanging what they know very well. That was echoed in EJ's 2nd post where she says that the police might be giving different info to AirBnB and what not.
But Arrington so often finds himself at the centre of these idiotic exchanges and personal attack-fests that it's very hard not to believe PG about this.
It's just a real shame that the reputation of a really cool company rests on that level of exchange between folks. It must be really frustrating for them.
Yeah, what a shame that completely fucking over one of your customers is enough to damage your reputation.
ReadWriteWeb?
GigaOM?
TheStartupFoundry?
EJ said as much in the first post. But offers without follow-through are worthless. And the problem is that, from EJ's perspective at least, there has been absolutely none. And swinging a bat at Arrington won't change that.
Arrington's editorializing has been fairly tame in this story. A lot of the mess has been due to EJ's posts and Airbnb's attempts at damage control.
If you look through the original post, there are only a couple of lines where Arrington says Airbnb isn't financially responsible and that is, imho, a fair interpretation of what the spokesperson/Lukezic told him. TC has also done a fair job of publishing Airbnb's side of the story - guest posts, updating their posts, etc.
Airbnb's real problem here is EJ, not Arrington. Airbnb's image isn't getting tarnished by posts on TC, it is getting tarnished by EJ's blog posts which make Airbnb's people seem cold and insensitive.
If you look at PG's comments on the earlier thread, he seemed to imply that Airbnb disagreed with EJ's version of events (they called her before her second post, etc). That could be Airbnb's big problem - it seems to me they want to say EJ is lying but can't in public.
PG has come out in explicit defense on AirBnB's behalf when they are very clearly falling short in the ethical and "right thing to do" department, not to mention trying to censor somebody by pressuring them. Taking about closing funding rounds to a person who has their house burgled and trashed is beyond ludicrous. Disappointing...all in all.
Well, he is invested in them, and he is only human.
While I am not saying that is why he is backing AirBnB, it's good not to forget where people are coming from and where their interests lie.
I'm really surprised how definitive PG sounds. He's not saying "The CEO reassured me in a private chat ...", he's acting like he was a fly on the wall, and saw it all take place.
http://www.paulgraham.com/cornpone.html
For example:
"1. What the hell?" is a dramatic and confrontational expression of anger, frustration, and indignation. Justified or not, it reads like a flame war, not journalism.
No, Airbnb's real problem here is their own behaviour. (Unless EJ is simply lying outright about what they've done and what they've not done.)
PG is a thinking man, and an effective one at that. Reading (not that deeply) between the lines, clearly every sensible person initially "has doubts" about the concept, but then apparently meeting the team is supposed to address those doubts.
Sounds like the AirBnB team are excellent as bs'ing people.
And dear PG:
Cheering for AirBnB to become as big as eBay circa 2009's business plan seems to indicate that even the adults here were not giving any weight to the safety and security issues inherent in an eBay scale operation. I would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts about this topic (if any) that informed your decision.
I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers. They live and breathe positive change they bring to the world, to the point where they carry letters from customers that thanked them for saving their lives because the bank would have repossessed their home if not for AirBnB. Jumping on them because they didn't have a chance to give a complete response while handling a crisis is really uncalled for.
I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding, but even if it isn't, it's really inappropriate to insult people given the information currently available. In fact, it's never appropriate to insult people, and it's best to hold back criticism until more information is available, lest you do some real damage to real people.
There are some valid concerns about where personal responsibility ends and liability begins (legally and ethically), and how AirBnB's service will evolve to address these issues, but there are different ways to discuss these concerns, and discussions here so far have been nothing but poisonous.
EDIT: I posted this comment in the other thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2825045). Sorry for the crosspost, but this is getting ridiculous.
The lack of a complete, definitive account from AirBnB (that is also consistent with EJ's) means that those curious about the event have to speculate about what REALLY happened - a recipe for nastiness.
Edit: Also consider how many doubted EJ's account as well - or even that anything actually happened. More speculation due to the lack of clarity regarding this event.
> I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers.
> * I don't know the victim but it's easy to misinterpret events after going through an emotional trauma. Most likely it's a misunderstanding*
People aren't all good or all bad, and sometimes good people do bad things. Even people you admire. It doesn't mean they're bad people, or that you're a bad judge of character. It just means they screwed up.
You made a judgment about the character of the AirBNB folks and seem unwilling to question them now. But you haven't met the victim, and you're more than willing to imply that this is her misunderstanding while masking this in the faux compassion of saying she's just traumatized.
That's not fair.
He said there are valid concerns here, but is urging people to consider that there may be other factors.
Come on, people.
> I had the opportunity to hear the founders speak a number of times. They're one of the very few founders that are incredibly genuine about bringing a positive change into the lives of their customers.
Don't judge someone's genuineness by listening to them speak or promoting their testimonials. Watch what they actually do.
they should just cut it straight and adress all their users on their own site
The shortfall of AirBNB over here is that they might care, but they aren't coming across as someone caring, and a little bit of empathy coupled with a genuine act of kindness will go a long way over here.
I think the reason they don't do anything to really fix it rather than lip service and lawyer wrangling and dirty PR tricks is they are afraid of setting a precedent. However, they should have thought that through a bit more. They are saying they've had a million rentals or some such with no incident. If that is true, covering someone's damage for the 1 in a million case should be something they can do. Let's say it costs $10,000. That's nothing compared to their profit for those million cases where it didn't happen. By not doing this they are sending several possible messages. One is that they believe that a lot more robberies are going to happen and they have been lucky so far. It's not going to be 1 in a million it's going to be 1 in a 100, and they can't afford to fix 1% of all stays that turn into robberies. This message also means they believe it is impossible to fix, they give up on the idea of ever being able to truly identify renters (the rentees are not as big an issue to identify since their names are on the deeds). I think that's crazy since it's really obvious they have been severely legally negligent in not actually acquiring real identities of renters, though they have certainly implied to rentees that it was safe as if they had. That's probably going to end up being determined by some court or consumer advocacy agency like the FTC to be a misrepresentation. The other bad message they send with this is that if they truly believe it is 1 in a million and they don't want to help her out by finding a place to stay and fixing her apartment, then they are obscenely greedy. There are costs to doing this sort of business after all, you can't just starve the business and take it all for yourself. Some money needs to be set aside for these sorts of 100% predictable and inevitable occurrences.
Whoever is on their hack legal team is should be fired and they should get some real lawyers in there. Obviously they are obsessed with CYA and avoiding responsibility. If that is where they want to be fine but then they have no business running this sort of business. This business is going to have robberies, rapes and murders from time to time. They should have had a plan. Yelling "it's not our fault", threatening the victim, playing the hypocrite, and attacking people who reasonably comment on the story (and through a third party, what cowards) is absolutely not the right approach. What you mentioned is pretty good though, but it's pretty clear that was brought up and dismissed as something that might cost a couple hundred bucks they were too greedy to let go of.
Keep in mind the other story doing the rounds here about the guy in Germany who go stuck with fraudulent rentees charging him money to stay in a house they didn't own, and having to deal with the house owner showing up and asking what he was ding there...
Fact is, before anything else, this is a personal matter, so do it as a person - ideally on your spare time (if you ever can make some) with your personal funds if you can - everyone will accept a founder doing this, it will not engage any responsibility/liability whatsoever, it will not establish any precedent, and it will change the reception radically, for both the victim, the company and the public.
This is a person offering another person to meet, talk aaaaaand 3 years from now we have "Beds & Breaks" hitting the theatres, a movie loosely based on real facts, starring...
As a side note, how big are those appartments in San Francisco? Here in Paris for that kind of money each month you get 60 square meters and no single person can afford those. Most live in a third or a half of this surface.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/apa/2521648827.html
they are afraid of it to become systematic, that's why they are trying to keep it secret that they are helping her materially etc, but it really doesn't need to:
such a thing happened for the first time, the next times anybody suffered would have to blame only themselves, because they knew the EJ story but handled their keys to stranger without the extensive check.
I think the original sin in all this was yanking the original AirBnB support person who was helping EJ and replacing this contact with CYA bullshit. From EJ's perspective it probably looked very much like AirBnB turning their back on the problem and clamming up. At that point, any offer of financial help just looks like AirBnB trying to pay her to go away.
The crux of your (and their) problem is this: Why, if, as you say, airbnb was being as helpful as possible from the get-go, did the victim write that second post?
That's it. You cannot have a claim to credibility until you answer that question. Even if that answer is, "she was paid off", the existence of her second blog post puts the lie to airbnb's (and your) claims. Either she's telling the truth, or they (and you) are. They are mutually exclusive stories.
Bringing Arrington's Arringtonity into this is a red herring. The story isn't about him. There are two involved parties, here, and you've aligned yourself with airbnb. The victim's story isn't being run through the TC filter; it's there for everyone to see. So far, the collective 'you' have not addressed it, refuted her points, or shown how the two accounts are compatible.
It's easy to hop on the "Michael Arrington is a sensationalistic dick" bandwagon, because he is. That doesn't address the issue, though, and it comes across as a deflection.
To me renting your home to a stranger and then failing to check up on them for an entire week is incredibly naive. 10 year old naive. I don't care if airbnb said that they would provide 100% insurance, I would still not do this, it is simply against how I know the world works. And don't tell me about the 'good human being assumption', this is a fairytale, anyone making that assuption will get burned sooner or later.
It's important to have a belief that most people are not looking to screw up your life specifically. It's also important to not be so naive that you take dangerous gambles, like the ones made in EJ's story. Better safe than sorry.
There's an important equilibrium to be struck here.
I'm sorry, but I can't understand this "most people are good" argument in this context.
Call me old fashioned, but I personally believe that we, the technical elite who effortlessly can integrate new tech into our lives and understand the deeper implications of technology being used -- here is looking at you Google founders in context of privacy -- are a form of a pseudo nobility and have responsibilities to our less fortunate brethren (who yes, sometimes DO need big warning stickers on comforters and coffee cups containing excessively hot liquids).
imho, this affair is simply a manifestation of a larger problem:
the profit motive has diluted hacker ethics.
Day 1: A woman had her house trashed by a rogue guest. We do not believe we are legally responsible for this. All AirBnB users, while this is an isolated incident, please take care when taking in guests, especially if they are new users. See our guide to safer AirBnB here...
Day 2: We are working with the police, and have turned over all details relevant to the case. We are also in talks with the unfortunate host, seeing what we can do to help her with through this difficult time. If you wish to leave a supportive note to here, please leave it here:
Day 3. As we have stated, we do not believe we are liable for these actions. However, we overhauling our safety information, and offering support to the victim.
...
Really, it's not hard. OK, it is hard if you think you did no wrong, and everyone should see it from your point of view.
Speculation:
Airbnb offered money and support if she agreed not to sue them and not to feed the press the negative story about the service. She refuses to commit to this, they refuse to pay her without it. None of the two parties wants to be transparent about this part of communication. Technically, no one lied.
Would you:
a) go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low?
b) go extremely public and take on a startup?
Take a step back and stop the tinfoilesque blame the victim game that you've decided to engage in.
go into hiding at a friend's place and lay low? ... for a month, and then
go extremely public and take on a startup? ... after a month.
Yeah, I think I might just do that.
Techcrunch have always provided favourable coverage to YC companies, but if that relationship is going tepid because of this affair, the negative fall-out could be far worse for YC than for AirBnB. Most consumers will forget about stories like this after a while, journalists tend to hold grudges (see Arrington vs Calcanis).
I think MA's been treated worse by others. If he's worth his stripes, he'll report on other YC ventures as they deserve to be reported on.
Human nature may creep in, and if YC ventures continue to act in the manner of AirBnB (as reported), I can see a justified negative slant.
Now, if PG wants to sue MA and see what sort of press that generates ....
All this would not have come to this if Airbnb guys asked themselves a simple question. How would I handle this if this happened to my sister of wife.
The main problem is Airbnb had about a month to fix this before it became 'viral'. It was only the post by TC that made me realise this issue was about a month ago (30 days!).
As a fan of Airbnb, (I have not used the service, but i have given them a few customers), I am a bit disappointed in the response. I do not blame them for waat happened to EJ. The problem that has happened is as a result of their reaction to what had happened.
I am kind of amazed that after a month, not one of the founders has gone to see the house (they have the address) but rather they have been doing "everything" to help. This is politician talk, not startup talk. Why startups were really cool was the possibility of getting in touch with the founder of it rather than the "automated customer service of big companies".
The only actionable thing Airbnb have done during the last few days fiasco is try to cover their asses. i.e change the security page, write a blog post on TC and defend themselves. Now anything they do will not be perceived in good faith but in reaction to the angry mob (as PG calls it). It is never good to be reactionary.
If I were the CEO of Airbnb, I would do this:
Go and look physically and look at the house.
Go and look for the victim and be sincere in my apology and request for another chance to start again.
Behave as if it was my sister this thing happened to.
I really hope some good "no win no fee" lawyer has not got to her first. When you are successful, people are out there trying to hang you, please Airbnb, do not give them a rope.
I wish you guys all the best!
They said they're trying to help catch the perpetrator right? In my eyes that's all they really can do and the only thing that matters. The damages are primarily the girl's responsibility but the criminal is partially Airbnb's fault.
It's cheap, considerate and probably much more effective than a simple "sorry" press release. And it has nothing, nothing to do with legal responsibility/liability at this point. When someone is distressed enough to ask specifically for my help, it's the kind of things I'd eagerly do, whether it's my fault or not.
I'm almost absolutely certain Airbnb would have asked the question "How can we make this right?" Anyone would ask that question.
What I suspect is that the girl was not able to answer that question when Airbnb asked it and thus doesn't know what she needs to fix this situation. So naturally she needs an outlet and so she blogged about it.
Totally irrelevant. This has obviously gone beyond "technical liability".
Once it became clear yesterday that the empathically-challenged kids in charge at Airbnb had no clue of how to manage the problem, and that the company was hemorrhaging tens of millions in notional value every time Brian Chesky opened his mouth and a bunch of lies and half-truths came tumbling out, the investors called an emergency meeting and tried to figure out a way out of this mess.
Clearly, as the situation had been left to rot for a month, giving the victim plenty of time to become more upset and alienated, it was too late to pretend that the situation itself had been handled in any way properly.
There was also no longer any subtle way to silence to victim - that bridge already been burned by the ham-fisted attempt to bully her into deleting her original post... attempts made, incredibly, OVER THE PHONE!
And, as those attempts were now part of the another blog post, it was too late to act like fucking professionals, meet her in person, put her up in five star luxury while they arrange and pay to have her home cleansed, fumigated, redecorated, refurnished, blessed by a witchdoctor, whatever it took to shut her up.... it was too late for all that.
So, Paul Graham, an intelligent man with a good eye for small details, noticed the one and only sliver of a chance Airbnb has to get out of this mess with it's valuation above the billion mark, rather than far below it: the universal antipathy towards Michael Arrington!
So, now, the course is set and, from here on out, Airbnb and their investors are going to completely ignore the truth that it was the victim's own account which contradicts Airbnb's rapidly shifting assertions, and, instead, they are going to pretend that the whole controversy is a link-bait concoction by Silicon Valley's favorite super-villain, Dr. Arrington. What actually happened will not matter and, right now, you can bet the Paul Graham is down on his knees praying that Jason Calacanis will take the tasty Arrington bait and run this story in the other direction.
Of course, the only reason this story has legs is that Chesky's article turned out to be so astonishingly and needlessly untruthful that the victim felt compelled to sit down and write a practically line-by-line rebuttal. It was truly one of the most remarkable own goals I have ever seen and, if you weren't already questioning the sanity of the CEO of a supposedly $1.3bn company not identifying, a month ago when it happened, that this could be a serious IPo blocker and, as such, promptly nailing it down, you have to wonder just how psychotic he is to have written something so bold, to have put himself in the position of being publicly exposed as a complete and utter bullshitter.
So, that is why Micheal is getting it in the neck and, on this occasion, undeservedly so... but you shouldn't let that spoil your enjoyment of it ;)
Nothing incredible there - had these attempts been made in writing/email then there would be no arguing about what was/was not said.
Lesson: Do your shady dealing in person. Failing that, do it with an unscheduled phone call.
However, there is alternative that looks possible(not knowing enough about the story to feel sure about the truth) which is that our victim has lied through her teeth in pursuit of Payout From BigCo - entirely possible given Airbnb's current prominence, and given the wildly over-the-top nature of the story we've been told(worst guests ever, worst service ever, etc). The Airbnb team recognized it for what it is, and chose to fight it. So now they have to battle their way through the bad PR.
I'd like to know his philosophies and how he came to his decisions to do what when, his thought processes etc.
With that said, no company with AirBnB's business model can publicly say they will assist victims whatever the cost. It's just impossible. It would be a blatant lie. They must at least maintain some sort of windshield against insurance frauds, and doing that requires tons of hard PR and legal decisions to be made, and the assistance of lawyers. And everyone hates lawyers. Companies are sometimes inherently good, sometimes not, but they should never be inherently so stupid as to sign their own commercial/financial/legal doom. You can get up from bad PR, but you can't get up from bankrupcy.
Now after this argument in favor of an actual public silence, let's see what we have: 1) a victim 2) there is no 2. There is a victim and that's all.
Just fix the victim. No need to go through internet flamewars or PR messes, no need to even listen to that. Airbnb should just send a team of 24/7 dedicated people with quasi carte blanche (within what the company can afford, of course) to see through that victim gets better, if that objective can even be met. If the "get better" project goes so wrong as to lead to law suits or whatnot, then let justice decide, because in the end, yes, someone has to pay for what happened, and the legal system is here to decide who should pay.
Now about PR: switch the debate from a "what did AirBnB do in that situation" witch-hunt to "This is what we are doing, this is how it's going from our point of view, now what do you (Mr/Mrs Customer) think we could improve on?". Open a public discussion on your social network and dedicate someone to analyze public input. And use it the next time something like this happens (because unfortunately, it will happen again). Centralize this debate somewhere where you can handle all this information, and by "handle" I don't mean "censor" but of course "assimilate".
...and just ignore those stupid emergent flame wars between big internet guns who are mostly in for pride (white knights & trolls) and money (journalists, consultants, lobbyists & investors). Let them deal with the crap they fling around themselves, and keep focusing on the "get better" project: the victim asked specifically for your help, and that's what really matters here.
Related link: an analysis of an excellent online PR crisis management by Monoprix (in French only, sorry) http://guybirenbaum.blogitexpress.com/91728/html The "victim" (an employee who got fired for taking home unsold & trashed goods) explained that he "tried hard to make a fuss and a buzz" of his situation because he felt that nothing short of prosecution and trial could make him feel better. This is a case of a failing "get better" project with exemplary PR - and to be honest, it's only when the project fails that PR become important. What did Monoprix do? They centralized the debate on their Facebook page, switched the focus from "Monoprix is bad" to a laconic "here's what we are doing, tell us what we can improve on" and they have dedicated Community Managers assimilating and discussing the comments instead of censoring them.
It's not a "real" issue, it's more of a temporary difficulty. AirBnB's business exists since the dawn of time. A setback, if you prefer.
Change is often a good thing, but I don't think they should make hasty "significant structural change" because it's clearly not what's needed right now. Subtle evolution is much better to improve trust.