Airbnb's Chickens Coming Home To Roost

Airbnb's Chickens Coming Home To Roost

Extremely troubling developments for Airbnb in the light of the impending IPO. For several years now, the company has actively and deliberately sought to keep hidden the true scale of the takeover of the platform by professional property managers and commercial entities, preferring instead to sell itself on its increasingly mythical 'live like a local' image. However, with full disclosure being a key and critical element of US Securities Laws, it appears that it may now finally be compelled to lay bare the real data. 

 

The truth always comes out in the end. 

 

"Dozens of affordable housing groups and community organizations that have long accused Airbnb of exacerbating housing shortages are taking their grievances to U.S. financial regulators just as the short-term rental giant prepares to go public.

 

In a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission viewed by The Information, the groups complain that Airbnb hasn’t complied with rules limiting short-term rentals in many cities. They contend that Airbnb should be required to disclose more information to investors about how many rentals on its site are run by professional property managers"

 

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/airbnb-opponents-take-fight-to-sec-ahead-of-ipo

 

Penelope
90 Replies 90
Sharon1014
Level 10
Sellicks Beach, Australia

@Super47   Well that was an interesting vid, especially the way they tried to hide the motherlode of their business behind the skirts of the tiny proportion of home-share hosts alone.  Spin to the n'th degree.

 

It's rather tragic really, so much of this waste of company energy and resources could have been saved if only ABB just held to their original roots, actually supported hosts properly and were transparent about non-compliant guests, as it should have been from the beginning.  It's really not difficult.

 

Thanks Penelope. 

@Sharon1014

Well if you thought that was spin to the nth degree, wait until you see this one..

 

Margaret Richardson, former Airbnb of Trust (departed the company last month), being interviewed by Sean O'Neill at the Skift Short-Term Rental Summit, just 5 weeks after the Orinda tragedies and Vice 'scamming hosts' scandal last Halloween, about how Airbnb could possibly go about restoring trust in its business and operations, and about whether or not there was actually any substance in their proposed policy changes, or if it was all just pre-IPO window-dressing.

 

This one covers a lot in 15 mins - from the listing verification plans, to why Airbnb is still failing to make it clear to searching guests if a listing is offered by an 'amateur' or a 'professional' host, to Airbnb's unique take on taxes and legal compliance. Pure comedy gold.

 

Some of the classic quotes.. 

 

Re the apparent reluctance to properly categorise hosts/listings -

"Umm.. we allow people to search by amenities, such as balconies and views..  We want to make sure people don't miss out on this remarkable experience because what you thought you wanted, is not presented to you. We continue to seek to innovate around the matching of expectations, but we also seek to inspire people to take that next step beyond.. "

(Here's a radical idea... why not just show people what they're actually searching for, instead of what Airbnb decides they should be searching for?)

 

"The other thing we've done is sought to pay taxes. There isn't a lot of companies in this day and age that say" Please tax us! "

Right. That'll be why Airbnb chose Dublin as the home of its non-US HQ and why the vast majority of its global business (outside US and China) is channeled through Airbnb Ireland UC, to take full advantage of Ireland's shameful 'double-Irish' tax avoidance and corporate welfare scheme then. 

 

"Sometimes the laws and rules are not in keeping with companies' innovations"

No comment necessary 🙄

 

Watch "Airbnb VP of Trust at Skift Short-Term Rental Summit 2019" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/ZtyDgL305pM

Penelope

@Sharon1014  @Sarah977 @Ute42 @Cormac0 @Anna9170

 

"The other thing we've done is sought to pay taxes. There isn't a lot of companies in this day and age that say" Please tax us! "

Margaret Richardson, Airbnb VP of Trust, Dec 5 2019

 

Airbnb ordered to pay £1.8m extra UK tax after investigation | Technology |

The Guardian. Sept 29, 2020

 

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/29/airbnb-stumps-up-18m-extra-tax-after-investigatio...

Penelope

"Obtaining a full picture of Airbnb’s turnover and profits is difficult because revenues earned in the UK and everywhere outside the US and China go through its Irish arm, Airbnb International UC. It has its registered office at a former warehouse in Dublin’s docks, although its official business address is given as St Helier, Jersey, while its bankers are listed in London"

 

 

Airbnb has two UK entities, Airbnb UK and Airbnb Payments UK, both of which provide services to Airbnb International UC. In the case of Airbnb Payments UK, its “revenue” largely consists of a fee paid by Airbnb International UC for processing payments of UK customers"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/sep/29/airbnb-stumps-up-18m-extra-tax-after-investigatio...

 

 

What A Surprise, AirBnB Chooses Dublin As European Headquarters, Here Comes The 2% Tax Rate
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/13/what-a-surprise-airbnb-chooses-dublin-as-europea...

 

Airbnb Argues Boost To Economy Makes Up For Tax Evasion

https://www.zdnet.com/article/airbnb-argues-boost-to-economy-makes-up-for-tax-evasion/

 

Oh what a tangled web we weave.. 

 

 

 

Penelope

@Super47 

 

Robinson has a problem for every solution, unfortunately those politicians would not appear to be familiar enough with operations of Airbnb to ask pointed enough question, but having said that the question they did ask weren't bad.

 

 

Krakow in Poland has circa 25 million tourist a year in the good times and covid19 has disseminated the short term rental business, guess what, the price of rents and the availability of premium rental property has gone through the roof, so much so apartments that were obviously previously let as Airbnb's are being rented out at a fraction of what an economic rent should be, I say obviously because of large screen TV American style fridges, dishwashers and furnishings and principally LOCATION.

 

Airbnb does effect the rental property market period.

 

One of the questions i did like was "do you inspect the rental accommodation yourselves"

 

Sharon1014
Level 10
Sellicks Beach, Australia

@Super47  @Sarah977 @Ute42 @Cormac0 

 

Well there's one corporate salary and a pile of underlings salaries that can walk out the door today.  VP of Trust?  Seriously, there's a VP who has to have sole responsibility for trust, like that isn't the core role of any self-respecting professional in the company already? SMH. 

 

Was wondering why the company had its international HQ in Dublin, so thanks for the heads up on the tax avoidance / corporate perks gig.  The "gig" economy. Yayyy. 

 

They just keep right on avoiding the question about identifying the host as either property manager or authentic local host with local knowledge that you can actually meet if wanted.  They're not going to be able to have it both ways if they want to push the home-sharing branding.   If that's going to be the pre-IPO catchphrase, then they'll have to give consumers what they do actually want, make it clear in the listing info and not what ABB think guests want related to amenities alone.  

Sharon1014
Level 10
Sellicks Beach, Australia

Edit: I see you mentioned the VP of Trust walked out the door last month.  Hopefully they didn't replace her.

@Sharon1014

There's been an exodus of top execs in recent months..

 

Joe Zadeh, former Head of Experiences and Chief Stakeholder Officer - left this month. 

Margaret Richardson VP of Trust, departed in August. 

Aisling Hassell VP of Community Support - also out in August.

Greg Greeley President of Homes - bailed in July.

Rob Chesnut former General Counsel and Chief Ethics Officer - left May

Belinda Johnson Chief Operating Officer - stepped down in March.

 

Between them, they had almost 40 years of experience at Airbnb. 

 

Their replacements -

 

Greeley (Homes) and Zadeh (Experiences) replaced by Catherine Powell, Global Head of Hosting, who has sole responsibility for both those major sectors.

 

Johnson, Hassell and Richardson replaced by Tara Bunch, Global Head of Operations, who now has full remit over Customer Support, Trust and Safety and Payments.

 

So two brand new execs tasked with the duties and responsibilities that were previously overseen by 5 different VPs and Heads of Dept, with almost 4 decades of experience under their belts.

 

Rather extreme downsizing, by any company's standards - let alone a global corporation on the cusp of IPO. You'd have to wonder how that could possibly work out for the better.

 

It appears that no replacement has yet been found for Rob Chesnut, former Chief Ethics Officer. Some might say that Ethics Officer would be a particularly redundant position at Airbnb Inc anyway. 

Penelope
Sharon1014
Level 10
Sellicks Beach, Australia

@Super47   I'm rather a fan of downsizing the oligarchy regardless of the organisation.  Too many fingers in the pie makes for convoluted fractured decision making and endless meetings that are a waste of everyone's (expensive hourly rate) time.

 

It would be nice to see more boots at ground level however, and a consistent message from  CS.  I liked Sarah's  suggestion in the other thread about having dedicated lines (press 1 for x, press 2 for x, press 3 for x) so that hosts get an expert in the area and not just some brainless robot in some other country reading from a generic script.

 

In academia, Ethics and Administrative Law typically go hand in hand, so not surprising if they lost their General Counsel that the Ethics portfolio went with it.   

 

@Sarah977 

@Sharon1014

Under normal circumstances - in an already somewhat adequately functioning organisation - I'd agree that consolidation of roles could only be a good thing.

 

However, these are anything but normal circumstances. Each department for which these two new execs have responsibility is in total meltdown and needs to be completely restructured and revamped - it would be a full-time endeavour for anyone to successfully take on the challenge of restoring just one of those dysfunctional and abysmally underperforming sectors to anything  even approaching acceptable functionality, let alone several at one time. It's just not feasible.

 

And there's absolutely no point in putting boots on the ground, unless a new and solid framework and structure is put in place to properly train, support and guide them. That can only come from the directives of the higher echelons of the company. But if the focus and attention of those higher echelons is being pulled and torn in a multitude of different directions at once, what hope can there possibly be for any sort of effective reform? 

Penelope
Sharon1014
Level 10
Sellicks Beach, Australia

@Super47   Penelope, Penelope, Penelope *sigh*   What are we going to do with you?  you are SUCH a cynic 😂

 

Catherine hails from the place where dreams come true.  This will be a walk in the park. 😍

@Sharon1014 

 

Catherine hails from the place where dreams come true.  This will be a walk in the park. 😍

 

28,000 newly redundant Disney workers might not agree with you 😉... But you might be trying a little bit of that good old fashioned British sarcasm there...?

 

@Super47 

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0   Don't know anything about good old fashioned British sarcasm, but do know a thing or two about Aussie Tongue in Cheek (and I'm not talking french kissing 😂 )

@Sharon1014 

 

😂

 

 Lol! I hold my hands up to that one, @Sharon1014 - you're absolutely correct, I definitely can be a wicked, cynical old hag at times! Perhaps I should find someone to give me a good old Ted Talk on how to be a little more happy-clappy and airy-fairy, and try to be more graciously thankful and appreciative of this magical, fantastical Airbnb kingdom that benevolent Emperor Bri has created for us all.🧚‍♀️ 🎠🦄 🧜‍♂️🦋(On the other hand, perhaps one day the rose-tinted scales will fall from the loyal subjects' eyes, and the terrible truth that Emperor Bri has actually been strutting around buck naked all this time, will finally be revealed..) 🤴🙆‍♂️🤯:bomb:💥

 

I'd say Catherine feels right at home here, as it happens. After all, she's really just flitted from one cult to another, with similar levels of absolute cultishness in both places. Whether it's Disney or Airbnb or Scientology, the reality behind the fantasy is just the same - a right bunch of predatory, ruthless, fake-fairytale cults they all truly are. :pile_of_poo:💴💰🚽:pile_of_poo:

Penelope