I would think the IPO is happening despite the pandemic, not because of it. They had been planning to go public long before the IPO hit, so I wouldn't read into that too much. I definitely have similar reservations about the company as you do though. I get the impression the tide is generally turning against the airbnb model at least within major cities.
Also AirBnB just gets blamed for the rental shortage in many communities. The truth is poor zoning results in a shortage of rental units. Many areas with rental unit shortage have that shortage because zoning does not allow for high-density construction. The easiest solution to any shortage is to simply increase supply.
London says Hi!, where every garbage building that has some semblance of age is marked a Listed Property, and where it's more fashionable to let people be homeless/living in refurbished toilets than to build taller buildings because they would "destroy the character of the city".
- Reducing full-time employee headcount by approximately 25% (I'm curious from what/to?)
- Setting expectation for the potential of no employee bonuses for 2020 and reducing executive team member salaries for six months (interesting that executive team _salary_ is getting reduced rather than bonuses, no? At this level isn't most of your compensation not direct salary?)
- (to the above point) , in May 2020, we announced a reduction in our workforce of approximately 1,800 employees (So I guess they had ~9,000 employees?)
- Outstanding RSU obligations are quoted as ~$2.7B
It seems fair to wonder, given the timing during a pandemic, that there's a need or desire to cash out by the investors and founders.
I wonder if their headcount downsizing wasn't severe enough. 9,000 employees seems like a lot for an intermediary. A lot of these companies seem to get in the habit of thinking they're the next Google long before they have the Google revenues to fund such pursuits.
The risks section reads as expected.
I do wonder if the tide is turning against home "sharing". Unlike ride-sharing, there are significant externalities to deal with. People don't generally don't want to live near an illegal (in many cases) hotel and it's not so easy for them to up and move. It's classic tragedy of the commons.
What's more AirBnB has (IMHO) a provable negative impact on the supply of rental units in many cities.
So cue the standard self-serving defense of AirBnB. I, for one, would not be sad to see it go.