No. Some terrible human being who should be in jail is at fault here.
Airbnb and YC are all run by great people. Responding to a crisis like this is never easy. Responding to your first crisis like this is hardest of all.
I wouldn't blame Michael Arrington at all, either. I think he's done a great job at reporting this. But it's not his first rodeo, for some of the other people involved it is, and so I'm not surprised they've made some mistakes.
Also, in regard to the so called "coverup", it's totally natural when someone says bad things about you on the internet to ask them to take them down. That's not a "cover up". That's "being human". Imagine if someone posted a diatribe against one of your children. As a parent, wouldn't you want to get that taken down? Airbnb is these guys' baby.
I grew up in a political family and all the time my father and my family would get slammed in the paper and online. I used to have a knee jerk reaction and email people asking them to take things down. It hurts when people say shit about you, especially if you haven't developed really think skin. EJ is a great writer, so it makes the post that much more stinging. It shouldn't be taken down, but we shouldn't imagine Airbnb's asking for it to be taken down some nefarious "coverup". It's only human.
It's totally natural, but it's dishonest. It's destroying the historical record. It's depriving the public of their opportunity to make up their own minds about what the truth is. Cheating and stealing and killing are part of "being human", too, but that doesn't mean we have to condone them.
Not really, at least where the unfolding PR catastrophe is concerned.
And how well did that work out for you (and your dad)? The knee-jerk reaction is as primitive and counterproductive as it is understandable. The AirBnB founders aren't naifs to the Internet. They understand the Streisand Effect. It might be understandable for them to want EJ to take down her blog post. But to actually go out and ask her? That's inviting trouble, and the executives at AirBnB had to have known that.
I believe PG used the word "bullshit" in his slander against Arrington's reporting. This isn't PG's "first rodeo" either and so such strong words can't easily be chalked up to just "being human" IMHO.
Arrington's a report and PG's an investor. They both have their motives for acting/reacting in certain ways.
I think the mistake being made here is to assume that any party is necessarily "great people" without actually knowing them personally (YC, AirBnb, Arrington, PG, etc.). Even EJ has motivations in making as much noise as possible (ie. her compensation for damages will likely be much better now).
They technically have no obligation to pay in the case of any damage.
For them, the best possible course of action was to bury this case. However, now that it's come into the public light they're torn between (a) trying to re-iterate to everyone that they do not have liability and (b) trying to look good by doing the "Right Thing".
As a business owner, I feel for them. As a human being, I feel for her. I too am torn, and think that there is going to be no satisfactory resolution to this situation. Someone is not going to come away 'whole', and most likely it will be AirBNB.
I think that's absurd. Would you say the same thing about Craigslist?
> The fact that they don't know the identity of the parties is openly misrepresented by their materials which indicate that the transaction is safe and intentionally try to distract the customer with jokes about the difficulty of moving grand pianos
That's not how I read it at all. They don't claim to know the identity of the other party; they claim that the transaction is safe. Which, it appears, it is. If they've had 2 million nights booked, that's maybe a quarter of a million bookings, and (they claim) this is the first time anything like this has happened. That's pretty safe!
I read the joke about the grand piano as an admission that the only thing that's preventing people from using Airbnb to rob people is that robbing people is generally hard and unprofitable.
I've ripped on them for asking her to take down the blog -that was a huge d-bag move. But, it's not their jobs to be this woman's counselor. I imagine if I was in a similar position I would rely on family & friends. Not a company & their investors. I mean, after they cut a check (which doesn't sound like it's happened) how often are they supposed to call and ask how she's doing?
I'm not one of those who feels that Airbnb has to compensate her for everything or even anything.
BUT, I do think Airbnb needed to do more to inform potential users about the risks involved. No, I'm not talking about a microsite or bolding fine print on their terms of use... I'm talking about messaging along the process.
As I said in another part of this thread, Craigslist does a good job of messaging on the search results page and on the actual posts itself by displaying links on how to avoid being scammed.
On an eBay product page, there is a large buyers protection module and additional text near the product description like "Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing."
While some people aren't going to read them, they at least help set expectations.
Separating the two is what causes situations like this.
Why anyone would believe somebody with a vested financial interest is beyond me.
In this situation, when the scandal has matured it's too late to cover up. If Airbnb guys believe in their rightness, they are obliged to defend it openly and strongly in all media. Then they have a chance to get unscrewed. And if these guys will continue to fuss and to get nervous it will only make things worse. The main thing is not to make more stupid and unnecessary mistakes
OK, time for a quiz. Someone who has made an investment is going to take the side that is
a. good for investment returns, or
b. bad for investment returns.
This isn't rocket science. And if basic observations of human nature are "unnecessarily agressive", then so be it.
Paul, if you actually read the statements made by the CEO on news.ycombinator.com, it's very clear that AirBnb are the primary, if not only, ones at fault here.
I don't want to call Paul a liar, since it seems likely to me that he has just made a mistake of believing someone else. But he's putting his own reputation behind AirBnb, and AirBnb is lying. That's unwise.
Let me compare a different response that I'm familiar with. A friend of mine had her apartment destroyed in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks. Insurance companies came and set up booths in Manhattan and were cutting checks left and right, without even SEEING the damage. My friend had a check in her hand on 9/13 if I recall correctly. She didn't get in to SEE her own apartment until a month later, and the insurance company didn't see it until much later than that.
As of today and yesterday, there are articles in newspapers across the land. There are phrases like "As of Friday afternoon, Airbnb had not returned calls from The [Washington] Post requesting comment." - that's a quote from a WashPost story, of course. One thing I know: when the Washington Post calls and a company has something good to say about themselves, they take the call (calls, actually).
It's apparent from the latest newspaper stories that AirBnb is now reacting in a cover-it-up fashion - they're trying to offer the woman a sum of money with the condition that she shut up. That's fine, I guess - very corporate of them.
But frankly I expected better. I guess I sort of expected that even if AirBnb was being dumb, that when the first article hit news.yc, that someone would call them and straighten them out. Instead it seems that PG, also, is blinded by "going to be as big as Ebay".