This story comes soon after the issue with AirBnb being outted where they were emailing/spamming listers on Craigslist and posing as fake people. Not only is this illegal (CAN-SPAM act) but also unethical and dishonest.

One thing I didn't see from this was a response by PG. Only silence.

But I didn't assume his stance. After all, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes. (And I can't track all responses to stories on HN.)

But now we have this story. I'm still open to seeing how things play out and finding out what's really happened. But, so far, it's not looking good for AirBnb or PG. All the sympathy is going to EJ IMO.

And I did see a response by PG which essentially called Arrington's reporting "bullshit." His comments also seemed to directly contradict what EJ said. So someone's not being completely honest.

Given that EJ's the victim and PG's an investor, most readers are likely to be biased in favor of EJ (unless they are an HN/YC/PG fanboy).

So I wouldn't call it shadenfreude. I see it as AirBnb/PG having at track record based on other, recent, controversial events. I think to blame HN or its "collective IQ" is somewhat ignorant and self-serving.