" a not-too-distant past where technology entrepreneurs created things to make the world a better or more interesting place, not just because they wanted to make a billion dollars."
And this is in the past because:
"To make money — real money — at this game you have to attract millions, or tens of millions, of users. And when you’re dealing with those kinds of numbers, it’s literally impossible not to treat your users as pieces of data. It’s ironic, but depressingly unsurprising, that web 2.0 is using faux socialization and democratization to create a world where everyone is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet."
And finally:
"In the final analysis, a billion dollars isn’t actually all that cool. What’s cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost."
Sometimes Paul has an interesting insight, but it's buried so deep in multiple layers of ranting that it's impossible to get there without a significant amount of willpower and spare time.
Please feel free to insert the "short letter" quote here...
EDIT: and please do feel free to add a comment why you are downvoting my comment.
What's the argument they're making? And even if there is one, it's lost in the "the past rules, the present sucks, and the future will suck more" that permeates every sentence. Heck, arguably, every rant has an argument - having one doesn't make it not-a-rant.
edit: I'm actually curious what you think it is, I don't see one aside from "don't lose your soul" - but that's not an argument. That's advice. Who, or what, are they arguing against, and what is their counter-argument?
Really? Is this so hard? The argument in a nutshell: technology is wonderful but the initial promise of "web 2.0" has encouraged corporate greed and unethical behavior instead of empowering users as many of us had hoped. Specific recent cases of this phenomenon were cited in support of the argument.
So they're arguing against a straw-man? They're extremely naive if actually believe that money wasn't a goal for others while they had un-sustainably idealized hopes. And they're forgetting the history of all technology. Bow and arrows - great for hunting! Great for war! Atomic energy - great for power! Great for powerful explosions! Electric lights - great for reading at night! Great for keeping people working through the night! Factories - great for improving everyone's quality of life! Great for reducing large portions of the population to near slavery to their jobs!
It's "guns don't kill people, people kill people" all over again. You're a fool if you think something won't be corrupted by some, and equally foolish if you think everyone is corrupted. And if Wikipedia, Khan Academy, and 4chan aren't "web-2.0 social-empowerment", I'm not sure what is.
Sweet! That was easy. Look out, Internet, here I come! I'm sure some of you out there are wrong IMO, and you must be told!
Maybe I'm just more irked than I should be at people who have rose-tinted glasses on (and they certainly do. to what degree is debatable, I'll leave it at that here). But I've encountered a number of people who seem not to, and they typically have incredible drive to mold the world into what they want, and rejoice in the changes they've lived through. They're almost universally fascinating, happy, energetic people. But maybe their glasses are in fact too blue(?)-tinted.
Still, I'd choose that over growing bitter and immobile.
And therein lies the real problem of web 2.0 — whether it takes the form of SEO-driven “news” or crowd-sourced accommodation. To make money — real money — at this game you have to attract millions, or tens of millions, of users. And when you’re dealing with those kinds of numbers, it’s literally impossible not to treat your users as pieces of data. It’s ironic, but depressingly unsurprising, that web 2.0 is using faux socialization and democratization to create a world where everyone is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet.
[emphasis mine]
That's his argument. I don't agree with it but that doesn't make this a rant.
> What’s cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost.
I knew a kid when he was knee-high who grew up to graduate at the top of his high school class. In his valedictory speech, full of chestnuts that were a bit too optimistic and ungrounded, he said the following:
"Work doesn't necessarily make you happy but it may give you the means to do the stuff that makes you happy."
I've always been struck by the simple wisdom of his statement. I think we can't always get everything from one area of life (job/career/startup). And that's fine.
Life is a balancing act, which implies it is dynamic. Sometimes we sway too far and fall and our friends catch us. And we get back on.
I think it's very important that readers and contributors of this site scrutinize their emotional response to this article. Moral criticism is very hard to swallow. When it is leveled against a community, it is natural for the community to close ranks and lick its wounds. If you prick us, do we not bleed? etc. So you should expect to find eloquent and moving defenses of the current state of the vocation, and you should expect to find them compelling. But I think a far more useful response to this article is to do a bit of soul-searching.
The amounts of money pouring into the industry are staggering. There are extremely powerful incentives for us to avert our attention from the warping influence it has had on our values. Many of us -- myself included -- consider ourselves very lucky to be shielded from the economic chaos and instability that is destroying so many lives in other industries, and the thought of forfeiting this safety is exactly as terrifying as the thought that it is rightfully ours is seductive.
There is a lot in this article I disagree with, but like the author I am also scandalized that so much talent is squandered in pursuit of an IPO. There is so many astonishingly brilliant and creative people on this site whose time would be much better spent on problems of real social and intellectual significance, problems of lasting significance for the well-being of our species.
In a free society people have a right to choose in which direction they spend their energies. But we cannot, in the name of individual choice, ignore the enormous shaping influence of social forces on the course of human life. Much of our behavior over these past few years has been driven by the fact that money is the surest measure of success in our industry, and I would bet a kidney that a lot of people here are nagged by a suspicious that there is something deeply perverse about this. And if you're one of these people, I'd like to propose to you that one way to change things is to start having more honest discussions about this with colleagues, and to be a little more courageous about recognizing success when its measure is lives bettered rather than money raised.
I've been a complete coward about this, and I feel gross about myself as a result. But I'm committed to changing.
But isn't this true of every point in time? I'm in no way claiming their observations are incorrect, but what about now is so different from the past, when IBM (for example) employed massive numbers of such brilliant and creative people for their economic gain? Or how governments have and continue to employ brilliant people to build better weapons? What evidence is there that there are fewer altruists out there now, or fewer "cool" people?
This article isn't about how this is and always has been. It's about how it wasn't, and how it is now, and how we need to "get back to the good old days". There's no question that selling out for profit is "uncool", but that isn't the central point of the article.
I basically agree: the article loses a lot of credibility making Heroic Age / Iron Age comparisons, and I think you & others are right to call them out. But I do think there are things that are uniquely worrying about the present moment. IBM has a lot of skeletons in its closet, but for many years one of its biggest clients (perhaps the biggest -- does anyone know?) was the US government, which made IBM at least minimally responsive to public needs. IBM was paid very handsomly by government clients to keep the US in the lead in science and technology, and that meant that a lot of people at IBM had the necessary leisure and latitude to think about some serious problems, some of whom went on to win the Turing prize and invent things like relational databases.
I don't think these people were smarter or more virtuous than us. (The comparison is specious on many levels, but bear with me.) I simply think that things were set up in such a way that it was possible for them to follow their natural creative and intellectual impulses and in so doing gain a measure of social respectability and pride that we all basically crave.
I think the startup world is different. The shoestring budget and (even more critically) the highly compressed timeframe in which startups operate create powerful incentives to take up easy problems that could be monetized quickly. I'm struck by how much of the advice that is offered to young people here amounts to something like, "stop thinking so god damn much and build a business." That seems so toxic! It creates an atmosphere of scorn toward big ideas and impatience with moral and intellectual reflection, with lasting consequences on the life-choices people make. I suspect a lot of young men and women internalize this ideology and develop a real sense of shame about being thoughtful or conscientious.
I'm not suggesting we all apply for a job at Big Blue. There are a great many wonderful things about the present moment, chief among them the enormously expanded access to creative computational tools and its concomitant, the wonderful increase in the geographical/cultural spread of creative work with technology. But there are also some very worrying trends, and I think we ought to confront them.
If you're going to argue morals though, why ignore the morality of working for Big Blue while they have (and continue to create) so many skeletons? By working for them, you are actively encouraging that behavior.
Is the ability to do research worth it, when doing so creates a world you're ashamed of? If anything, it seems more like a form of escapism - retreat into the world of research and theory and creativity, and ignore the consequences (helping a giant, where giants are responsible for the crushing speed necessary to grow past obscurity). Where does that fall on the moral line?
I think the Airbnb story itself is getting kind of stale, but it's continuing to garner discussion on this site and elsewhere because of the underlining issue, namely that valuations and revenues shouldn't over cede just treating people well. And that we should try to resolve an issue not just because our company will take a PR hit if we don't, but because it's the right thing to do. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
If we don't do this then we're no better than the slimiest corporations because we're chasing a dollar and nothing else.
I think it's important to remember that revenue represents how much any capitalist society truly values a contribution, as measured in limited resources we're willing to devote to its success. I think everyone talks a good game about things we wish were important to us yet demonstrably are not, which just encourages people to waste time on projects which will surely fail due to an indifference we feel but can't admit to. Some of HN already views yet more trivial mobile-social-photo-gamification entertainment with distaste, as if we're too good for that work, but I try not to confuse my own disapproval with the stark fact that the crowd does want more of that stuff. I think the real trick is striking a balance between what you want to do and what society wants from you, and believing what we claim to want (but aren't paying for) or what we claim we aren't interested in (yet is somehow in demand) can trick you into a dead end.
Good lord. He says it, but I don't think he knows it. Those glasses aren't just rose tinted, he's looking straight into the flower and believing he's looking at the world in the past.
If he'd been born ±X years ago, he'd be saying the same thing about 32+X years ago. It doesn't mean the world's going to shit and all you people suck except the ones that don't, it means you've discovered something crappy about the world you didn't realize before, and you've failed to apply it to the past. Just because you didn't notice it before doesn't mean it didn't exist before. Jeez, if you're going to have an epiphany, go all the way with it; otherwise it's worthless.
When I was in college (1989-1993), people did CS stuff because they thought computers were cool and could do things that were kind of amazing. Some were more visionary than others, of course. There was a vague idea that you could make a lot of money doing it, but it wasn't why one did things.
Now it seems the opposite of that. Especially here. Everyone is all startup, startup, startup. Honestly it makes me feel a bit ill, because there is very little talk of why one might do things and what is ultimately important.
I do think the support network built up by YC is great, and it is really exciting to see that young people just out of school can find support to go and do something new and interesting. But I think the actual projects coming out of this process are usually kind of bankrupt when it comes to things that I value.
I went to YC Demo Day a year ago with the intention to definitely invest, but I got so disheartened by the projects being presented that I never ended up investing anything. (Actually I wanted to write a check to Leftronic but they never returned my email.)
Oh yes it is different now. You know what's different? That you can be a housebound lonely widow and be able to share your needlework tips with somebody an ocean away. That you can be gay in a small town and not think you are the only person who feels like that in the world. That you can be a kid in a remote village, and sitting outside the closed town hall, leech the wi-fi so you can look at the space station video from NASA. That you can be a parent whose kid is having chemotherapy and can find people who can tell you how to nurture its failing appetite.
I don't care how many money-grubbing heartless villains (real or imaginary) there are on the internet, if someone thinks its net contribution to mankind is negative, they must have led a lucky life.
I had a different response written, before I decided to start over due to a realization.
The problem is that your (and the OP's) social circles have changed, and you haven't sought out new ones. For some reason, you expected [x], as it existed at [time y], to stay the way it was, for all time.
Change happens. Expecting otherwise is foolish in the extreme. What is around you has changed, and has changed you, and you haven't sought out something better, so you blame your surroundings.
You went to YC Demo Day - why didn't you go somewhere else? Why did you wait for them to come to you, at an extremely famous conference no less? If you want to re-experience the good old days, find the ones who share your ideals - you had to do that in the past. That's how YC started (I'm idealizing it, to serve as an example - I don't know the facts). People didn't simply show up and beg to do something good the day PG was born, they had to be found, the culture had to be grown, until it grew into the behemoth it is now and started attracting all kinds.
Your surroundings have changed, why haven't you changed your surroundings? You had to do that to get to the good old days, why aren't you still? Or did you simply coast into a seemingly-ideal world, and are now forgetting / ignoring that your colleagues (and slightly earlier) essentially created the dot-com boom? Were their intentions really so pure?
If the culture you entered into is what you wanted, but you don't want to do the work necessary to continually re-create it, why are you surprised that you can't find it now? Think about all the time and effort that went into creating it prior to your entry - if you aren't exerting similar effort, why are you blaming others that it changed? If the YC-of-old is what you want, why are you going to the YC-of-now, and not working to create what you want? That kind of risk and effort went into creating it in the first place, if people aren't willing to do so it will not happen.
And that has not changed. And more people than ever are putting in that effort, by sheer virtue of an increase in raw quantity. That you have drifted away from that world doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
And then I guess the question is, if I avoid stuff like this, why am I posting on Hacker News? I guess the answer is that Hacker News used to be more in the vein of things I liked, but recently is too full of "be a man and launch your me-too web service" kinds of things. To which you might say I should stop reading this site, and to that I would likely agree.
You are making a lot of weird assumptions. I do have surroundings appropriate to me, and a circle of peers who have a value system I find interesting, etc, etc.
What I am talking about is what I perceive to be the mindset of a great many young people entering the working world today. This has nothing to do with where I hang out (indeed, I avoid stuff like that, actively!) YC Demo Day, I went to because I didn't have the full picture of what it was like. Now that I know, I have not gone back.
Arguing against the supposed behaviors of a "current breed of silicon valley wunderkinds" seems, at best, like a straw man. Do Paul Carr or Sara Lacy really know founders and their companies that well? Pieces like this make my blood boil a little bit -- Carr, Lacy, and the like profit from being the peanut-gallery for the "wunderkids" while taking cheap shots against them without complete information. So much for basic human decency.
The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move.
Carr is saying that they could be awesome people but that they clearly lost their way here. Unless you think the woman is a complete liar...which I for one - with incomplete information, do not.
> The point was that he doesn't need to know the founders and companies that well - asking the woman to take down her blog post or change it was a sleezy move.
My point is that he does not have complete information about the situation. Neither do I. Neither do you.
I don't really get why airbnb is on trial here. Something very unfortunate happened. They might've made a PR blunder. Maybe they could have a system with more emphasis on security, probably at the expense of volume. Whatever... it is their company, it makes us hosts good money and us travelers have better experiences. Nobody is obligated to use airbnb. We the users are not the victims of startup founders, like Carr dramatizes in the post, we're just users. We use the services because we derive more value from them than they cost. There is no "social contract" between founders and users.
Personally, I do not need "complete information" - whatever that is. I doubt I could express another opinion again if that was the standard.
Airbnb is on trial, I think, because people think they acted like jerks in trying to get someone to be quiet. Internet folk generally do not like people who try to silence others.
Regarding their actual obligations - as far as I'm concerned and legally, the risk is on the host. Of course, for their own benefit it'd probably be a good idea to help her out.
Their issue, like most other startups, is that they're focused on growth, building cool stuff, changing the world, etc., and probably have a hard time slowing down to handle an exception successfully. Also maybe having a hard time empathizing with a really distraught person (which isn't really a skill set most people outside the clergy, ER, military, etc. are going to need, at least professionally).
For most startups, handling the worst case as well as possible (i.e. above a minimum standard) isn't the goal; it's to handle the best cases exceptionally well, or to handle the average or 90th percentile or whatever really well.
Okay, so they made a very bad PR mistake in asking her to put a positive spin on her writing. That seems to be mostly bad for themselves and their investors. Not sure where the lack of human decency is in that.
Also, there is no applicable generalization here -- this is one very unfortunate instance, not a current breed of wunderkids.
It's a rather compelling monologue until you realize it's published at Tech Crunch, a division of AOL that demonstrates much of the same behavior that AOL's Huff Post does, is run by a wanna-be Angel / VC, and regularly shills for vacuous startups who happen to have met the right TC writer over drinks.
Sure, there are problems in SV tech - and there always will be when people are making a lot of money. But when your paper is for the most part happy in a co-dependent relationship with all of this and only cries foul when your editor gets his feathers ruffled by someone like Paul Graham disputing their reporting - you're not doing any of us any particular favors.
And yet the author chides the Huffington Post itself. It's harder to cry out "hypocrisy!" in this case. (I don't know to what degree Paul Carr would represent TechCrunch in general. At the very least Mr. Carr is not a corporate cog--or so I hope.)
What about all of the great things that AirBnB has done for people? Think of the savings travellers have experienced, the revenue people have been able to get for empty apartments. On the scale of it, nearly all of AirBnB's users benefit from the experience.
So while the founders have made millions and millions of dollars, society in general has also greatly benefited from the service. That's how most industries work; the people who use the service win, as does the company. Value is added.
Its horrible that this person's house got ransacked, and maybe the founders handled it poorly, but on the whole they have created a great service that makes "the world a better or more interesting place".
Disclosure: I like hotels a lot – and I’ve spent much of my
life in them. Both of my parents are career-long hoteliers,
first managing large corporate chain units and now owning
their own hotel in the UK.
And now he's accusing these poor guys of "losing their souls". This whole internet lynch mob thing is scary. Let's remember that they didn't trash the apartment, they just set up a CRUD site with a good UI that got really popular. How exactly are they more responsible than Faith Clifton, the criminal who ransacked the apartment and who they helped SFPD arrest?
> And now he's accusing these poor guys of "losing their souls".
When you call up the victim and ask them to close down their blog because or restrict access because you don't want it to affect your round of funding, you're not "poor guys" anymore. When you ask her to add some positive spin to the story when there's no positive spin to be had, you're not an innocent bystander anymore.
Nobody's saying the founders are responsible for the damage, they're saying the way the founders treated the victim is deplorable.
You have no idea what happened on whatever call you're thinking of. You have no idea what's been offered to the victim. You have no idea, basically, period. But you're OK passing judgement on them. Good to know.
What's the win to a comment like this? Even if you're eventually shown to be right --- and that's still an if --- why go out on the limb at all?
I see no reason to doubt what EJ has said so far. AirBnB/pg have made several conflicting statements, called reporters liars for repeating official statements, and in general, proven to be less consistent/trustworthy than "EJ", which considering her anonymous status, really says something.
The only reason I can see to doubt EJ's story is if you're in the "this is a conspiracy against AirBnB" camp.
The real point is that the AirBnB situation is untenable regardless of who's telling the truth.
Suppose EJ is lying. Well, then, this business has a profound reputation risk which can be exploited by any given individual using (or claiming to use) the service. A risk which is going to tie heavily into some fundamental problems in vetting both guests and hosts.
Suppose AirBnB are lying. The company is exposed as being ungrateful, etc., as Paul Carr's excellent piece notes (conflict of interest or no, he captures the situation well).
Suppose EJ and AirBnB are both being truthful. Neither disputes that the house-trashing occurred, there's been some contact between AirBnB, and apparently at least partial assistance in finding accommodations, etc. We've still got a woman who's been hugely inconvenienced, has suffered real, physical, and psychological losses, and needs to put her life back together. And we've got a company with a real and apparently intractable problem with its business model, possibly running scared.
Inviting strangers off the Internet to come stay at your house is going to involve some very real risks, and some percentage, however small, of AirBnB experiences are going to end very badly.
As I noted in an earlier post on this subject, what happened to EJ isn't the worst possible case. A guest copying keys, returning to the home, raping and killing the host, would be ... a pretty bad day.
I think AirBnB are going to have to re-think what they're offering, whom they're catering to (for both guests and hosts), and what they can do to mitigate risks (guests are also assuming risks, though not to their real estate as hosts are).
Disintermediation via the Web is great when you've got a happy, happy crowd of people involved. The lesson from history is that this isn't a stable or scalable situation. Woodstock was followed by Altamont.
I've got my own suspicions as to who seems more credible, or at least is acting to type. None of us will know until more facts are known, police and criminal investigations are concluded (and perhaps tried), and the dispute between EJ and AirBnB is settled (perhaps also going to court). Even then much may remain vague, under seal, or otherwise obscured.
None of that changes any of what I've said: AirBnB simply involves too much risk exposure to all parties: hosts, gusts, AirBnB, and its investors/creditors.
It's going to have to restructure fundamentally, or fold.
The risk point is interesting. All sides have asymmetric information, and the marketplace makes no attempt to deal with this. Most successful markets do something to even up these risks, or to mitigate them, or you get the classic market for lemons situation.
> I see no reason to doubt what EJ has said so far. AirBnB/pg have made several conflicting statements, called reporters liars for repeating official statements, and in general, proven to be less consistent/trustworthy than "EJ", which considering her anonymous status, really says something.
Her anonymous status really says something, like what? Well it says she's anonymous, that's it. Nothing more. This is pure hyperbole. The simple fact is, we don't have all the facts. It's her word against Airbnb's word. Neither side is more credible without more facts. Clearly both have demonstrated they will reframe their situation as circumstances change[1][2][3].
[1] http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html "I would be remiss if I didn’t pause here to emphasize that the customer service team at airbnb.com has been wonderful, giving this crime their full attention. They have called often, expressing empathy, support, and genuine concern for my welfare. They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially, and are working with SFPD to track down these criminals." An initial perspective, pre-Internet mob: "EJ" made a first post about how helpful Airbnb has been, stating they have offered to provide "emotional and financial support".
[2] http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare... "Airbnb has not assisted me in securing my safety, if that is the implication being made in Chesky's article" and "But the staff at Airbnb has not made a positive contribution to me personally or my situation in any way, particularly since June 30." Then in her second blog post she backtracks and claims that Airbnb has done effectively nothing to help her.
[3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 "Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted." Here pg is commenting in regards to information he received from Airbnb, apparently contradicting the latest "EJ" post but corroborating the original.
Michael Arrington · Top Commenter · Founder at TechCrunch
"He said they would not reimburse her for damages, then talked about how they're just a service. Then we talked about something else for a bit. Then I read him what I wrote about what he said. then he said ok, but maybe we are doing something for her. I asked him if he wanted to me to write that they have no liability for damages at all, that they are just a service, that they are only helping her and the police find the suspect, and then say that the spokesperson changed his mind and said that maybe they were helping her but he wasn't sure and he had to check with customer service and get back to me? I suggested he figure it out and email me any corrections, which he did. It was one of the more amateurish moments I've seen, and if I had quoted the poor guy directly he would have looked like a fool."
Yet even "EJ" points out she was offered "emotional and financial" support from Airbnb, in her own words. Hm.
I'm not taking sides: As I see it, both sides have reframed the story as it has progressed, with "EJ" retracting her original statement regarding help and Airbnb seemingly saying first one thing then another.
Finally, it's enough already: Airbnb should take measures to prevent this in the future and on the other hand people should remember they are inviting a stranger into their home. In my view, with the available facts, both sides are at fault in various ways or said another way: neither side is at fault.
Now can we move on with our lives and get back to Hacker News sans-drama?
You don't have to believe in a conspiracy. You just have to believe that there are some extremely difficult customers out there.
Given that AirBnB offered her money and she isn't picking it up or returning their calls, but is talking to reporters, the most plausible explanation is that she's looking to get a huge payday in a lawsuit.
She didn't have to think of the idea herself. A lawyer or family member may have put the thought in her head. "This is a billion dollar company, you know!"
Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at this point?
There's been conflicting reports about this. Airbnb told TechCrunch - on the record - that they wouldn't pay for anything, that they didn't want to set a precedent.
> she isn't picking it up or returning their calls
She says that they stopped calling her after she posted the blog, except to beg her to take it down and suggest she pretend everything is all better.
> is talking to reporters
She's posted two blog posts - the first one reporting the incident, and another a month later. That's not "talking to reporters." Your framing is disingenuous at best.
> Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at this point?
I don't think that a lawsuit would do well considering she said several times in her initial blog post that AirBnB is not at all to blame for her experience and that she held a significant amount of responsibility.
Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell.
Why do you infer she's being honest? That argument goes both ways; problematically significant however is the fact that we don't have all the facts therefore there's no use assuming she's lying or Airbnb is lying!
"Meanwhile, I communicated by email and by phone late Friday with a woman who said she was "EJ," a corporate events planner who later asked me not to be identified by name because of her continuing fears that other suspects may still be at large and because of the online furor surrounding her experience. (She also said she was speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, and I confirmed portions of her information with the San Francisco police department.)"
I stand corrected. The fact remains that nothing she's said has been disputed by anyone, the only people who have been inconsistent are airbnb and pg, and yet she's still the one being attacked.
"Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell."
This is your problem. You're thinking in terms of "victims" and "villains" when, instead, you should be thinking about the available facts and information.
> 2. Airbnb’s Christopher Lukezic told me on Wednesday that the company was not responsible for EJ’s losses, that they would be paying anything for her losses, that they are just a service to match people and that they were helping the police find the people who did this. This was on the record, and it was a call we emailed about first. I didn’t take him by surprise. And I read this back to him before I posted.
> 3. Paul Graham says instead “The spokesman, who’d been told by their lawyers that he couldn’t go into detail about that because of the precedent said “I can’t comment on that.” So Arrington, in typical Arrington fashion said “Well, unless you tell me I’m going to write that you’re not willing to do anything for her.” And he did. Really not cool.
> That’s a lie. What he said is what I wrote in no. 2 above, and what was in the original post.
If she is lying, AirBnB can sue her for defamation. At the very least, there's some wacky timeline here - she blogs that AirBnB have done nothing, AirBnB respond by offering her something, then tell everyone that "Look, it's not like that, we made an offer to fix up her place". Which is really dodgy.
I suspect that AirBnB are telling themselves "We did no wrong, we didn't trash her appartment, she's a litigious who is dragging our name though the mud". Fair enough. Grow up, you are running a company that is going disrupt the hotel industry - get used to it. Everyone else in hospitality is capable of dealing with ugly situations. Many of them remain good people, despite the ugliness.
I really doubt that AirBnB are a bunch of "nice" people though. Their business is basically illegal in virtually every state. They might be charismatic. They might even have good intentions. But I doubt they are all stereotypical Boy Scouts (as opposed to real Boy Scouts, who are often capable of being very streetsmart, if the situation calls for it).
> I suspect that AirBnB are telling themselves "We did no wrong, we didn't trash her appartment, she's a litigious who is dragging our name though the mud". Fair enough. Grow up, you are running a company that is going disrupt the hotel industry - get used to it. Everyone else in hospitality is capable of dealing with ugly situations. Many of them remain good people, despite the ugliness.
On the one hand you admit they are disrupting the hotel industry, so they should suck it up and suffer random abuse yet remain good guys and totally affable. (But you wouldn't say the same to the woman).
On the other hand you presume them to be evil and say that their business is "illegal in every state" (which it isn't).
> Given that AirBnB offered her money and she isn't picking it up or returning their calls, but is talking to reporters, the most plausible explanation is that she's looking to get a huge payday in a lawsuit.
Or she doesn't want "hush" money, or she's feeling scared and hurt.
> I see no reason to doubt what EJ has said so far.
This is incredibly naive. It could be the case that this was a setup. And it would be very easy to set such a thing up. And there's an entire industry with a lot of old money invested in that industry continuing. That means motive. Nobody here can say yet with 100% confidence what really did or did not happen. Could it have really happened in a non-setup fashion? Of course, and arguably it is/was inevitable. Could it also have been a "hit job"? You bet. Whenever you've got people in one camp with millions if not billions in existing revenue on the line, you have a motive. And the means and method are both easy and obvious.
No, it's based on all the existing evidence currently out there.
> It could be the case that this was a setup.
This is based on speculation.
> And it would be very easy to set such a thing up.
It's easy to do lots of things.
> And there's an entire industry with a lot of old money invested in that industry continuing.
So? Any evidence? Anything other than liking Airbnb/YC to suspect this?
> That means motive.
You've shown the hotel industry has motive. Not EJ. This is irrelevant.
> Nobody here can say yet with 100% confidence what really did or did not happen.
Nobody can say anything with 100% confidence when two stories conflict. We don't even require juries to be 100% confident, we ask them to be sure beyond "reasonable doubt." What you have here is not a reasonable doubt. It is concocted
> Could it have really happened in a non-setup fashion? Of course, and arguably it is/was inevitable.
Yes, it was inevitable. This is a good reason to suspect
> Could it also have been a "hit job"? You bet.
My water could have been poisoned by my next-door neighbor because I had a loud party one night. I have no reason to believe this, but it could be happening! In fact, that silly scenario has better motive (which you emphasize) than your concoction since it actually ties the accused to the motive, which you haven't done.
> Whenever you've got people in one camp with millions if not billions in existing revenue on the line, you have a motive. And the means and method are both easy and obvious.
That's a delightful story, but again... you've presented nothing but pure speculation.
It could also be the case that the founders running Airbnb have a mildly sociopathic personality style. (I don't mean that in a derogatory sense - I'm calling it a personality style, not a personality disorder... while such a personality style might represent a disability when it comes to forming intimate personal relationships, it would be an advantage when hustling to get a startup off the ground.) Of course, when such individuals are called on for a display of genuine empathy, compassion, or humanity, they will be left feeling confused and won't know what hit them - they might even start to believe that they are being victimized.
You say it "isn't a football game," but either she's telling the truth on the bullying point or she's not. You clearly believe the latter is a strong enough possibility that you condemned my comments, based on my belief in what she has said. So you aren't calling her a liar... are you calling her "confused"? "Misguided"?
I've made my point why I think she's the most believable currently. You, however, don't want to acknowledge that you doubt her.
Why does anybody have to be calling her anything for certain? If one believes that they don't have enough information to determine with any significance whether she's more likely to be telling the truth or telling a mistaken account of events (whether intentionally or otherwise), it would be best to not take her words as more trustworthy than Airbnb's or vice versa. "I don't know" is a perfectly legitimate point of view and "wait and see" a perfectly legitimate action given that point of view.
She's given extremely detailed, well-written accounts of everything that has transpired. Nothing she has said has been disputed by any party.
I think the better question is, where does this doubt come from, and where do the attacks against the victim come from (just a difficult customer, batshit, drama queen...)? I suspect purely loyalty.
Is it such a bad idea to disclose what was offered?
Unfortunately the statements so far have not been "human" enough. When they said their lawyers couldn't let them say any more than X, it's bound to incite one's suspicion that they're trying to shy away from some moral inclinations which their lawyers may have warned them not to indulge in.
Even though the specifics of the offer cannot be disclosed, why not put out a reassuring statement like "We're committed to putting a smile back on her face again"? Not being specific / tangible in their PR will definitely be a lot more tolerable then.
And if they can be a little more specific and relevant, how about some PR saying they're offering counselling or therapy of some sort - I'm sure its one of the things that was offered - and I'm sure it would be make for great brand building if it was part of their current communication.
Also, if AirBnB had been more open in this way, they could have avoided the embarrassment of being contradicted by the victim herself. You know who the people would trust more at this stage.
In short, a little less heartless corporate, a little more Zappos, please.
AirBnB could have actually had an upside in the whole thing if they handled in a better, probably more upfront, manner.
Sure, there's a danger of people abusing or taking advantage of the system at a later date but that cannot stand in the way of dousing what is clearly a PR fire in the house of a promising company.
Disclosure: I am biased towards neither AirBnb nor the victim. I have sympathy for the woman but I am open to the possibility that she is not being cooperative.
If you are calling EJ a liar, it could be true. But I see little interest for EJ to be lying here. Eventually investigations will be done and such details like "what's been offered to the victim" will be revealed. So no point lying there. (On the other hand you may suggest a huge conspiracy theory by someone who doesn't want to see the company grow, it sounds far fetched.)
What gets written into a contract, and what a court will uphold, can be two very different things. Lawyers regularly include language in contracts, notices, terms of use etc that they know won't hold up, because it will intimidate a certain percentage of people into not even trying.
The classic example is those signs in parking lots saying "we accept no liability for damage to your car". Well in an unmodified common law jurisdiction, it's a bailee-bailor relationship and they are on the hook for the damage.
Contracts are not like computer programs. They can and do include deliberate bullshit included purely for strategic bluffing purposes.
Lucrative lawsuit? Settlement? Besides the obvious terms of use which will exempt Airbnb from liability, why would EJ have said profusely that Airbnb bears no responsibility? How does that help her win a case blaming Airbnb for anything?
You've just decided that the source's word is no good when nothing she's said has been disputed by any party. If you ignore her because you don't like what she has to say, then yeah, you wouldn't have "enough information to make any useful conclusions."
Apart from what was said about the chances that the terms of use would not stand in court - it is also possible that the lawsuit is just a racket operation, it is a pain for airbnb regardless of the verdict and EJ could count on a settlement even without having a real case. I am not saying that she is doing it - this is only a comment on possible strategies.
and they are. like, you know, a pub is responsible when you slip on the wet floor there and break a leg.
some people would say that you should have eyes and be careful, but would we listen to them, or sue the pub that forgot to put 'caution wet floor' sign?
I think you fail to look at the general reaction from the other side, all you have to look at is Robert Scoble's reaction to the women, calling her "crazy", "batshit crazy", "drama queen" and just about every other proponent and investor placing the blame on this women for renting out her property and keeping her stuff in the place where she lives, but this is exactly the point of airbnb. So which is it, don't rent out the space where you live, or only rent out a space that you use as only as investment.
Direct link to scoble reaction:
https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/eT6Zar6W...
The responses in this thread is exactly what Carr is talking about. The women is trying to be vilified when she was the victim. Maybe airbnb is not the villain here either, but she certainly isn't and Airbnb's handling of the situation was less than honorable.
I'm trying to ignore the name calling for a second. What really struck me is this, though:
The post says:
"2. Have a single point of contact: the CEO. Part of this crisis got worse because numerous people have been speaking to the press. The first thing you should do if you are in a crisis is appoint ONE PERSON to speak to the press and represent the company. That person should be the CEO. Not Paul Graham. Not the PR team. Not some VP. Not friends. Not off the record sources. Not anyone else except the CEO. (...)"
I'd argue that
- posting this thing in general was already a violation of that rule, i.e. public advice as someone close to the company
- continuing the discussion in the comments, after posting that there shouldn't be any communication except through the CEO.
I mean.. It sounds like he wrote 'Shut up everyone, including PG' and then he continues to comment..? Am I misreading the initial statement (certainly possible) or is this a ~mismatch~?
I'm not sure how one's interest in staying hotels necessitates a vested interest in seeing AirBnB fail. I'm pretty sure there are people in the "hotel industry" that have also used services like VRBO or AirBnB for lodging.
Personally, I read Paul's article more in the sense that technology isn't important, remembering the human component in all this. If one is a company founder, your users are more than just data points. Disclaimer - like Paul, I actually enjoy using a fountain pen.
Specifically to the AirBnB fiasco? I don't know who or what is right here, it is an issue between an individual and a company that will require the two of them working together to resolve the situation. I've used AirBnB a few times (as someone staying somewhere) and plan on using them in the future. That said, I use as much caution as I can in booking a place -- reviews are important.
This particular story being turned into a YC/HN vs TC issue is silly. News is useful, but again AirBnB and EJ need to resolve this between themselves.
"Owning a UK hotel" or "managing a large chain" is a long way from being someone like Steve Wynn, the Hilton's, or other large controlling entities that might actually care if this was actually affecting their business. Furthermore, Paul has been pretty vocal about what does/doesn't work in the hotel industry. I'm pretty sure his hotel ties don't give a rat's backside about his article, TC, and the issues AirBnB are facing.
The conspiracy theory angle is pretty dumb, in my opinion. Might there be people trying to take advantage of the situation? Sure. We've seen at least one article here on YC about an AirBnB competitor plugging the need for customer/host verification. I don't think the hotel industry really cares at this point.
VRBO and other rental sites as well as CL are the near term losers for AirBnB. Two million arrangements in 2+ years is a drop in the bucket for the hotel industry world wide. Furthermore, the majority of the traveling populace don't use such services.
You dismissed the idea of a conflict by quoting half the disclosure. All I said was he has a vested interest as is obvious from his disclosure. You are the one going on about conspiracies.
It's an opinion piece. You can pick any two sentences out of the story and realize this is someone's personal view. It isn't a clinical trial or a judiciary verdict.
I think it's largely irrelevant that his parents own a hotel. Having a particular view on something which invariably arises out of the sum total of your cultural and personal influences is not a vested interest.
Did I say it would? Having blood relatives financially invested in an industry you are commenting on is the actual definition of vested interest. OP conve iently ignored that part. I simply pointed out the fact.
not familiar with Paul Carr, so i'm glad you brought this up, thanks.
But i don't think he was lynching AirBnB for lack of accountability. Rather, he said that it was cold blooded for a co-founder to call and ask her to stop giving them a bad name right before a funding round. (i've also read somewhere else that he was trying to ask her to put a positive twist).
Had the AirBnB been able to hush the victim by offering her a juicy paycheck, it would have been a textbook example of crisis management. That the arrangement didn't work out and the lady chose to divulge the details of the deal gone sour, the co-founders are being labelled cold blooded for offering the deal in the first place. I think it's just plain bad luck that AirBnB could not come up with a compensation package good enough to muffle the victim.
While I don't think it's relevant to the overall point of Carr's piece, it is still a vested interest. Carr's parents might be very small-time players in the hotel industry, but the hotel industry is a large portion of their livelihood, which is the relevant factor.
At least Carr is straightforward enough to get the get into the underlying discussion, being in my opinion if current "web 2.0 OMG croudsourcing community-building" technologies are really better for the people, or only better for investors.
I'm amazed this point is raised so clearly by a rather trollish and old fashioned media outlet as TC, and mostly avoided by most HN users, who seem more concerned about discussing PR and fingerpointing.
Not sure why this has turned into another airbnb discussion. It was only a few paragraphs of the post, which was for the most part valid.
Attacking the author's background or interests is completely beyond the point, and at some level, only supports his argument; nothing could be more petty.
Ok. I don't comment on Hacker News much, but this article sent me reeling. <rant> The sheer hypocrisy in this thing is unbelievable. First of all, TechCrunch has already stated their opinion on AirBnB, and even published follow-ups attacking the pro-AirBnB counterarguments. Fine. You don't like them. We get it, there have been like 10 posts including the words "scandal", "fiasco", and "the plot thickens", despite an almost total lack of actual information. Yeah, it's a shitty situation so let the police, EJ, and AirBnB work it out. You think they won't have a post-mortem? Please.
This article, however, kills me. He bashes Huffington Post's decision solely on the title. With a title like "You know what's not cool? A Billion Dollars. You know what's cool? Basic human decency", TC is playing the same game here. Except they're even cheesier in their delivery.
The only other example of lack of "basic decency" presented in this article is AirBnB, which anyone coming from HN could probably see a mile away. Same quotes, same rhetoric. Could you possibly be caring about anything except getting more eyeballs on your site? Please, go watch some Alexis Ohanian talks. Make a good product. Engage people. Don't bash your own bread-and-butter techniques like you're on some higher moral ground.
The AirBnB guys made a big product, and it's been super convenient to me. They're reaching the point where their popularity leads to difficulty in control and direction. This just happens to be the same effect touched on in that Amy Winehouse article. Hey TechCrunch? You are getting really bad at journalism and your opinions are nothing but twitter fodder. </endrant>
This article misses the point. Technology is a tool, it's implication for morality is not decided by the sort of technology we have, but how we use it. This may sound weird from a software developer, but we don't need more technology. As a species, we can solve all the problems in the world with the technology we have today. We just collectively refuse to.
When you hit your thumb with a hammer, you don't blame the hammer company, you blame yourself. If facebook didn't improve social cooperation, it's not facebook's fault, it's the facebook users' fault.
I have very mixed feelings about this column. On the one hand, Paul Carr is a brilliant writer and I'm a huge fan of his work. I also agree with him on a lot of his argument.
On the other hand, I respect Paul Graham a lot more than I do Michael Arrington. He loses me at this paragraph:
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT’S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP!
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story. Their ludicrous wail of protest: AIRBNB IS RUN BY NICE GUYS! IT’S NOT FAIR TO CALL THEM OUT WHEN THEY SCREW UP!
How does that lose you? By all accounts that is pretty much what has occurred: AirBNB staff have contacted both EJ and TechCrunch asking them to go easy on the coverage. No one denies that, right?
On the other hand, when PG says they're run by very nice guys, it's irritating 'cause it's an empty statement. We don't care if they're nice. Everyone thinks they're nice in this world. Nothing special about being nice.
Come on folks, how is all this half-information bashing better than trial by media?
We don't know exactly what happened. There are various incentives for both parties to say things that may / may not have happened. AirBnB needs to be careful to make sure they are not the target of a lawsuit. The conversation that they had with EJ can be misrepresented. Or they may even be worse than what this shows.
Who knows? Why are we, a bunch who would normally need citations to believe that humans need water to survive, engaging in such ludicrous trial-by-media with hardly any validated information?
This all seems pretty blown out of proportion. EJ rented her house to a stranger. That stranger trashed the house and robbed her. The listing service botched their PR badly and only got around to doing the right thing after some missteps. This was all pretty inevitable and unfortunate.
How is this not the story of every corporate disaster? How are we switching from "a firm is a way to turn very smart people into a very dumb organization" to "these people are soulless"?
"Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we also know for sure that investors in the company leaned on publications like TechCrunch to stop reporting the story."
How the hell is he getting that from the article linked there? It's a long rant about PG posting something on HN claiming how the article it was a comment on is inaccurate. In no way is that "investors ... lean[ing] on publications ... to stop reporting the story."
On top of all this, as far as I can tell, Airbnb is not doing anything to help the Somali famine. The cheapest listing they have in Kenya is $10 a night, well beyond the scope of any of the thousands of refugees pouring out of war-torn Somalia. I think we should criticize Airbnb for their lack of action in Somalia.
Corporate 'ethics' is one of the greatest modern disasters. The most powerful and wealthy people in society routinely crush individuals, wreak ecological havok, sell harmful products, manipulate the law and just plain cheat, lie and steal. By those standards, it doesn't seem that Airbnb has done anything particularly unexpected.
I dunno - this is a pretty hysterical piece. Weren't there capitalist bastards in the world before the Internet? I guess Standard Oil isn't a concept any more.
For me, this whole situation comes down to personal responsibility. It was EJ's decision to let a stranger stay in her home. No one made her do this. While it is unfortunate that this happened to her, she should have realized the risk. If others don't like the risk/reward they should not use the service.
If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down.
EJ's problem is her own. AirBnb's problem existed long before EJ.
If AirBnb were to bail her out, it would set a send signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction (hello US GOV!). I don't think this is a road they want to go down.
in that vein:
If EJ were to bail them out(alter her blog as they requested), it would send a signal that any future/past cases like this would be met with a similar reaction(hello nuclear waste site!). I don't think this is a road she wants to go down.
What happened to EJ was horrible but predictable. The fact that AirBnb has no response plan for such a situation is amazing, like dynamite factory without a ban on open flame or smoking while in the factory amazing.
Three blocks down the street, someone's husband got killed a month ago and the lone mother can't make ends meet with three children to take care of. Someone elderly lost all her children, whom she counted on to take care of her in her old day. Some fourteen year old orphan living on the streets just got raped. They are all hungry and alone.
That's just down the street. In Somalia, children are dying of hunger by the hundreds. In between those fates, there is plenty of suffering that's much, much worse than some incident where someone with plenty of friends, funds, food and a future had a bad experience.
Basically decent human beings put things in perspective and reserve judgment. They try to support EJ by calling upon AirBnB to take certain actions and lament it when that doesn't happen. What they don't do is make this into the worlds current biggest problem and act as if those not taking their proposed actions are minions of Satan himself. Someone disagrees with you on how to handle this case: big deal. If you're so convinced you're right: strike a deal with EJ to fund her trial costs and be repaired after she gets compensated. Put your money where your mouth is and preferably instead of where your mouth is currently. Basically decent human beings don't get their way by shouting the loudest from a high profile website.
The people that trashed that house suck. Michael Arrington and Paul Carr suck for their inflammatory and unconstructive reporting. AirBnB sucks for not handling the situation more gracefully: for God's sake, hire someone specialized in disaster mitigation. There's dozens of people out there that do nothing else but resolve such cases. Throw a cool 150K in and be done with it. Your worst mistake is trying to handle this personally.
But all of this really should not be so important to the vast majority of us that the top stories for the past few days have been about this case. A reasoned analysis of the various ways in which AirBnB could (have) handle(d) this situation and the ethical and business consequences of those ways, that's something that would be interesting. Mud slinging and shouting matches aren't, even if some reasonable arguments are being shouted all ways.
I don't understand the singling out of Web 2.0 as some kind of outlier in the history of capitalist enterprise. As if the Rothchilds & Morgans of the world were saintly characters who didn't see their customers the same way while they were coercing government entities to tip the scales in their favor.
The rest of the piece was fine, if not another instance of piling on. But I couldn't get over that initial thought.
Nobody claimed that the Rothschilds and the Morgans were saints - but the undercurrent that has powered the technology revolution (and the way the industry likes to be portrayed in the media) is that of educated people, wielding the powers of science and technology for the betterment of lives.
In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be better than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it.
This attitude is reflected in the industry's shunning of traditional business culture, the constant focus on passion (that even bureaucratic giants like Intel are embracing as a public persona)
Web 2.0 has mostly failed that test, so far, IMO. I'm inclined to side with the author. I'll buy that Facebook has revolutionized socialization and communication... but who else is willing to step up to the "dramatically disrupted and made better" plate?
Funnily enough, I see AirBNB as one of the better startups to come out of this bubble - they tapped into enormous unrealized demand (for both hosts and travelers) in an innovative way, put enormous pressure on the slow, lumbering, and inefficient hotel industry... if anything AirBNB represents the startups that the author is looking for.
My real complaint is the masses upon masses of "we're like X, with social!" startups.
"In other words, these technological wunderkinds were supposed to be better than the robber barons of old - a new breed of entrepreneur... getting rich and making the world better while they're at it."
Well I never bought into that narrative from the get go so I wasn't taken aback by something like this taking place. Science & technology are tools. Those wielding the tools still have the ultimate say in whether or not a company does good or evil. And as there were a hundred years (or more) ago, there will be folks that abuse this power and those who empower others with it.
I have NO opinion or interest in this matter other than to sit back and watch it all unfold. After everything pg/yc related just in the last 24-30 hours, I just thought people would be interested in seeing pg's only response: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2826570 It was placed after the main flurry of traffic on that post from what I could tell.
The only response that matters is the CEO's response. PG's response is, at the end of the day, an investor's response. It will always be construed as an investor's response
Paul mourns
" a not-too-distant past where technology entrepreneurs created things to make the world a better or more interesting place, not just because they wanted to make a billion dollars."
And this is in the past because:
"To make money — real money — at this game you have to attract millions, or tens of millions, of users. And when you’re dealing with those kinds of numbers, it’s literally impossible not to treat your users as pieces of data. It’s ironic, but depressingly unsurprising, that web 2.0 is using faux socialization and democratization to create a world where everyone is reduced to a number on a spreadsheet."
And finally:
"In the final analysis, a billion dollars isn’t actually all that cool. What’s cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost."
Sometimes Paul has an interesting insight, but it's buried so deep in multiple layers of ranting that it's impossible to get there without a significant amount of willpower and spare time.
Please feel free to insert the "short letter" quote here...
EDIT: and please do feel free to add a comment why you are downvoting my comment.