The fact that people assume Airbnb was automating spam is entirely false.
At one point in our past we did have a small team of remote sales people that we contracted to acquire listings through person-to-person sales, but their efforts were largely ineffective. To set the record straight this process was never automated as purported. Our sales team emailed listings on Craigslist one-by-one and targeted only listings that they thought would be a good fit for our marketplace. At times they did contact people who did not want to be solicited to. However when alerted to these actions we ensured that they stopped immediately.
Yeah, it's just a really weird coincidence that someone who made a couple hundred thousand dollars spamming in college later used the same techniques in a new business? Well, maybe, but you're going to need to do better than say cross my heart and pinky swear.
Also, stop being a bullshit artist. Let me rewrite your second paragraph for you in a truthful fashion: "Yeah, we spammed people. Our sales team went through craigslist and emailed listings we wanted to poach, even if they'd said they didn't want to receive such emails. We're those assholes. But please, let me write about this in the passive tense and distance ourselves from it. What I'd really like is for none of you to hold our admitted conduct against us because, well, that would be really convenient. For us, that is. Further, please don't judge our current conduct by our past actions because, well, again, way more convenient if we can just say random external contractors <bullshit bullshit bullshit> and start over with a blank slate."
At one point in our past we did have a small team of remote sales people that we contracted to acquire listings through person-to-person sales, but their efforts were largely ineffective. To set the record straight this process was never automated as purported. Our sales team emailed listings on Craigslist one-by-one and targeted only listings that they thought would be a good fit for our marketplace. At times they did contact people who did not want to be solicited to. However when alerted to these actions we ensured that they stopped immediately.