1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything.
2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal.
3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a giant army of spotters.
4. Hire her and pay her well (perhaps even with equity). She is obviously an excellent writer and an empathetic persona. But more importantly, she is an expert in addressing what is clearly the weakest link in your business model's chain.
5. Fuck the business models, projections, and funding rounds and just "do the right thing".
This appears to be a royal fuck-up. But nothing compared to the lost goodwill for Airbnb, YC, the startup community, and the "new order" in general. Many of us had thought that you all had deprecated the era of Ford Pinto thinking. Current data appears to be to the contrary.
Turn this lemon into lemonade before the window closes. Tick. Tick. Tick.
[EDIT: This has nothing to do with assigning blame; this incident was clearly an outlier and nobody's fault (except the obvious bad guys). And it has nothing to do with solving this class of problem. All I'm saying is that fixing this instance will lead to solving this class. It presents an excellent opportunity to fix things in a way that never could have been imagined before. Airbnb has a compelling business proposition with an obvious Achilles heel. This unfortunate situation presents an excellent opportunity to address that weakness head on. But only with a 179 degree change in thinking. I don't know what the ultimate solution to this problem is, but now is clearly the time for Airbnb to get moving on it...]
I've just learned more about this situation, and it turns out 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.
The story Arrington wrote yesterday about Airbnb not offering to
help was bullshit. He asked a company spokesman what Airbnb was doing to help her. 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.
I've talked to the Airbnb guys and they are already doing everything
they could be doing to help this woman.
Even if you don't believe they are nice guys (which they are, among
the nicest of all the people we've funded), do you really think
they are so dumb that they don't realize it's not worth the bad PR
to save money and effort in this situation?
In all my years working in health care as an ER and trauma nurse, I learned one thing: Do the right thing for the patient.
If the doctor is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient.
If the hospital is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient.
If a police officer is doing the wrong thing... do the right thing for the patient.
The ultimate policy is... Do the right thing for the patient.
AirBnb... Do the right thing.
Stop the spin. Don't tell the world what your security features are. Don't tell the Financial Times you are shocked.
Pull out all the stops and make this right, or this will be the end of you.
I've talked countless times with people about your service, and one of the things that comes up all the time is wondering what will happen, "When the first AirBnB murder happens".
It's not a question of "If it happens" it's a matter of "what are you doing to do _when it happens".
People get murdered in Hotels. People get murdered in rental cabins. I've been an ER nurse for years. Murders happen all the time. Someone is doing to die while using AirBnb. You're lucky this was just a robbery.
Learn from this.
Your policy needs to be: Do the right thing for the person.
Build a crisis response swat team that can get on a plane within the hour, fly to a destination and evaluate a crisis situation like this. For the love of gods you need to have 24 hour customer service. Give those people the authority and the responsibility to do the right thing then and there, on the spot.
Stop writing Tech Crunch posts.
Don't worry about telling us that you made it right. That's not important. Don't worry about the press. If you do the right thing, the press takes care of itself. Don't post in this comment thread. Ask your customer, "What do you need me to do to make this right?" "Is there anything at all that I can do to help?" Assign two or three people to the job of fixing this.
Do the right thing. Don't stop until this is right. Do it now.
Second that, and please do not try to instruct the victim in a way that can be construed as trying to cover things up, 'the cover up is worse than the crime' will come back to haunt you big time.
> 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a giant army of spotters.
Yes, and if what was written about 'a suspect is in police custody' was nonsense then apologize for that publicly and get it behind you as soon as possible. If it wasn't connect EJ to the right person at the police department. Your stories not being 'in sync' is a huge problem.
> 4. Hire her and pay her well (perhaps even with equity). She is obviously an excellent writer and an empathetic persona. But more importantly, she is an expert in addressing what is clearly the weakest link in your business model's chain.
That's one I really disagree with. She's not an expert in anything, she's a writer. AirBNB should not hire her, they should concentrate on fair compensation and then have her get on with her life as soon as possible. Any associations with AirBNB will likely be traumatic for her past the point where she's been compensated adequately.
After all that's done (and it should not take more than 72 hours starting now) if she comes around and writes a blog post on how great you guys handled this in retrospect that's great but do not ask for it and do not ask her to sign an NDA, it will make you look bad again.
Finally, make a point of linking to this story prominently (and how you dealt with it) from your terms of service / signup page as an example of how bad it can get (and let's be really happy she wasn't raped or killed, this is not the worst that could have happened by a long shot) and that you were able to fix this once but given that the people that own inventory on AirBNB have now been warned make it perfectly clear that you will not be able to do so again.
You may have to scale down a couple of notches but it's better to be sustainable at a slightly lower level than dead.
I get exactly what you're saying, but what about point 6? What do you do when this happens again? And I see absolutely no reason why it won't happen again.
Let me put it another way: I think this problem kills the business model. What they currently do is not sustainable. They can't swoop in and replace everything for every person who is a victim of a scheme like this with their current model. If that becomes their strategy, then they're really an insurance agency. It's not unprecedented, ebay and PayPal spend most of their resources doing fraud detection. But it will completely change what AirBNB is.
So, yeah, in this case, I think what you suggest is probably best. But they have to change their company to address this problem, even if what comes out the other side is not the company as it is today.
How do they "just fix this" if her lawyer is saying "let's find the highest possible clearing price for this transaction"? In my experience, that's what a good lawyer is going to say. "This is just business."
Like in any negotiation, anything Airbnb offers is now the price floor. Her best interests are served by turning the pain dial to 11 for as long as the offer is on the table.
You don't even have to know anything about this person to wonder about this. You don't have to psychoanalyze her. You can just read between the lines. Even before 'pg said Airbnb offered to make her whole, reread her post. How does it even make sense for Airbnb to suggest she add a "happy ending" to her story unless they actually offer her something? But in the same post, she says she hasn't talked to them in a month and makes no mention of any offer. It doesn't add up.
There's nothing Airbnb can do here other than soak up the punches until they hit a number they can agree on.
Unfortunately, this problem is likely to recur until Airbnb figures out the business model tweak that mitigates it.
The only explanation I can come up with is that they're in at the deep end in a way they weren't expecting. It's happened to more grizzled operators than any of us – look at the family Murdoch right now – but as long as they give the impression of either not caring, or of flailing wildly, then confidence in their marketplace is going to keep dropping.
Marketplaces live on liquidity, and lack of confidence kills liquidity, so it's existential crisis time.
How is this their fault? Your comments make no sense, because someone did not understand the inherent risks of using a service does not make it AirBnB's fault.
"How could this happen? Why did this happen? Despite it not being in New York... I LOVED my apartment nonetheless. It was my own private retreat, my sunny, bright, cozy loft that I would melt into on those rare occasions when I wasn't traveling. The space was simply decorated, minimalist enough to reflect a home life that was all mine, a place that was peaceful, and safe.
How could this happen? She decided to rent out her place - its not like AirBnB put it up on the market.
Thats the difference between a rental property and your home. If its something precious, it should not be entrusted to others.
1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything.
They should definitely be doing better, but I think this particular advice is wrong. They can't buy a new house for everyone whose home gets vandalized. And any kind of "policy" would make this incident seem more likely to happen in the future, so no one would use the service. Irrational, but people aren't good at thinking about small odds (about 10 million to one, if Airbnb's numbers are right). Not to mention the rampant fraud that will happen when people destroy their own places to get money from Airbnb.
Screw business, if this happened to my clients, I would go spend a week with her, try and help restore her life back, be on the phone for her with credit agencies, police, lawyers, anyone.
Isn't that the reason why we start companies? To make lives of others better? Do you need better examples to drop your stuff and go help others?
The way things are right now, maybe this blows over and the AirBnB business model continues just the way it was, with its associated massive valuation. If they help everyone in the way you are suggesting, the model is _definitely_ finished, because you cannot create the expectation that AirBnB will pick up the pieces every time something goes wrong. And the more people use the service, the mores cases like this there will be. Also, AirBnB are almost certainly getting legal advice that says not to have any unnecessary communication with EJ in preparation for a law suit that looks to me like it's inevitable.
So your sentiments are admirable, but not practical. My heart goes out to that girl too, I have to say. She's clearly a sensitive soul, and this has really messed her up. I hope she can get over it and move on.
Hasn't the window already closed? Short of doing everything you listed at considerable expense, how does this get made right? is that even enough? The heirlooms are gone at this point, you had a chance a few weeks ago but that stuff is long gone now.
There should have been a plan for this before it happened. part of that would be "hey, we'll do all these things, x, y, and z, in exchange please take your blog down" or at least "please blog that you've been made whole by the company, without mentioning specifics" or if you're a real pro, you present the victim with a contract before it even occurs to them to blog about it and you put that in it. It's too late now. Not just too late, but they've added to the "wrong" done to this woman. Plus if you "fix it" the pressure will be to reveal what was done, complete with rumors and misinformation bouncing around, rumors you can't control or fix.
I think it's business 101 in some line of work. Look at the LA Dodgers, a fan was nearly beaten to death at a game earlier this year and the team had reduced the security, fired the chief of security and done some otherwise stupid things prior to this (read: the dodgers may be responsible.) They can't stop the news, it made the news, but they swooped in, made some undisclosed financial arrangements and the news is about catching the criminals now. FWIW, this fan will never make a full recovery. The Dodgers have other problems and they aren't glossing over the beating but it's clearly not the focus it could be.
I've seen a remarkable number of tech companies do the same thing regarding security, to the point of even knowing they have problems and choosing to ignore them and hope for forgiveness rather than spend the time and money to fix them. If you're going to take that risk at least be prepared for when you lose. You have to come correct and offer up enough that it doesn't make sense for people to be angry, it has to be a legitimate apology with some contrition.
Deal with the "if I give you a cookie, everyone else will want one too" problem if and when you actually have it. This isn't about business. It's about helping someone who needs help.
4. Hire her and pay her well (perhaps even with equity). She is obviously an excellent writer and an empathetic persona. But more importantly, she is an expert in addressing what is clearly the weakest link in your business model's chain.
I highly doubt she wants to work for them, given what happened to her and Airbnb's response.
Not sure why YC should be getting blamed here? I give them a lot of credit as it appears that hacker news broke this story. If there was anything sinister going on I think they could have just deleted the story.
Airbnb is another matter. Asking the blogger to remove the post sounds like such a bone-headed move that I have trouble believing it is true.
Airbnb's "wrap this up, get rid of it" response is what I would categorize as a typical, immature response to a problem.
Make it go away, I don't want to look at it.
A responsible, empathetic response would be exactly what you typed up.
The co-founder that talked to her on the phone should realize that embracing his principles in times like these will catapult him (or her) to success faster than trying to slide your way past problems as best they can.
Anything they do "nice" at this point I'll perceive as damage-control, which is unfortunate.
They missed that window of opportunity to shine weeks ago. Now it is just them trying to cover their hides and avoid a lawsuit.
Please tell me you're not serious. What you're asking for goes well beyond taking responsibility and far into the realm of treatment given to pop stars.
Yeah, Airbnb could probably afford doing this out of PR considerations this once. But not for every single problematic hosting. And I do not believe the extent and support and compensation for crime victims should depend on their ability / luck in drumming up a social media / startup community shitstorm.
What Airbnb does need to do is find a sustainable method of dealing with incidents like this in the future.
As someone who has spent a lot of time trying to "make it right" for the customer, I completely agree. They must absolutely take care of this RIGHT NOW. And, in a personal, non-public way. If they try to make any more public statements about what they are doing, it will just look flat out like a publicity stunt.
This is obviously the best and only possible customer service and goodwill move at this point (to me anyway). Every single day that this conversation continues to happen they are going to become less trustworthy.
I do have one adjustment. They need to make it clear that this was an obvious hole in their model and while they take care of this user, this is a unique case and immediately going forward offer insurance as an add on option.
I'm certain there must be a third party insurance partner out there who would absolutely love this business.
I was trying to avoid commenting, but I totally agree.
One thing I'd do is rent her an apartment, not a hotel room. She really seems like someone who values the "home" aspect of it, vs. just the monetary or functional aspect.
I'd she would be willing to rent it via airbnb for $0 that would be even better for them (direct from Joe or Brian).
It's interesting, but it seems like as these startups grow bigger they become much like the corporations they are displacing - seemingly caring much more about profits than about doing the right thing.
So nicely put. I could not have said it better myself. Airbnb has the social responsibility to help restore this woman's life and make sure this doesn't happen again. Im concerned with all the attention this topic is receiving, that it will influence other bad people to leverage the missing link in their business model.
Will AirBNB be legally/financially responsible every time some guest trashes a host's place? Shouldn't the guest be responsible? Does the former line of thinking scale?
I find the whole issue a bit of comic opera because I remember the first time I learned of AirBnB's business model I realized this kind of thing could and would happen. And now it has. Shocking! Not.
Why should AirBnB offer to replace her stuff, when she made the mistake of not properly screen the person, and left everything free for the taking while away during the rental period. Sure, maybe they need better security, but no one forced her to rent out her place, and no one forced her to hand the keys over while she was gone.
Like others I have been following this and others passively as it's progressing. I'm not convinced the issue is as extreme as others are predicting.
I do agree that AirBnB should do more in this case though - from afar it looks like their reaction is based out of fear (Oh f%$k it happened, now what?! Let's get rid of it fast!) rather than compassion, it's impossible to say for sure, that's just what it looks like to me as an outsider. Compassion for the customer/victim/human being seems like a no brainer. I, too, agree with the sentiment that people are generally good and want to do the right thing. I'm hoping that the reason there has not been the level of support that seems to be expected is the result of fear. Fear for what others will expect when it happens again.
If they choose to not change their approach as a result or do anything at all here will it kill the company? At this point I doubt it. It's not good but I don't think it's a company killer, they're more at risk from being killed by regulation than bad PR I think.
As an opportunistic entrepreneur like others here my instinct is to look at it as an opportunity for good PR but that is quickly overcome by simple empathy, someone has been hurt by the product. Even if you consider it to be indirect someone still got hurt while interacting with the system. I personally choose to do business with companies and individuals who are people first and professionals second. That means businesses acting to Cover My Ass first are weak and those who act to do the right thing are atrong. I conduct my own business with the same thinking.
At this point it doesn't look like Chesky and company are the latter but rather acting with thinking from the former. The question I'm curious about is simply: why? I don't understand what circumstance would cause me in Chesky's shoes to not call her and at the very least be a compassionate human being until it was resolved to a reasonable extent. Something is amiss. edw519, some of your suggestions might be a bit extreme but surely something can be done to help her as it seems not enough has been done. Why not?
Couldn't agree more, and if you look at the history of horrific moments for companies and brands these incidents become turning points for the companies involved.
This is rapidly spinning from a Tylenol crisis to a Ford / Firestone crisis. This could have been a positive moment for the company as the FT had a front page article about AirBNB making the situation right. However, AirBNB failed to get infront of the story and now they are in the FT in a very negative light.
He then addressed his concerns about my blog post, and the potentially negative impact it could have on his company’s growth and current round of funding. During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”.
If this is true it is downright appalling. Does he really think this woman that just had her life turned upside down gives a shit about his next round of funding?
Did one of the founders ask this woman to take down
or limit access to her blog post?
When you cut through everything else I think the answer to that would be telling. If the answer is no, then it points to dishonesty on the part of EJ, if the answer is yes, then much has been learnt about how AirBnB dealt with this situation.
They must have totally messed this up for her to write a rebuttal post like that. This post absolutely torn apart all positive points from Chesky's response. I just still can't believe airbnb didnt see this coming, and stomp on the problem as hard as they can to get EJ on their side. If everything she said is true here, airbnb truly screwed up and deserve the negative PR coming their way.
Isn't this why you give up equity to have advisers on your team? Shouldn't they have predicted this?
So somewhere between, "we need to appear to have taken responsibility for this and done everything in our power to help the victim and prevent future incidents", and "we need to take responsibility for this and do everything in our power to help the victim and prevent future incidents", Chesky et al went seriously off the rails. If there's anything worse than doing nothing, it's saying you've done the right thing when, in fact, you clearly haven't.
I know pg isn't likely to talk about this while the situation is still ongoing, but it'd be nice to hear his thoughts on the matter. This is the kind of behaviour you expect from a major airline or telecom, not a YC startup. It certainly doesn't speak well of the character of the founders.
It is becoming so typical of the modern society to try to put spin on everything for our own narrow benefit rather than trying to get to the root cause and fix it.
This is another glaring example of it. A month after such a gruesome incident, nothing at all has been done by AirBnB. But they have gone out of their way in trying to put a positive spin on this whole sordid episode in order to protect their precious funding. When will somebody from AirBnB step up and say that we take responsibility for what happened and will do whatever it takes to help the victim and fix the system so that something like this does not happen again rather than wasting their efforts in trying to put a positive twist to this story? Doing such a thing will help them much more in the longer term than trying to simply sweep this story under the carpet.
The only reason I can think of for the founders behaviour is that this kind situation may happen more often than you would think and the founders don't have the cycles to appropriately handle each one.
It's a sad state of affairs, to be sure. But the answers are simple, although it's going to be a real pain for AirBnB's "frictionless" transaction model.
1) You MUST put down a CREDIT CARD. Not a bank card, not a debit card, not a prepaid card. No plasticky no rentee. A major credit card to make a transaction. No bitcoin, no cash, no BS. Airbnb then puts a hold equal to transaction cost + 20% for the duration of the stay. That 20% can be put toward insurance on both ends, paid out when satisfactory closeout of the transaction on both ends occurs. If renters balk at the 20% hold, they shouldn't be on vacation. If owners balk at the "hold" instead of cash in hand, they can take their business to craigslist or wherever.
2) AirBnB must then become an arbitrator, a mediator, a guarantor, and/or (unless they want to outsource this) an insurer.
I really believed they're doing their best to help EJ. I trusted in that.
Yes, I liked AirBNB to the point of talking about it with friends and pretty much advertising it all around as a great idea and a great company - just because I liked them. They looked trustworthy and like a really nice company.
If what EJ wrote is accurate[1], then I find the way they handle this situation outraging. It hurts my feelings and right now completely destroyed my trust in AirBNB. If they won't fix it soon and start behaving like a real human beings, theny I'm no longer caring about them, and will advice my friends against them.
[1] - I try to not jump into conclusions too fast.
Isn't this easily the most popular news about Airbnb this year?
I am surprised that they kept their mouth shut in all their public channels. No mention in the blog, no direct message in twitter. And it looks they chose to talk about this issue in TC only because TC wrote about the original story. This is what they replied to people in twitter:
@joyandjoy EJ's blog post says, "They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially, and are working with SFPD"
Yeah right. Now EJ's blog post says that they did not keep their promise.
This is what happens when you hesitate to help the victim of an incident like this and instead start plotting and planning PR activities supposed to do the damage control for your next valuation.
EJ writes: "And I was - but no longer am - scared of Airbnb’s reaction, the pressure and the veiled threat I have received from them since I initially blogged this story."
> And for those who have so generously suggested a donation fund be set up to help me recover, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and suggest that instead, you keep the money and use it to book yourself into a nice, safe hotel room the next time you travel.
Just be a good company and take care of the customer. This isn't rocket science. Hire someone who is her personal assistant through the process until the process is over, help as much as possible.
Concerns for setting a cost-inefficient precedent? BS. Not helping her has become the real cost-inefficient precedent set in this case. I had no idea this had been going on for a month now.
This is a shame. Take care of your customers, so much more when they're in your backyard.
Brian Chesky (Airbnb CEO) here. My heart goes out to our host. My co-founder has contacted her multiple times, as recently as last night, and we have again offered to help her in any way that she needs. We will continue to make ourselves available to her to do whatever she asks of us in this time of need. We have encouraged her to reach us so that we can help her through this, and we are standing by.
The internet is moving really fast, I've already seen non tech people I know commenting about this on Facebook. They might have lost already. When something like this happens I think you probably have hours to sort it out, rather than weeks. Remember that it was less than 24 hours from the story breaking that News Corp decided the best course of action was closing a business with ~7 million repeat customers. Of course there may be other reasons they did this but still...
From a comment on an earlier post by Brian Chesky:
We've created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity within our community, and we hold the safety of our community members as our highest priority.
I'm really not sure how he can reconcile that comment with the actions described in this post.
It seems like easy money, but being a landlord is a crummy business to be in. I haven't had an experience quite this bad, but we screen our tenants, don't keep our own valuables where they can get them, and take a large deposit up front. We have still had places trashed and had to pay repairs of well over $10k to return them to rentable condition when someone moves out...
Luckily we have much of the tenants information to try to collect from them. Un-luckily we can almost never collect damages from these types of people. They will quit their job to not have an income we can garnish.
You don't want to be a landlord. I don't want to be a landlord.
Hmm...
At this point, AirBnB has gone beyond the point of reconciliation with this EJ. Either she is lying or AirBnB is lying.
The onus is on AirBnB to supply evidence to the contrary of what EJ has to say. They have more at stake. Their brand is now blowing in the wind along with the goodwill they have built up.
What we have so far is that you have indeed offer to help financially. What we don't have is evidence to support you did or you did and she turn down the offers. Appropriate receipts would easily discredit her. Any other response short of supplying document would only discredit AirBnB.
We've had the initial blogpost and Brian Chesky's response on Techcrunch. I would love to read what Airbnb CEOs have to say about the second blog post.
I think they should take credible steps as soon as possible to improve the author's situation. While they're at it, an explanation of how such incidents can be stopped from happening again would also be good.
If trust is so important for their business model, they have to demonstrate that Airbnb is trustworthy.
[+] [-] edw519|14 years ago|reply
1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything.
2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal.
3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a giant army of spotters.
4. Hire her and pay her well (perhaps even with equity). She is obviously an excellent writer and an empathetic persona. But more importantly, she is an expert in addressing what is clearly the weakest link in your business model's chain.
5. Fuck the business models, projections, and funding rounds and just "do the right thing".
This appears to be a royal fuck-up. But nothing compared to the lost goodwill for Airbnb, YC, the startup community, and the "new order" in general. Many of us had thought that you all had deprecated the era of Ford Pinto thinking. Current data appears to be to the contrary.
Turn this lemon into lemonade before the window closes. Tick. Tick. Tick.
[EDIT: This has nothing to do with assigning blame; this incident was clearly an outlier and nobody's fault (except the obvious bad guys). And it has nothing to do with solving this class of problem. All I'm saying is that fixing this instance will lead to solving this class. It presents an excellent opportunity to fix things in a way that never could have been imagined before. Airbnb has a compelling business proposition with an obvious Achilles heel. This unfortunate situation presents an excellent opportunity to address that weakness head on. But only with a 179 degree change in thinking. I don't know what the ultimate solution to this problem is, but now is clearly the time for Airbnb to get moving on it...]
[+] [-] pg|14 years ago|reply
The story Arrington wrote yesterday about Airbnb not offering to help was bullshit. He asked a company spokesman what Airbnb was doing to help her. 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.
I've talked to the Airbnb guys and they are already doing everything they could be doing to help this woman.
Even if you don't believe they are nice guys (which they are, among the nicest of all the people we've funded), do you really think they are so dumb that they don't realize it's not worth the bad PR to save money and effort in this situation?
[+] [-] iamelgringo|14 years ago|reply
If the doctor is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient.
If the hospital is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient.
If a police officer is doing the wrong thing... do the right thing for the patient.
The ultimate policy is... Do the right thing for the patient.
AirBnb... Do the right thing.
Stop the spin. Don't tell the world what your security features are. Don't tell the Financial Times you are shocked.
Pull out all the stops and make this right, or this will be the end of you.
I've talked countless times with people about your service, and one of the things that comes up all the time is wondering what will happen, "When the first AirBnB murder happens".
It's not a question of "If it happens" it's a matter of "what are you doing to do _when it happens".
People get murdered in Hotels. People get murdered in rental cabins. I've been an ER nurse for years. Murders happen all the time. Someone is doing to die while using AirBnb. You're lucky this was just a robbery.
Learn from this.
Your policy needs to be: Do the right thing for the person.
Build a crisis response swat team that can get on a plane within the hour, fly to a destination and evaluate a crisis situation like this. For the love of gods you need to have 24 hour customer service. Give those people the authority and the responsibility to do the right thing then and there, on the spot.
Stop writing Tech Crunch posts.
Don't worry about telling us that you made it right. That's not important. Don't worry about the press. If you do the right thing, the press takes care of itself. Don't post in this comment thread. Ask your customer, "What do you need me to do to make this right?" "Is there anything at all that I can do to help?" Assign two or three people to the job of fixing this.
Do the right thing. Don't stop until this is right. Do it now.
[+] [-] jacquesm|14 years ago|reply
Second that, and please do not try to instruct the victim in a way that can be construed as trying to cover things up, 'the cover up is worse than the crime' will come back to haunt you big time.
> 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a giant army of spotters.
Yes, and if what was written about 'a suspect is in police custody' was nonsense then apologize for that publicly and get it behind you as soon as possible. If it wasn't connect EJ to the right person at the police department. Your stories not being 'in sync' is a huge problem.
> 4. Hire her and pay her well (perhaps even with equity). She is obviously an excellent writer and an empathetic persona. But more importantly, she is an expert in addressing what is clearly the weakest link in your business model's chain.
That's one I really disagree with. She's not an expert in anything, she's a writer. AirBNB should not hire her, they should concentrate on fair compensation and then have her get on with her life as soon as possible. Any associations with AirBNB will likely be traumatic for her past the point where she's been compensated adequately.
After all that's done (and it should not take more than 72 hours starting now) if she comes around and writes a blog post on how great you guys handled this in retrospect that's great but do not ask for it and do not ask her to sign an NDA, it will make you look bad again.
Finally, make a point of linking to this story prominently (and how you dealt with it) from your terms of service / signup page as an example of how bad it can get (and let's be really happy she wasn't raped or killed, this is not the worst that could have happened by a long shot) and that you were able to fix this once but given that the people that own inventory on AirBNB have now been warned make it perfectly clear that you will not be able to do so again.
You may have to scale down a couple of notches but it's better to be sustainable at a slightly lower level than dead.
[+] [-] scott_s|14 years ago|reply
Let me put it another way: I think this problem kills the business model. What they currently do is not sustainable. They can't swoop in and replace everything for every person who is a victim of a scheme like this with their current model. If that becomes their strategy, then they're really an insurance agency. It's not unprecedented, ebay and PayPal spend most of their resources doing fraud detection. But it will completely change what AirBNB is.
So, yeah, in this case, I think what you suggest is probably best. But they have to change their company to address this problem, even if what comes out the other side is not the company as it is today.
[+] [-] tptacek|14 years ago|reply
Like in any negotiation, anything Airbnb offers is now the price floor. Her best interests are served by turning the pain dial to 11 for as long as the offer is on the table.
You don't even have to know anything about this person to wonder about this. You don't have to psychoanalyze her. You can just read between the lines. Even before 'pg said Airbnb offered to make her whole, reread her post. How does it even make sense for Airbnb to suggest she add a "happy ending" to her story unless they actually offer her something? But in the same post, she says she hasn't talked to them in a month and makes no mention of any offer. It doesn't add up.
There's nothing Airbnb can do here other than soak up the punches until they hit a number they can agree on.
Unfortunately, this problem is likely to recur until Airbnb figures out the business model tweak that mitigates it.
[+] [-] adw|14 years ago|reply
Marketplaces live on liquidity, and lack of confidence kills liquidity, so it's existential crisis time.
[+] [-] tribeofone|14 years ago|reply
"How could this happen? Why did this happen? Despite it not being in New York... I LOVED my apartment nonetheless. It was my own private retreat, my sunny, bright, cozy loft that I would melt into on those rare occasions when I wasn't traveling. The space was simply decorated, minimalist enough to reflect a home life that was all mine, a place that was peaceful, and safe.
How could this happen? She decided to rent out her place - its not like AirBnB put it up on the market.
Thats the difference between a rental property and your home. If its something precious, it should not be entrusted to others.
[+] [-] sp332|14 years ago|reply
They should definitely be doing better, but I think this particular advice is wrong. They can't buy a new house for everyone whose home gets vandalized. And any kind of "policy" would make this incident seem more likely to happen in the future, so no one would use the service. Irrational, but people aren't good at thinking about small odds (about 10 million to one, if Airbnb's numbers are right). Not to mention the rampant fraud that will happen when people destroy their own places to get money from Airbnb.
[+] [-] prpon|14 years ago|reply
Screw business, if this happened to my clients, I would go spend a week with her, try and help restore her life back, be on the phone for her with credit agencies, police, lawyers, anyone.
Isn't that the reason why we start companies? To make lives of others better? Do you need better examples to drop your stuff and go help others?
[+] [-] microcentury|14 years ago|reply
So your sentiments are admirable, but not practical. My heart goes out to that girl too, I have to say. She's clearly a sensitive soul, and this has really messed her up. I hope she can get over it and move on.
[+] [-] TheCondor|14 years ago|reply
There should have been a plan for this before it happened. part of that would be "hey, we'll do all these things, x, y, and z, in exchange please take your blog down" or at least "please blog that you've been made whole by the company, without mentioning specifics" or if you're a real pro, you present the victim with a contract before it even occurs to them to blog about it and you put that in it. It's too late now. Not just too late, but they've added to the "wrong" done to this woman. Plus if you "fix it" the pressure will be to reveal what was done, complete with rumors and misinformation bouncing around, rumors you can't control or fix.
I think it's business 101 in some line of work. Look at the LA Dodgers, a fan was nearly beaten to death at a game earlier this year and the team had reduced the security, fired the chief of security and done some otherwise stupid things prior to this (read: the dodgers may be responsible.) They can't stop the news, it made the news, but they swooped in, made some undisclosed financial arrangements and the news is about catching the criminals now. FWIW, this fan will never make a full recovery. The Dodgers have other problems and they aren't glossing over the beating but it's clearly not the focus it could be.
I've seen a remarkable number of tech companies do the same thing regarding security, to the point of even knowing they have problems and choosing to ignore them and hope for forgiveness rather than spend the time and money to fix them. If you're going to take that risk at least be prepared for when you lose. You have to come correct and offer up enough that it doesn't make sense for people to be angry, it has to be a legitimate apology with some contrition.
[+] [-] DanielStraight|14 years ago|reply
Deal with the "if I give you a cookie, everyone else will want one too" problem if and when you actually have it. This isn't about business. It's about helping someone who needs help.
[+] [-] Aqua_Geek|14 years ago|reply
I highly doubt she wants to work for them, given what happened to her and Airbnb's response.
[+] [-] tpatke|14 years ago|reply
Airbnb is another matter. Asking the blogger to remove the post sounds like such a bone-headed move that I have trouble believing it is true.
Airbnb has lost all credibility in my book.
[+] [-] rkalla|14 years ago|reply
Airbnb's "wrap this up, get rid of it" response is what I would categorize as a typical, immature response to a problem.
Make it go away, I don't want to look at it.
A responsible, empathetic response would be exactly what you typed up.
The co-founder that talked to her on the phone should realize that embracing his principles in times like these will catapult him (or her) to success faster than trying to slide your way past problems as best they can.
Anything they do "nice" at this point I'll perceive as damage-control, which is unfortunate.
They missed that window of opportunity to shine weeks ago. Now it is just them trying to cover their hides and avoid a lawsuit.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] brazzy|14 years ago|reply
Yeah, Airbnb could probably afford doing this out of PR considerations this once. But not for every single problematic hosting. And I do not believe the extent and support and compensation for crime victims should depend on their ability / luck in drumming up a social media / startup community shitstorm.
What Airbnb does need to do is find a sustainable method of dealing with incidents like this in the future.
[+] [-] mbertrand80|14 years ago|reply
This is obviously the best and only possible customer service and goodwill move at this point (to me anyway). Every single day that this conversation continues to happen they are going to become less trustworthy.
I do have one adjustment. They need to make it clear that this was an obvious hole in their model and while they take care of this user, this is a unique case and immediately going forward offer insurance as an add on option.
I'm certain there must be a third party insurance partner out there who would absolutely love this business.
[+] [-] rdl|14 years ago|reply
One thing I'd do is rent her an apartment, not a hotel room. She really seems like someone who values the "home" aspect of it, vs. just the monetary or functional aspect.
I'd she would be willing to rent it via airbnb for $0 that would be even better for them (direct from Joe or Brian).
[+] [-] mbreese|14 years ago|reply
Saying that you're sorry doesn't mean it was your fault or even have legal liability (which they might), it just means that you have a heart.
[+] [-] justinmares|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brianchesky|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmlevi|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkramlich|14 years ago|reply
And the time after that?
Will AirBNB be legally/financially responsible every time some guest trashes a host's place? Shouldn't the guest be responsible? Does the former line of thinking scale?
I find the whole issue a bit of comic opera because I remember the first time I learned of AirBnB's business model I realized this kind of thing could and would happen. And now it has. Shocking! Not.
[+] [-] dbuizert|14 years ago|reply
I wonder how their risk analyses looked like.
[+] [-] nhangen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kerryfalk|14 years ago|reply
I do agree that AirBnB should do more in this case though - from afar it looks like their reaction is based out of fear (Oh f%$k it happened, now what?! Let's get rid of it fast!) rather than compassion, it's impossible to say for sure, that's just what it looks like to me as an outsider. Compassion for the customer/victim/human being seems like a no brainer. I, too, agree with the sentiment that people are generally good and want to do the right thing. I'm hoping that the reason there has not been the level of support that seems to be expected is the result of fear. Fear for what others will expect when it happens again.
If they choose to not change their approach as a result or do anything at all here will it kill the company? At this point I doubt it. It's not good but I don't think it's a company killer, they're more at risk from being killed by regulation than bad PR I think.
As an opportunistic entrepreneur like others here my instinct is to look at it as an opportunity for good PR but that is quickly overcome by simple empathy, someone has been hurt by the product. Even if you consider it to be indirect someone still got hurt while interacting with the system. I personally choose to do business with companies and individuals who are people first and professionals second. That means businesses acting to Cover My Ass first are weak and those who act to do the right thing are atrong. I conduct my own business with the same thinking.
At this point it doesn't look like Chesky and company are the latter but rather acting with thinking from the former. The question I'm curious about is simply: why? I don't understand what circumstance would cause me in Chesky's shoes to not call her and at the very least be a compassionate human being until it was resolved to a reasonable extent. Something is amiss. edw519, some of your suggestions might be a bit extreme but surely something can be done to help her as it seems not enough has been done. Why not?
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
This is rapidly spinning from a Tylenol crisis to a Ford / Firestone crisis. This could have been a positive moment for the company as the FT had a front page article about AirBNB making the situation right. However, AirBNB failed to get infront of the story and now they are in the FT in a very negative light.
[+] [-] mbrzuzy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fletchowns|14 years ago|reply
If this is true it is downright appalling. Does he really think this woman that just had her life turned upside down gives a shit about his next round of funding?
[+] [-] jgrahamc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kooshball|14 years ago|reply
Isn't this why you give up equity to have advisers on your team? Shouldn't they have predicted this?
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
I know pg isn't likely to talk about this while the situation is still ongoing, but it'd be nice to hear his thoughts on the matter. This is the kind of behaviour you expect from a major airline or telecom, not a YC startup. It certainly doesn't speak well of the character of the founders.
[+] [-] g123g|14 years ago|reply
This is another glaring example of it. A month after such a gruesome incident, nothing at all has been done by AirBnB. But they have gone out of their way in trying to put a positive spin on this whole sordid episode in order to protect their precious funding. When will somebody from AirBnB step up and say that we take responsibility for what happened and will do whatever it takes to help the victim and fix the system so that something like this does not happen again rather than wasting their efforts in trying to put a positive twist to this story? Doing such a thing will help them much more in the longer term than trying to simply sweep this story under the carpet.
[+] [-] va_coder|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muhfuhkuh|14 years ago|reply
1) You MUST put down a CREDIT CARD. Not a bank card, not a debit card, not a prepaid card. No plasticky no rentee. A major credit card to make a transaction. No bitcoin, no cash, no BS. Airbnb then puts a hold equal to transaction cost + 20% for the duration of the stay. That 20% can be put toward insurance on both ends, paid out when satisfactory closeout of the transaction on both ends occurs. If renters balk at the 20% hold, they shouldn't be on vacation. If owners balk at the "hold" instead of cash in hand, they can take their business to craigslist or wherever.
2) AirBnB must then become an arbitrator, a mediator, a guarantor, and/or (unless they want to outsource this) an insurer.
[+] [-] karlhiggins|14 years ago|reply
I thought the whole point of being a startup is you don't need to fall in line with the dehumanizing bullshit that you find in big corporations.
That's why I'm in a startup at least and it works for me on that level.
But there's such a stench of insincerity about the Airbnb approach that I will never use their site now.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|14 years ago|reply
I really believed they're doing their best to help EJ. I trusted in that.
Yes, I liked AirBNB to the point of talking about it with friends and pretty much advertising it all around as a great idea and a great company - just because I liked them. They looked trustworthy and like a really nice company.
If what EJ wrote is accurate[1], then I find the way they handle this situation outraging. It hurts my feelings and right now completely destroyed my trust in AirBNB. If they won't fix it soon and start behaving like a real human beings, theny I'm no longer caring about them, and will advice my friends against them.
[1] - I try to not jump into conclusions too fast.
[+] [-] cageface|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niyazpk|14 years ago|reply
I am surprised that they kept their mouth shut in all their public channels. No mention in the blog, no direct message in twitter. And it looks they chose to talk about this issue in TC only because TC wrote about the original story. This is what they replied to people in twitter:
@joyandjoy EJ's blog post says, "They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially, and are working with SFPD"
Yeah right. Now EJ's blog post says that they did not keep their promise.
This is what happens when you hesitate to help the victim of an incident like this and instead start plotting and planning PR activities supposed to do the damage control for your next valuation.
What a shame.
[+] [-] moonlighter|14 years ago|reply
Wow. That sounds quite different from what Brian Chesky claims here: http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/on-safety-a-word-from-airbn...
[+] [-] bambax|14 years ago|reply
Will do.
[+] [-] vnchr|14 years ago|reply
Concerns for setting a cost-inefficient precedent? BS. Not helping her has become the real cost-inefficient precedent set in this case. I had no idea this had been going on for a month now.
This is a shame. Take care of your customers, so much more when they're in your backyard.
[+] [-] brianchesky|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willyt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robtoo|14 years ago|reply
We've created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity within our community, and we hold the safety of our community members as our highest priority.
I'm really not sure how he can reconcile that comment with the actions described in this post.
[+] [-] pontifier|14 years ago|reply
Luckily we have much of the tenants information to try to collect from them. Un-luckily we can almost never collect damages from these types of people. They will quit their job to not have an income we can garnish.
You don't want to be a landlord. I don't want to be a landlord.
[+] [-] chegra|14 years ago|reply
The onus is on AirBnB to supply evidence to the contrary of what EJ has to say. They have more at stake. Their brand is now blowing in the wind along with the goodwill they have built up.
What we have so far is that you have indeed offer to help financially. What we don't have is evidence to support you did or you did and she turn down the offers. Appropriate receipts would easily discredit her. Any other response short of supplying document would only discredit AirBnB.
[+] [-] codeup|14 years ago|reply
I think they should take credible steps as soon as possible to improve the author's situation. While they're at it, an explanation of how such incidents can be stopped from happening again would also be good.
If trust is so important for their business model, they have to demonstrate that Airbnb is trustworthy.