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Comment by williamscales | Hacker News Reader

Lobbying, I would assume. Airbnb has met a lot of legal opposition lately. They are dealing with regulations in jurisdictions all over the world. I guess that takes a lot of cash.

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Google in total spends $16M in the US for lobbyists in the US and they want self driving car litigation. This seems like it would be used for more than lobbying .

No, they'd like self driving car litigation.

Airbnb needs liberal rent-out-your-home litigation

I'd say Google at least wants self driving car legislation, and could later go as far as saying they might need it too. (...where "might need" > want >>> like).

The company has very closely aligned its image with this technology, and indeed I'd say it currently is one of those moonshots that they are betting heavily on. Which of course factors into markets gauging their P/E where it currently sits.

rent-out-your-apartment* litigation. Afaik the only case where people have issues with AirBNB is in buildings with shared entrances/hallways.

Absolutely not the case.

Here in Australia city and state hospitality organisations are very vocal in opposition to airbnb. The usual argument is why should they be paying to meet licensing/safety requirements when airbnb hosts can rent out their home without regulation. I'd guess 90%+ of these premises are standalone homes.

In my city the local council just announced plans to limit a property to 42 nights of airbnb per year, or face significant fines. Not sure it'll stick.

Thanks, didn't know that. Speaking from my own experience living in cities like Philly and NYC.

There are usually zoning issues that come into play when you run a business from a residential property.

One could argue that swaying property owners in every metropolitan area of the world, and threatening the hotel industry is a greater obstacle than legalizing self-driving cars, which is almost unanimously agreed to be the future and in a market with many other players (every automobile company). There are few major competitors to AirBnB other than long-vested players who own expensive land and historic properties. Much of it will be used under the banner of local outreach.

Self driving car companies are messing with car insurance companies. Insurance lobbyists own pretty much everyone in congress.

Insurance companies love self driving cars. Humans are the expensive part of car insurance.

Perhaps you meant legislation, not litigation.

One problem with that approach is that lobbying is not a one-time investment the way factories are. Every few years a new wave of politicians comes out, frequently building their platform around criticism of their predecessors and their corrupt, cozy deals with megacorps.

Is AirBnB just a vehicle for moving cash from venture industry to lobbying industry the way music startups are vehicles for moving cash from VCs to labels?

I think, from an accounting perspective, you could theoretically capitalize the expense over the term of office in the same way you capitalize the factory costs over the life of the machinery and facility.

I cannot say I have ever met an accountant would would dare try it, but suffice it to say the field of accounting has a more nuanced view of "one time expenditures" than you might be imagining.

Accounting standards have pretty strict requirements when it comes to intangible assets. There is a whole list of criteria that development costs need to meet to be capitalized, and that is for actual products. The problem with lobbying as an asset would be valuation: its impossible to actually measure the fair value of it. As well, it probably would not meet the definition of an asset at all since economic benefits are not probable.

I think that if the bribe has a contract attached, written or verbal, (which seems to be the current supreme court test for corruption here in America), then the valuation would be the fair market value, or, conversely, be a pre-payment for services not yet delivered so the income wouldn't be realized on the politician's end until time passes in their term of office. From the briber's perspective, they'd have the asset of debt on unrealized income for services not yet rendered, and like all debt, that has a simple value (and if the politician becomes honest, then the debt is written off like all other debts you'll be unlikely to collect).

A US Presidential election costs costs ~ 4.5 billion dollars, how would AirBnb possibly spend close to a billion on lobbying?

Lobbying really isn't that expensive. This isn't the answer.

In many countries lobbing is illegal, so in those places they will need to send "gifts" instead, or well just bribes

Not if they want to keep doing business in the US or Europe they won't.

Delaney is referring in the US to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. You can read more about it here: https://www.sec.gov/spotlight/fcpa/fcpa-resource-guide.pdf

Suffice it to say that the realities of doing business internationally are complicated. One complication is that companies wanting to do business worldwide will, with probability 1, be asked to pay bribes. The US considers bribing officials to be anathema and will essentially exercise universal jurisdiction with respect to the act if committed by a US person or entity.

There exist laws in the US which are utterly non-enforced, and there exist laws in the US which are enforced vigorously, with extreme prejudice. The Act is, like most, somewhere in the middle.

> In many countries lobbing is illegal

Can you name one of them? I can’t find any, and sending gifts or bribes is lobbying.

I stand corrected.

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