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Comment by edoceo | Hacker News Reader

Stunt or Stand? So much noise right now it's hard to tell. Hope Time demonstrates this as a genuine move. BigCo with lots of PR weight can really keep the story at the top (or push it over the top)

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I'm an employee, so for what it's worth, this isn't something out of the blue. Airbnb has a disaster response program that gets activated all the time for natural disasters and other tragedies - https://www.airbnb.com/disaster-response

We're choosing to activate it in response to the executive order because it goes directly against our company mission to let people belong anywhere. I'm sure PR was part of the decision but if it helps people, I'd take it at face value.

Stunt, then, as AirBNB isn't providing any free housing. You're just going to browbeat people who offered "housing to displaced neighbors and relief workers" to underwrite "your" provision of housing to people who are neither neighbors nor relief workers.

You make biased judgement without knowing how the service actually works. If you had a look at the disaster response page of Airbnb, as just did I, you'd find that the UX flow is different. You select the disaster first and then offer your housing, which means the hosts are informed about their potential guests.

>You select the disaster first and then offer your housing, which means the hosts are informed about their potential guests.

Yes, you do. What is AirBnB's role besides providing the platform?

That's good itself because providing the platform is their core competence and they use it for public benefit. But if you think that it's not enough (for what?), they are also using their PR resources to spread the word and reach potential hosts who can participate.

Maybe someone should change the title of this post then, which, as I write this, is "Airbnb is providing free housing to refugees and anyone not allowed in the US."

Let's be clear: if you are taking a public stand against the president of the United State who is known to be vindictive, you are taking a stand. ALL OF THEM. It is never just a stunt, because a stunt means there's no risk.

>"It is never just a stunt, because a stunt means there's no risk."

I'm sorry I fail to see what risk has now been assumed by AirBnB by having a cofounder send out a Tweet.

You say that as if nothing important happens on twitter, but as we have seen recently, the president pays a lot of attention to twitter.

Its not a comment on the importance of Twitter. But rather composing a tweet requires no considerable effort. Its the same as when people change their FB profile pic and considerate it action.

An action that involved real effort would have been a twee that contained a link to the AirBnB's program to help alleviate the problems faced by refugees.

The President of the US is an odd example because that runs counter to your point I believe. Trump Tweets are the ultimate symbol of vacuousness, vanity and impulse.

Umm... generally stunts are known for their risk...

Incorrect.

Volunteers are covered under AirBNB's $1 million host insurance. That's certainly not free.

Looks like it will be something different from what you already have. Housing is necessary for those who are outside USA and cannot return home and for those who's being deported, which means it has worldwide scale, not limited geography as before, right?

Yes, a lot of people have been working overnight and still working hard on putting out a slightly different way to volunteer for this service. As you point out it obviously has different challenges and opportunities than a natural disaster. We're working with organizations on the ground helping folks already to identify where we can help most. There's also work to prevent the inevitable attempts at abusing this system. And finally there's also work being done to try to help folks in areas we might not have any or enough volunteer hosts.

Wow this is beautiful.

It's capitalism with a mission. A mission to let people belong. Anywhere.

Now I know why your company fights so hard to skirt regulation and taxation. Because it would impede that mission (to let people belong (anywhere.))

I don't want to downplay their contribution. It's awesome, period. If you squint your eyes though, it looks like a growth hack, similar to their original Craigslist indexing hack. Getting people who offer their homes in cases of emergencies to sign up might lead to them renting out their homes later on. Plus there's the free publicity. It's a win-win for everybody involved.

It's not PR. PR would never be so controversial. This will inevitably stir heaps of outrage from Trump supporters and the Trump administration.

It's as much a gesture to make themselves and their own employees feel good. With something on the order of 40% of tech workers born outside of the United States who may be really scared right now, they may actually genuinely care about their coworkers! And this has the potential to kind of kill the whole tech industry in the US.

How is this controversial for a company who wants to look good to everyone around the world? Perhaps it's controversial if you think Airbnb only cares about the U.S. market, however if you look more holistically then it's a tiny majority who might be bothered by this.

Labeling something controversial isn't a value judgment, it's simply an observation that it's drawing or likely to draw a negative response from a large group of people. The President currently has a 30something percent approval rating. Companies generally try to avoid doing things that could potentially alienate a third of a market.

I'm glad Airbnb is doing this, and I think in the future it will be seen as an important show of goodwill. But the company is certainly taking a risk.

My comment was to draw awareness to the larger picture, to a larger group of people, the whole world of people. If they can look good to the majority of the world market, and of the 30% of people who 'approve' of Trump - who hopefully aren't complete racists and just are thinking Trump's actions somehow prevent terrorism from occurring in the U.S. - hopefully only a small % of those are racists and the others will see Airbnb supporting people who may have trouble finding shelter. It really doesn't seem like a risk at all, and they'll write off the costs and not need to pay as much taxes on the profits they seem to now be claiming pre-IPO. Maybe there's an increased risk if Trump starts tweeting that Airbnb supports and hosts terrorists - however the rest of us will see the drivel that that is and Airbnb will gain further positive marketing exposure. Overall of course, at the surface, Airbnb's offer is good for the people affected by this and for helping the world feel united - however we don't really know to what extent Airbnb really will follow through with their announcement; is it a shallow or a deep offering? Call me skeptical: I've had ongoing issues as an Airbnb host and a guest and Airbnb by and far is only interested in keeping as much money for themselves as possible, obviously to help increase their perceived value until they IPO -- they take a relatively high % of booking fees compared to how helpful and caring they claim to be.

How many of that 30% do you actually think are in their market though. Airbnb hosts tend to be in urban areas and they have agreed to accept foreign guests in their home. Guests are probably at least semi frequent travelers and usually tech savvy.I don't think Airbnb is as ubiquitous as you seem to think.

Let me count the ways:

1. It is controversial to employees who support Trump.

2. It is controversial to investors who support Trump.

3. It is controversial to clients who support Trump, and now might stop using AirBnB.

4. They are taking public stance against the president of the US who is known to have a vindictive streak (and his businesses are their competition). How motivated will Trump be to sign legislation that hurts AirBnB?

Do you think this is an easy decision?

In a time when national agencies (like the Forrest Park department and NASA) are operating clandestine tweet accounts against Trump policies etc, it's not that controversial.

Like gay rights in the 2010s (which no company would touch with a ten-feet pole in the seventies and eighties, but they make grandiose stands now that it's safe except in some backwater redneck communities), it's just the fashionable thing to do.

It's not even like the Vietnam war protests in the 60s, when mostly the young and alternative press were in favor and it was an actual risk.

Now you're on the side with mainstream press, corporate giants, most of Hollywood and show biz (even country acts), major TV channels, etc.

It could be controversial to investors who are hoping for an IPO in the next 4 years.

Is it controversial to anyone else? Even someone who supports Trump's executive order may consider it reasonable that refugees should be housed somewhere.

What I consider controversial is backing a candidate who actively helped create the current Middle-East crises, supporting the first Iraq War and then the overthrow of the Syrian government.

>"With something on the order of 40% of tech workers born outside of the United States who may be really scared right now."

Every time I hear this, the number seems to go up. Please provide a citation for that number. You are saying all tech workers in the US? There's no way that is possible. You realize that there is a larger tech work force in the US than just Silicon Valley right?

> Hope time demonstrates this as a genuine move

What's your metric? Doing the right thing can be great PR, and I wouldn't fault someone for considering both.

Even if it is a Stunt, people are still getting help and that's what matters

What help are refugees getting from AirBnB? The only details are:

"Stayed tuned for more info"

The typo is odd. You'd think a piece of text as small as a tweet, and containing an unusual announcement, would be proof read before published.

"Stayed tune for another tweet with correct grammar."

So what? Aren't we voicing our opinions so that companies are forced to join us? That's what we did with security after Snowden, and now end-to-end encryption has become a marketing term, and it's good.

It'd be great if Snowden got a pardon in the process, too.

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