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Comment by callmeed | Hacker News Reader

I heard a podcast discuss the possibility of AirBnB offering shares or options to superhosts (like me) ahead of the IPO–essentially as a "thank you" to the people who helped build the marketplace.

Anyone have thoughts on if that is possible or plausible?

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Not plausible. Just wishful thinking. How would that even work if superhosts are not accredited investors?

Airbnb Host Endowment: A fund that is intended to provide support to our host community now and in the future, which we expect will be initially funded with 9.2 million shares of Airbnb stock

https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/how-were-gi...

Employees that get and exercise stock options are not accredited investors either. Couldn't they take a similar route?

I admit, I ask mostly selfishly (my wife and I are superhosts, we have managed a full-time AirBnB in CA for 2 years). But it's also an interesting thought experiment. It would be quite the contrast to how the rideshare and food delivery companies treat their non-employees.

Uber and Lyft did give long-term drivers “appreciation awards” which they could use to buy stock in the IPO. So not unprecedented.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/11/uber-is-dishing-out-apprec...

My understanding was that the Uber stock was a huge disaster because the value of the Uber stock imploded after drivers bought options

Disclaimer: I am an Airbnb employee

Square did this for some of their merchants through Loyal3 (which appears to be dead now), so it’s plausible.

Disclosure: am employee

some Uber drivers got RSUs so I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for Airbnb.

The S-1 has this section with title "Directed Share Program":

"At our request, the underwriters have reserved up to [blank] shares of Class A common stock, or [blank]% of the shares offered by this prospectus, for sale at the initial public offering price through a directed share program to: * Eligible U.S. hosts who hosted on our platform in 2019 and 2020 [...]"

Not sure what this means.

I just got an email from AirBnB outlining their plan to offer shares to hosts as a part of the IPO with first dibs to hosts that first came on the platform.

Yup, just got it too.

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