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Comment by markbao | Hacker News Reader

Wow. I love AirBnB, and I hate to say it, but that was a completely boneheaded move. There is absolutely no doubt that EJ is very public on this issue. If it's true that AirBnB tried to cover up the problem, then why? Did the founders think that EJ wouldn't turn around and say that they're asking her to remove the post?

Handling this situation should be a top priority for AirBnB. There's the potential that the mainstream media could have a field day with this. The incident will undoubtedly be part of the hotel lobbyists' list of reasons AirBnB should be made illegal. And if the investigation reveals that they were cooking drugs in the place, that's even more damning.

It's disappointing to see this happen to one of the most interesting startups as of late, and I hope they turn around their attitude for the better. This is already really damaging, but it could be way worse if things don't change.

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It isn't disappointing, it is predictable. AirBnB has skirted the rules from day one, when they launched by spamming Craiglist. AirBnB brokers a service that is illegal in many jurisdictions, and they go out of their way to mask the serious risks their users (both renters and owners) are taking. And when the obvious happens, their response is self-serving.

Actually that was apparently not sanctioned, rather the work of some contractors acting off their own back.[1]

[1]:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2815183

Ah, the News of The World defense.

Ok I'll bite; actually quite different - there are (very) strong indications that the NotW's problems were part of the culture there which makes the idea that the bosses did not know seem very unlikely. In this case there are no such indications afaik.

In any case I wasn't taking a position (I simply do not know enough to do so), rather I wanted to provide some balance to the assertion that they spam which was stated as if it was absolute fact.

The scale is obviously different, so in that sense I wasn't fair. But the defense is exactly the same, disclaiming responsibility for the acts of your contractors. I don't think any victim (Craigslist, NoTW phone hackees) cares about the fine point of the employment relationship.

EDIT: took EJ off the parenthesized list of victims, as she was not the victim of a contractor.

I think things differ in 3 main respects -

1. Whether there was an ongoing culture of doing the wrong thing - NotW yes, AirBnb not so much (afaik).

2. Whether there is an indication that the defence is actually completely false (i.e. whether the guys in charge actually did know and sanction these things) - again there are some strong indications that this was the case at the NotW, especially if you take the culture into account (i.e. - how did that culture come about if there wasn't some degree of either asking for hacking to be performed or not wanting to know whether it was - both equally worthy of blame). Again AirBnB - not so much.

3. And of course, scale, though I didn't mean to criticise that particular difference.

The victims might not care about the finer points, but in terms of determining who is to blame it does matter. Obviously there is the point that employees are the responsibility of the company, however if they do something the employer was not aware of then that seems to me to be a sort of technicality.

Anyway, getting into [1] territory now so should probably just leave it at that :)

[1]: http://xkcd.com/386/

"1. Whether there was an ongoing culture of doing the wrong thing - NotW yes, AirBnb not so much (afaik)."

When you're first starting off a company, anything you do is your company culture.

The fact that this occurred 5 weeks ago yet nothing has been done to rectify this and that the co-founder wanted the victim to put a spin on the situation is astounding.

That's what I keep thinking too. Ignoring all the ethical and legal issues here: this was just obviously a huge risk to the company from the instant they heard about it. How do you let weeks go by without getting closure on this? Get the senior executives on the phone with her every day, make sure she knows everything you know, make absolutely certain she isn't stewing in silence thinking about writing a blog post. Really, that's just customer service 101.

Instead AirBnB stuck their heads in the sand and ignored it until it went viral. Bad, bad sign. Which new company-breaking disaster is going to be ignored next?

> There's the potential that the mainstream media could have a field day with this.

It's on the front page of the Financial Times today (Friday 29 July) in London. The article is fairly short, is based on the original blog post and the reaction to that, and it also talks about AirBnB's finances (as is appropriate for that newspaper).

It's below the fold - the headline is about US government debt. But still.

Update: the same article can be found online here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9aac5f80-b924-11e0-bd87-00144feabd...

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