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Why is it up to YC? They only have a small chunk of Airbnb, there are many other larger shareholders. The most motivated investors to have a smooth fix here would be the ones that just sank in over $100M at a sky-high $1.3B valuation.

If it can be twisted (and someone will twist it) to sound as if YC were funding startups that result in considerate consumer risk, things could escalate rapidly to a place I can imagine they don't want it going.

That's nice. But all the Internet message board sentiment in the world doesn't change the fact that YC doesn't represent Airbnb. Even if YC wanted to help with Airbnb's crisis management, they are a tiny minority investor in the company. Unless Paul Graham is secretly on their board, they probably can't do anything at all about this.

It's just an economies of scale thing. YC has hundreds of start-ups, and a few will have issues at any given time. I don't think it's up to YC because they are obligated to, just because I think it would be worthwhile.

Even if YC did have such a thing, consider that Airbnb has raised like 20x more than YC has invested into their entire portfolio since 2005. Airbnb is worth more than YC. It's not that YC doesn't give tips on how to do some of your initial PR, but once you're at the level that Airbnb is at you're not going to be relying on YC freebies.

Yeah, the implied YC association in all of this is a bit bizarre. AirBnB raised about 0.01% of their financing from YC. They've got a strong board comprised of some very experienced, good VCs. Saying that YC should handle this would be like suggesting that Bill Gate's Harvard fraternity should clean up Microsoft's faux pas. (That's a bit hyperbolic, but I think you see what I'm getting at.)

Interestingly, perhaps, I see YC's connection to this story as more that it runs the site that broke the story: this one. I suspect pg getting involved is more because he personally likes the AirBnB founders rather than that he sees it as the responsibility of YC.

>AirBnB raised about 0.01% of their financing from YC.

That is not the relevant number. YC will tend to care about the bad publicity in direct proportion to how much of the stock they own, and they probably own a lot more than 0.01% of AirBnB.

That's silly. It implies that YC doesn't trust AirBnB's board, who all have more skin in the game, know the situation better and on top of that, are mostly personal friends of the YC partners.

"Skin in the game" is percent ownership.

YC had to invest in a lot of startups that didn't get as far as AirBnB to end up owning ~6% of an AirBnB.

For the record, Airbnb has raised 3 rounds of funding, so YC's percentage is probably closer to 2% than 6% (0.06 * 0.7^3). Other than that I don't see how your point is relevant. Sure, I get that YC's share of Airbnb is valuable. But it's dwarfed by others who have more power both formally and informally.

You said roughly "other people have more money on the line, so YC should let them do it"

This is wrong in far more than 5 ways, but we will start with 5.

1. Your model of "money on the line" doesn't seem to account for diminishing marginal utility (if a billionaire has $1 million at risk, and a millionaire has $1k at risk, the risk is greater for the millionaire even though the percentage risk is equal).

2. Your model doesn't seem to account for relative portfolio size (if a billionaire risks $1 million, and a $10 millionaire also risks $1 million, the risk is greater for the $10 millionaire)

3. Your model doesn't seem to account for the opportunity cost of time (YC seems to like/have time for talking to the press about YC companies, something that many VC firms don't)

4. Your model doesn't seem to account for relative skill (YC seems better at talking to the press than most VC firms)

5. Your model doesn't seem to account for compensation options (if YC doesn't feel that time spent would be positive ROI, AirBnB or the other investors might be able to pay YC to do it)

In short, my coming on HN to read interesting business discussion, only to find thoughts like "Saying that YC should handle this would be like suggesting that Bill Gate's Harvard fraternity should clean up Microsoft's faux pas (That's a bit hyperbolic, but I think you see what I'm getting at.)" is like being invited by a friend to the symphony, and showing up to discover a five year old alternating between playing a xylophone and eating wood glue (That's a bit hyperbolic, but I think you see what I'm getting at).

I think it might have something to do with the articles about how saavy the founders are, how some who passed on it regretted doing so, etc., than purely their involvement as investors. This story does not mesh well with that message.

Just from the numbers, it is likely that even if YC wanted to take on a role in addressing this Airbnb issue, they would have no ability to do so at all. Airbnb is run by its board, not by YC.

Since I'm not sure if this is in response to me or just a general comment, I want to clarify that I don't personally think YC has much room to maneuver and I don't think they should be the ones out in front of the story.

I just think that articles like this one[1] have put them in a bind with respect to this story.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/airbnb.html

No part of this linked story has anything to do with the current drama. In fact, it's the opposite: that's Paul Graham saying that the thing he likes best about Airbnb is that they are likely to pivot away from Etsy-style small-ball with people's rooms and towards direct competition with hotels.

I'm left with the impression that you think YC is in a bind here because you want them to be in a bind here. It sure is a lot more fun to talk about, isn't it?

Of course it doesn't have anything to do with it directly, I'm talking about the perception created by that sort of story and the coverage it spawned.

If you're on record talking about someone's positive qualities, and they make a mistake, or even are accused of making a mistake, that puts others in a position of expecting you to have a position on it. But they can't really take a public position on it beyond what pg's already said on the matter, and we see what good that did. This is the bind I am talking about.

I don't want them to be in a bind. I have no feelings one way or the other about the matter, really, I am just attempting to offer my point of view on why people are clamoring for YC to be more vocal about this topic.

Being on record saying positive things about someone or something does not put you in a bind when years later something bad happens with them. I liked John Edwards in 2007.

The logic that involves YC in the Airbnb drama is juvenile. Sorry to be so blunt about it; I know nobody likes being called names.

As someone who donated to John Edwards's campaign in 2007, I can sympathize with that scenario.

I don't think it's right, and maybe I have just been in DC too long, but this is how this sort of thing works in the media. I never said they owe an explanation to anyone or anything like that, but people are _clearly_ expecting one. Something set that expectation.

Maybe this makes me juvenile, that's fine.

When you say "I don't think that way, but other people clearly will", do you realize that you yourself are perpetuating the phenomenon?

I am saying "I don't think this way, but I believe this is why others do." You can discuss an idea without supporting it.

I've often wondered this this isn't part of the "foundations" portion that is mentioned in the description of the YCombinator program. Not only a PR firm as you mentioned but a couple of training sessions in PR AND ethics before launch even happens. A core set of skills and knowledge is more than merely a founder and a great idea these days.

I count at least three YCombinator startups that have stumbled severely with PR not once but multiple times: Wakemate, Dropbox and AirBnB.

Wakemate, Dropbox and AirBnB have made poor business decisions. It's a PR problem when you explain a good decision poorly.

Good point! Dropbox has had the same kind of problem dealing with unfavorable coverage.

And Loopt recently, although they handled it pretty well.

I wouldn't be surprised if EJ doesn't have a PR person nudging her along. Her statements about being "violated" and "unsafe" means she sounds like she wants AirBnB to do the impossible and repair her, not her belongings. She sounds like she's inconsolable and nothing can be done to make it right, but boy, does blabbing about how upset she is in every possible media outlet make it feel a little better!

I think she's looking for more than just replacement, but a sizable settlement. I won't be surprised if we see legal papers in the next week.

At this point, it did occur to me that she is angling for a much bigger settlement than just her furnishings. And if so, I imagine it's not a PR firm coaching her, but rather a lawyer.

I've done a lot of work with plaintiff's attorneys and one thing I've never seen is them encouraging people to publicly express their whoa. You don't want the other side to know what you are going to drop.

Their... woe?

ya, channeling Joey Lawrence. Thanks for the rapid grammar feedback.

That's very cynical -- can't she just be articulate and feeling violated?

Is it cynical when you see a pattern in the language she's using? She's not the first customer to complain about the outcome of a business transaction she engaged in, remember Paula Jones?, so the public at large is already well-educated in terms of what happens next.

I'm on record with my desire to see counsel retained on her behalf before passing judgement on what exactly she's angling for and I think the specialization of that particular legal counsel will spell it out for us.

To answer you, yes actually it is. Innocent until proven guilty, and all the language patterns in the world can't change that?

She certain can, but she also bears some responsibility for using the service. For instance, I wouldn't use it unless I had everything from my garlic press to my furniture and space insured to the hilt, and was sure my policy covered these tenants.

I think it's been discussed several times already. In many cases, you can't get rental insurance for services like airbnb.

This might have to do with thinking styles instead of malice - and it's a very common way to misunderstand people not working in the tech or science industry.

If you have some free time, go read the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus", which talks about the difference. It isn't always gender - the book is simply giving you familiar examples. But there does exist a sizable number of people who tend to think from feelings first, instead of fact and logic first. Always attributing this kind of writing or speech as malice would produce tons of misunderstandings between you and a lot of people.

I noticed a gender dynamic in the crossed communication here as well (and also in HN's mass response to it, but that's another story). But speaking generally, this kind of thing cuts both ways. A lot of the time "people not working in the tech or science industry" (if that's the euphemism we're using) perceive genuinely well-intentioned remarks as malicious too (e.g. cold, calculating, robotic). Why? Because very little is coming through their primary channel. Each party is relying on a different primary channel and feels like they're not being heard.

I disagree. Of course this is all speculation but I see in EJ someone who's genuinely hurt, and genuinely private, and is not focused on financial remedies.

Her main complaint seems to be lack of genuine concern, not lack of financial help. Nothing about her attitude, her living situation, or blog (documenting extensive past globetrotting adventures) suggests she's hurting for money.

She's just hurting from having her home, sense of security, and sentimental possessions ransacked.

But it's extremely hard for anyone so far to evaluate how much genuine concern Airbnb has expressed, or failed to express, especially with the press repeatedly focusing on airbnb's attempts to "censor" her.

I find it hard to believe Airbnb wouldn't have expressed genuine concern. However their request for her to take down her blog or alter it due to their funding round was probably in bad taste.

I think the missteps by Airbnb are overblown mostly by an emotionally distressed woman.

Respectfully, no. The missteps by Airbnb are almost certainly mostly overblown by the Internet message board pundits who have managed to form strong opinions about the events second-, third-, and none'th- hand about it.

Telling sign: people are forming factions and polarizing the issue. Either "EJ" is legitimately frustrated by a clumsy response by Airbnb, or she's acting out because of emotional distress; one set of fact patterns belongs to the "pro-Airbnb" side, and the other to the "pro-EJ" side.

Also telling: let's all make sure we get photos of the damage! Because how will we know how to judge what happened unless we can see it for ourselves? Because better forming opinions about other people's misfortunes is our right as Internet message board citizens.

My feeling is that if she is generally vulnerable, and genuinely private, it doesn't make a lot of sense to rent out your apartment with your belongings inside it and then leave for days. I could never rent out to AirBnB, because I'm also fairly private and I don't like thinking of people being in a position to touch my things.

I'm not saying that she invited what happened, but that the risks were very clear, and only she could decide how to weight those risks. If she's the private person she's painting herself as being, I really don't understand why she used AirBnB in the first place.

I don't think she's a liar, and what happened to her was terrible, but I can't help but feel that this has gone over some threshold of "I want to get this sorted out between two amicable parties who are seeking a resolution" to using the positive press for her to see how much can be extracted from AirBnB.

> If she's the person she's the private person she's painting herself as being, I really don't understand why she used AirBnB in the first place.

I wonder if the vandal had any feedback on airbnb.

I've used airbnb once as a guest and, being a private person myself, I went out of my way to find a host with some reputation and good feedback. I even forewent some better deals because they were by new hosts that had no feedback to show.

Now, I'm not saying that this is right or wrong--after all we all have to start somewhere and, as a first-time airbnb guest, I didn't have any reputation points myself--but I reckon people who have so much at stake should screen their guests very carefully.

The personal effects (which she seemed the most upset about losing) were locked away in a closet, which the thieves/renters smashed a hole in to get to.

I don't think that's especially relevant. She put her belongings in a position where someone had days to get access to them, without any external evidence at all. Neighbors would notice a broken window/door on the outside. A smashed in lock on the inside? Who's to know?

I disagree with what you're saying about EJ having a PR person nudging her. But I agree with the rest of your sentiment because I got the same vibe reading her interview comments.

I'm wondering if Airbnb sensed this from their interactions with her just prior to the first blog post. It's possible the situation cannot be fixed, even with a blank check. Does she have a legal case? I don't know how she'd be able to sue Airbnb if that's what she decides to do because they have no legal obligation to compensate her. The person she needs to go after is Faith Clinton.

She has made two blog posts. The media has picked up the story, and they're contacting her. I don't think that counts as "blabbing ... in every possible media outlet."

As for the made-up PR person, I think it's ridiculous to do what-ifs like that when you have no evidence.

Finally, it's clear to me from her comments that she is suffering from PTSD. She's communicating her experience with that. I see no reason to assume guile.

According to the host of this very website, when the mainstream media (like, say, USA Today) picks up stories, it's because PR firms hit the media with stories.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I don't think you understood that essay. That essay is about when things that are not stories make it into many news outlets - things such as suits. There is no story, people are not talking about them, so PR firms conjure up an angle and sell that angle to the media.

This is a story. People are talking about it.

Hmm,

In my understanding of it, in outline this was handled the way conventional PR firms have handled corporate problems - fix it in private and ignore it/deny it in public. Especially, offering aid contingent on silence (which MJ's kind of indicates was done).

It seems like "The Ole' PR stonewall" just isn't a good model for startups. Instead, a better model is do the right thing, from the start, publicly and privately (obviously, you need to articulate clearly what you're doing so you still corporate communications). Google, at its best, has benefited from this approach.

That's just the stereotype. I worked for a small PR firm, on a portfolio of small tech companies, where I felt proud of how we operated.

The good firms realize that the most effective way to combat crisis like these is to over-deliver on your obligations to anyone hurt, and to lead the charge in providing information to the public.

I've never worked PR for tobacco or big oil companies, but I imagine that's where the stereotype comes from. It's pretty easy to do good, ethical PR for a bunch of nerds programming computers.

Under-promise, over-deliver is our mantra in my team. You nailed it.

The ol' PR stonewall has never been a good model for any company that's pissed off a journalist. Nowadays, it seems like it's maybe not a good model if you've pissed off anybody who can write clearly and coherently, regardless of whether or not they're employed as a journalist, because a well-written and gripping blog post like EJ's can draw a lot of attention, even without journalist assistance.

Although, as we saw, it can take a while. A month in this case.

From http://www.cluetrain.com/#manifesto:

The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy....

As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone....

Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance....

Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets....

Don't worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it's not the only thing on your mind....

We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

When the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto wrote the above theses in 1999, they sounded radical, utopian, even unrealistic. Now they are, or should be, common sense. Airbnb exists in large part because of the truth of these theses. So why are they reverting to 1950s-style corporate blackmail when faced with this crisis?

The gold standard in disaster PR response is the Tylenol crisis of 1982. Somehow poison was ending up in some Tylenol capsules and a little girl had died.

Before even fully knowing what was going on the company apologized, issued a nationwide recall, and replaced product ads with announcements warning people not to consume their product.

When an internal investigation revealed it was someone tampering with products after they were on shelves and resealing them, the company announced it would relaunch the product with an innovative tamper-evident cap and offered a reward for information leading to the culprit.

They probably had considered the safer cap beforehand knowing that this could be an issue - and used this event as an excuse to roll it out.

But this did involve a lack of transparency, right?

The transparent response is "we don't know what happened and we are investigating".

I don't really think you need an expert to anticipate this exact sort of problem with AirBnB. It's precisely the reason that I and many others never use the service – it's wildly obvious that this risk existed from the start. Handling this eventuality should have been planned and scripted from day one.

Airbnb has settled these cases before, as another commenter noted here. I have been completely sympathetic to EJ all along, but as I read more of her interview comments, I'm starting to wonder if there's even anything Airbnb could do to help at this point (or any point, for that matter). I don't think there is. Airbnb could sign a blank check, and it wouldn't surprise me if she still continued to talk to the media. She has shown after they asked her to take down her first post that she is unwilling to work a deal out quietly, whatever happens, she wants it to be done very publicly. Who knows what will make her happy, not even she knows from her comments in the interview. Point being: Airbnb has settled these cases before and customers have walked away happy because of it.

It doesn't look like AirBnB tried to settle this case in any meaningful way. Chesky's posts on HN and in other sources are full of weasel bs like "we're doing everything possible", "we're working on it".

If, instead, they'd put out a bullet point list of what they've done to mitigate the disaster, public would have been tamed and considered the incident over.

Internet hate machine started working against airbnb, they should better begin doing something meaningful before they might very well become a non-company.

It may or may not be a fundamental problem with Airbnb that the situation happened in the first place, but their response to it has frankly revealed deeply fundamental problems in the moral character of the company. As a long time admirer of Airbnb it's hard for me to admit this, but it's true. It's not a matter of good PR or bad PR, it's a matter of simple moral decency.