Ask HN: Why is Founder Mode not working for Airbnb?

jjorisboris about 9 hours ago 2 comments

I really liked Airbnb and was rooting for them ever since they launched.

The stock never attained the peak it reached post-ipo (only this month it's gotten close), while Booking Holdings roughly doubled in the same period.

The sentiment online seems to be against them (or at least in my bubble). Poor customer service and overprotected hosts seem to be recurring issues.

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notahacker•about 2 hours ago

I'd say "founder mode" (if we must use such silly terms) did pretty well for them to IPO at over 100 billion for a single segment of the travel market Booking Holdings could easily have done themselves (and to an extent actually does) in the middle of the pandemic though. But all the growth since then was priced in to the market's expectations for them to deliver upon, as were expectations that AirBnB might expand into other markets...

Booking Holdings generates more revenue and profit from having more products in more markets, and was underpriced rather than overpriced in 2020. People moan about them at least as much as AirBnB, but ultimately people moan about their websites or policies because they're using them...

vikramshwetabh2•about 3 hours ago

Maybe this isn't really a founder mode problem. Airbnb has a two-sided marketplace, so improving the experience for guests can sometimes hurt hosts, and vice versa. Some of the recurring complaints about customer service may therefore come from incentives built into the marketplace rather than from a lack of founder involvement.