Airbnb CEO pledges to take more responsibility for impact to housing

Avante

23/02/2018 02:49

By Heather Somerville 
    SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Home-booking company 
Airbnb has sparred with regulators across the globe, but Chief 
Executive Brian Chesky on Thursday spoke of coming to terms with 
his responsibility for how the company can impact housing 
markets and neighborhoods. 
    "Every year I think you have a sense you have even more 
responsibility than the year before," Chesky said in an 
interview with Reuters.  
    Chesky's view represents a striking evolution for the 
company, which just a few years ago defended itself as a passive 
technology platform, not responsible for what homes it listed or 
how they were used.  
    "When Airbnb started 10 years ago it was kind of the culture 
that you really can't take responsibility for what happens on 
your platform," he said. "We changed our point of view."  
    Things are certainly different for Airbnb from when it began 
as a scrappy website for renting an air mattress on a stranger's 
floor. Chesky said on Thursday that Airbnb's revenue grew more 
than 50 percent from the end of 2016 to the end of 2017. 
    A person familiar with the matter previously told Reuters 
that Airbnb's revenue last year topped $2.5 billion, about $1 
billion of which occurred in the fourth quarter.  
    Chesky spoke to Reuters during an event at Airbnb 
headquarters in San Francisco, where the company announced new 
luxury services to attract more high-end travelers and unveiled 
a large-scale redesign of the company's 4.5 million property 
listings to make it easier for travelers to find what they want. 
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1QB1ST 
    Chesky said the company trimmed fat from its core 
home-renting business so it could turn a profit last year to 
invest in the new products and technology. Part of that was 
weeding out problematic hosts and guests - a single-digit 
percentage of all users "who tend to become very costly" because 
Airbnb generally reimburses those who have a bad experience, 
Chesky said. 
    With a $31 billion valuation, privately held Airbnb for 
years has been considered a contender for an initial public 
offering, but Chesky said the company will not go public this 
year, partly due to the departure this month of its chief 
financial officer, Laurence Tosi. Still, Chesky said Airbnb will 
complete IPO preparations by year-end, including hiring a new 
CFO and bringing on more independent directors. 
    Another task, Chesky said, is to ensure he has a solid 
understanding of how Airbnb's business can alter neighborhoods 
and housing markets "before there is a giant magnifying glass on 
you" in the public markets. 
    The company has battled regulators in cities from Berlin to 
Paris and Miami, but its spat with its hometown of San Francisco 
was among the most bitter. 
    "We don't want the history of San Francisco, which was a 
very difficult history over the last seven years, to happen in 
every city," Chesky said. 
    In lawsuits against San Francisco and other cities, Airbnb 
invoked Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, a 
20-year-old statute designed to protect free speech online, to 
argue it should not be regulated. 
    But Airbnb last May settled its lawsuit with San Francisco, 
which was over a local ordinance forbidding home-rental 
companies from taking bookings for hosts who have not properly 
registered their homes. The settlement included Airbnb's 
creating a registration system for anyone in the city who wants 
to rent out a room or house on its site. The result was 
thousands fewer Airbnb listings in San Francisco. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N1I30Z6 
    Airbnb, however, is still engaged in lawsuits with the 
cities of Santa Monica, California, and Miami. 
    Chesky said executives at technology platforms - including 
companies like Facebook  FB.O  and Twitter  TWTR.N  - need to 
better appreciate that when they have millions or billions of 
users, "every little decision has a massive impact on the 
world."  
    "This is a huge amount of responsibility and I think we are 
all coming to terms with this responsibility," Chesky said. 
 
    <^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
Stymied by regulators, Airbnb looks to luxury vacations, hotels 
for growth     urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N1QB1ST 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> 
 (Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Jonathan Weber and 
Leslie Adler) 
 ((Heather.Somerville@thomsonreuters.com;)(415)(321-2320; 
Reuters Messaging: Follow me on Twitter @heathersomervil)) 
 
Keywords: AIRBNB EXPANSION/CHESKY