Speaker 1: I want to acknowledge something. If I could have done
Speaker 1: airban bill over again, I would have designed Airbnb with
Speaker 1: more stakeholders of mind, including communities. I was twenty six.
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand some of the things I understand today.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we'd be in New York if we
Speaker 1: weren't able to host on Airbnb. Tactics are starting our home.
Speaker 1: It's an opportunity to kind of bring other cultures and
Speaker 1: um just wonderful people from all over the world into
Speaker 1: our home. Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing,
Speaker 1: the gap between what companies say they stand for and
Speaker 1: what they actually do, and what they would need to
Speaker 1: change to practice what they preach. I'm your host, time
Speaker 1: onto you, and I've spent over a decade helping companies
Speaker 1: define what they stand for, their purpose and then help
Speaker 1: them to use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at a lot of organizations today, they're still a pretty
Speaker 1: wide gap between word. Indeed, that gap has a name.
Speaker 1: We call it bullshit. But, and this is important, we
Speaker 1: believe that bullshit is a treatable disease. So when the
Speaker 1: BS detector lights up, we're going to explore things that
Speaker 1: a company should do to fix it. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're gonna check out Airbnb, the short term rental platform
Speaker 1: who have welcomed more than a billion guests around the world.
Speaker 1: Airbnb says its purpose is to create a world in
Speaker 1: which anyone can belong anywhere. That's a pretty lofty purpose,
Speaker 1: but I'm a believer, so much so that I'll often
Speaker 1: stay in an Airbnb when I travel instead of staying
Speaker 1: at some generic hotel chain. I feel like I'm supporting
Speaker 1: a local host and having a local experience. When we
Speaker 1: talk about ways to stem the eviction crisis, one of
Speaker 1: them is to ensure that people still have access to
Speaker 1: homes if the vacant units are being um legally turned
Speaker 1: into hotels for terrorists, and then that's one of the
Speaker 1: main reasons why we can't get out of this eviction crisis.
Speaker 1: When I started the journey of this episode, I didn't
Speaker 1: think there'd be a very wide gap between word. Indeed,
Speaker 1: no company is perfect, but as an Airbnb host myself,
Speaker 1: I believed Airbnb was good for local economies and by extension,
Speaker 1: local communities. But the more I dug into it, the
Speaker 1: more complicated this story got. Airbnb started literally by accident.
Speaker 1: In the fall of two thousand and seven, best friends
Speaker 1: and recent risdigrads Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia shared an
Speaker 1: apartment in San Francisco. One day, they noticed that all
Speaker 1: the hotel rooms in the city were booked because of
Speaker 1: a big design convention. Being designers themselves, they decided to
Speaker 1: host people who were looking for a place to stay
Speaker 1: on an air mattress in their apartment. Inspired by their
Speaker 1: hyperlocal hosting experience, they created air bed and Breakfast dot
Speaker 1: com for people who had rooms and wanted to host
Speaker 1: traveling guests. Soon, Nathan Blecharcik joined the team, and after
Speaker 1: successful marketests at south By Southwest and the Democratic Convention,
Speaker 1: air Bed and Breakfast dot Com got invited to y Combinator,
Speaker 1: a competitive startup incubator. Now with venture funding, expert advice,
Speaker 1: and lots of optimism, Brian, Joe, and Nathan officially launched
Speaker 1: their hub for hosts to list their spare bedrooms. Those
Speaker 1: were the salad days, and in a dude named David
Speaker 1: changed the course of the company forever. So David is
Speaker 1: barry Manalows drummer, barry Manalos Drummer Forever change our business
Speaker 1: When he decided that he was going to rent his
Speaker 1: entire apartment on his website while he was on tour
Speaker 1: with Barrier. And before that we had this rule you
Speaker 1: hadn't be in the place with that, you couldn't provide
Speaker 1: breakfast on the laws. Seems so silly now that CEO
Speaker 1: Brian Chesky describing why in two thousand and ten they
Speaker 1: went from being airbed and Breakfast to Airbnb, signaling a
Speaker 1: shift from spare room rentals to entire houses and Q
Speaker 1: scary music, sowing the seeds of a big future problem. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the company quickly grew into a household name. Millions of
Speaker 1: customers were using the platform, hosts were making some extra cash,
Speaker 1: and tourists were staying like locals. It was a big
Speaker 1: win win. It was a win win, win, win win.
Speaker 1: Everyone was winning hashtag winning. The fantastic success of their
Speaker 1: platform also allowed Brian, Joe and Nathan to use Airbnb
Speaker 1: for Good to step in, for instance, and help people
Speaker 1: fleeing from natural disasters to stay in airbnbs at no charge.
Speaker 1: Hurricane Sandy tour across the East Coast, causing an estimated
Speaker 1: fifty billion dollars in damaged poems, gone and When disasters
Speaker 1: like to strike, many people find themselves in need of
Speaker 1: temporary housing and space to figure out just what's next.
Speaker 1: Airbnbes dot org's emergency response program helps connect people to
Speaker 1: temporary places to stay in times of need. But it
Speaker 1: only took a couple of years until that big problem
Speaker 1: we mentioned began to surface. The Senators with more in
Speaker 1: calling for a probe of the company and other similar businesses.
Speaker 1: She's claiming it takes away from long term renters and
Speaker 1: inflates prices by making it possible to stay in a
Speaker 1: home where the owner wasn't present. Airbnb hopefully inadvertently made
Speaker 1: it possible to become a professional Airbnb host, in other words,
Speaker 1: to host for a living, sometimes in multiple properties. A
Speaker 1: property owner knows that they can make that much more
Speaker 1: renting to tourists through Airbnb than renting through a permanent pennant.
Speaker 1: And so unfortunately, what we're seeing is not only a
Speaker 1: landlord deciding I'm going to, you know, convert this unit
Speaker 1: to an Airbnb instead, but people who can all up
Speaker 1: multiple units and realize, oh, this is a great business model.
Speaker 1: By mounting evidence correlated Airbnb rentals with rising local home
Speaker 1: prices and rent prices, more houses listed as short term
Speaker 1: rentals meant less available housing or locals. As much good
Speaker 1: as Airbnb was doing by housing disaster victims, it seemed
Speaker 1: like more harm was being done by displacing people from
Speaker 1: their homes and communities because of the rising cost of
Speaker 1: local real estate. How can you feel like a local
Speaker 1: as Airbnb advertises, in a neighborhood without any more locals.
Speaker 1: At this point I started to suspect some BS, but
Speaker 1: maybe a more nuanced form of it, one where the
Speaker 1: gap between word indeed was unintentional, more of an unforeseen
Speaker 1: side effect of their success. To check my math, I
Speaker 1: decided to reach out to an Airbnb data expert, a
Speaker 1: New Orleans neighborhood sustainability organization, and a New York City councilman.
Speaker 1: What I learned from these experts changed my perspective to
Speaker 1: a lot. Airbnb says their purpose is to create a
Speaker 1: world in which anyone can belong anywhere. But is that
Speaker 1: true or is it just a bunch of bullshit? Get
Speaker 1: out your BS detectors, folks, and give your spare to
Speaker 1: your neighbor, because this story affects the whole community. More
Speaker 1: discoveries about Airbnb right after this before you head to
Speaker 1: the break, we'd love to hear what you think about
Speaker 1: the show. Maybe you were inspired to take action, maybe
Speaker 1: you disagree with today's bullshit rating. Either way, we want
Speaker 1: to hear about it. Leave us a message at two
Speaker 1: one two five oh five five or send a voice
Speaker 1: memo to CBS Podcast at co collective dot com. You
Speaker 1: might even be featured on an upcoming episode. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: To help me decipher the data around short term renting,
Speaker 1: I reached out to Murray Cox, founder of an independent
Speaker 1: data platform called inside Airbnb. Murray, thanks for doing this
Speaker 1: and welcome to calling BS. Thanks Ti, I'm excitted to
Speaker 1: be on the show. So to start out with, I'd
Speaker 1: love to have you just tell our listeners a little
Speaker 1: bit more about yourself and your work. I'm sure. I
Speaker 1: started a project inside A B and B back in
Speaker 1: and I launched it in February, and it contained initially
Speaker 1: data for New York City on all the A, B
Speaker 1: and B listings across the city, and the platform had
Speaker 1: tools that let you drill into the data, so how
Speaker 1: many of the B and B listings were entire homes
Speaker 1: thus as private rooms. Murray made all this data available
Speaker 1: for free, and over the years, he's expanded to other
Speaker 1: cities as he's received requests from municipalities and journalists. Today,
Speaker 1: he collects data from more than a hundred cities and
Speaker 1: keeps tabs on countries as well. What motivated you to
Speaker 1: to take this project on? Well, I think originally it
Speaker 1: was just curiosity. I had um I just completed UH
Speaker 1: summer camp on gentrification in Brooklyn, and so I was
Speaker 1: thinking about maps and statistics. And then I just read
Speaker 1: a couple of articles about ebbing b in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and New York, and they were using data in their
Speaker 1: reporting and it left a lot of questions unanswered, and
Speaker 1: so I just wondered whether for my own neighborhood whether
Speaker 1: I could collect some data just to see what it said.
Speaker 1: And for my neighborhood, which was Bedford Steveson, the majority
Speaker 1: of listings were entire homes. People had multiple entire homes,
Speaker 1: and I thought that there was a just a story
Speaker 1: there that needed to be told, and that that was
Speaker 1: the original motivation. So that word gentrification gets used a lot.
Speaker 1: Would you mind explaining what you mean when you use
Speaker 1: that term gentrification? Yeah, I think that they're there are
Speaker 1: different interpretations of gentrification, but primarily it's higher income coasts
Speaker 1: of people moving into a neighborhood. There's racial gentrification. Sometimes
Speaker 1: people use the cost of housing, so whether rental prices
Speaker 1: have gone up as an indicator of gentrification. On the
Speaker 1: subject of whether M and B is causing gentrification, I
Speaker 1: think it's important to have an annuanced understanding here. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of factors at play in gentrification, like
Speaker 1: housing policies, property investors, and tourism. But in talking about gentrification,
Speaker 1: Murray introduced me to another related term to ristification, the
Speaker 1: affect tourists have in places that are seeing an expand
Speaker 1: ection of visitors and the relationship between an uptick and
Speaker 1: tourists and their impact on the housing market. In some
Speaker 1: cases EBBINGB is causing gentrification or this torotification. Sometimes they're
Speaker 1: contributing to it. And so I think the story is
Speaker 1: different depending on where you look. Right, So, the market
Speaker 1: that Airbnb took on originally was part of the you know,
Speaker 1: it was commonly referred to as the sharing economy, and
Speaker 1: it was originally intended or at least they said, for
Speaker 1: home sharing. And it sounds like what you're saying is
Speaker 1: this is no longer true. This idea that you would
Speaker 1: rent a room in a host's house and in so
Speaker 1: doing meet the host and actually have an actual experience
Speaker 1: with a local person. And it sounds like that is
Speaker 1: less and less the case on the platform. Is that true?
Speaker 1: In preparation for the show, I went back to the
Speaker 1: way back machine. They contend an archive where you can
Speaker 1: look at yes sight in his three it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: But I looked at the website in two thousand and
Speaker 1: nine and the homepage that comes up, the first featured
Speaker 1: property is a property in New York City. You click
Speaker 1: on it, you can see it's an entire They call
Speaker 1: it an entire place, and the host describes their space
Speaker 1: as I'm not even in the flat. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to bother you. So even um, the design of the
Speaker 1: website back in two thousand and nine was such that
Speaker 1: they had different categories of listings. They had a category
Speaker 1: called private room, where you are sharing the space with
Speaker 1: the host, but they also had this category of entire place,
Speaker 1: and over the years it came to dominate. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about that. So I think of Airbnb as like
Speaker 1: a disruptor of hotels, and you kind of go in
Speaker 1: in the back of your mind. Well, that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a bad thing, because the hotel creates a kind of
Speaker 1: generic experience, and if I use R and B and B,
Speaker 1: I'm cantributing money to a local homeowner and supporting the
Speaker 1: local economy and also having a local experience. But it
Speaker 1: sounds like these whole home rentals are having a bigger
Speaker 1: effect on real estate values in the neighborhoods in which
Speaker 1: they are most prevalent. The first thing that you said,
Speaker 1: you perceived that A, B and B was disrupting the
Speaker 1: hotel industry. Yes, and I think that was a very
Speaker 1: common perception. Even when I first started my work. Most
Speaker 1: journalists were saying it was a battle between AB and
Speaker 1: B and the hotel's. Okay, so that that is valid.
Speaker 1: But where is the bing B getting their rooms from.
Speaker 1: If they were getting them from spare rooms, okay, that's
Speaker 1: one thing. But if they're getting them from entire homes
Speaker 1: and apartments that no one can live in while the
Speaker 1: guests is staying there, and in many cases they're being
Speaker 1: rented out full time, then it doesn't become a battle
Speaker 1: just between hotels and B and B. It's a battle
Speaker 1: between AB and B and the cities. When an entire
Speaker 1: home is rented on Airbnb full time, one unit of
Speaker 1: housing is taken off the market, housing that would otherwise
Speaker 1: go to a local person who needs a place to live.
Speaker 1: Frequently you get some arguments from EBB and the hosts
Speaker 1: and lobbyists that's ay, look at the economic benefit that
Speaker 1: we're adding to neighborhoods, people that are spending money. And
Speaker 1: then the first question is that those people might have
Speaker 1: stayed in a hotel anyway. And the second question is
Speaker 1: how much does one resident if they're displaced, how much
Speaker 1: do they contribute to the neighborhood, And it's usually hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars they're contributing to the local economy.
Speaker 1: To be fair, the company is certainly not the only
Speaker 1: reason for gentrification, and often airbnbers want to be in
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that are already gentrified. But evidence does suggest that
Speaker 1: Airbnb is a meaningful and growing part of the problem.
Speaker 1: So on this show, we're focused on you know, what
Speaker 1: we call purpose led companies, and Airbnb is certainly one
Speaker 1: of those. They say their purpose is to help anyone
Speaker 1: feel like they belong anywhere. But if it turns out
Speaker 1: that Airbnb is causing gentrification in neighborhoods and forcing locals,
Speaker 1: who are the people who made the neighborhoods so interesting
Speaker 1: in the first place, to be forced out. That's basically
Speaker 1: the opposite of their mission. So looking at it that way,
Speaker 1: how big a problem would you say? This is? Well,
Speaker 1: I think if we look at ebbingb's purpose or mission
Speaker 1: to allow people to live like a local, the first
Speaker 1: part of that, I think is the impression that you're
Speaker 1: staying with a host. Right, So if the majority of
Speaker 1: listings are entire home departments, um, sometimes almost all of them,
Speaker 1: I think that they failed to that aspect. You know,
Speaker 1: you could argue that in an apartment as opposed to
Speaker 1: a hotel, you can bring your family, you can cook,
Speaker 1: you could. Okay, they're meeting their mission there, but at
Speaker 1: what cost when you displaced residents. And in many cities
Speaker 1: around the world, the social fabric of the cities are
Speaker 1: changing from tourism. What I found as I talked to
Speaker 1: residents in cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, Venice, Italy, is that
Speaker 1: the city starts to change. In Venice, on any single day,
Speaker 1: there's more tourists in the city than there are locals.
Speaker 1: There's about fifty five locals, and the population has been falling.
Speaker 1: Once you get to that stage, um commercial business has
Speaker 1: changed changes like instead of a local hardware store or
Speaker 1: a supermarket, more bars, restaurants, and nightclubs will open up.
Speaker 1: And this touristification of cities means that they become almost
Speaker 1: two dimensional Disneyland versions of themselves. And I think if
Speaker 1: you're if you're talking about tourism sustainability from a long
Speaker 1: term point of view, surely that would be an unsustainable
Speaker 1: type of tourism, right, you know, I think we need
Speaker 1: to decide what we want our cities to be. Do
Speaker 1: we want them to be livable? Do we want them
Speaker 1: to be diverse? Do we want people that work in
Speaker 1: a city to be able to live there also or
Speaker 1: born in the city to be able to live there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and and there's an additional issue, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: these almost professional hosts who are in some cases just
Speaker 1: big groups of investors who have raised a bunch of
Speaker 1: money and gone out and bought hundreds of properties in
Speaker 1: an area. And that that starts to get strange to me.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a hotel that has been broken into
Speaker 1: pieces and scattered throughout a neighborhood in a way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is happening worldwide. There are multinational companies
Speaker 1: that have raised money. ABBY is invested into some of them.
Speaker 1: I belong to some Facebook groups where hosts talk about
Speaker 1: investing improperties, and some of them have seminars and how
Speaker 1: to create a property portfolio of airbnbs, and in many
Speaker 1: cases they're controlling hundreds and sometimes thousands of properties. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're even doing it under the radar. For example, in
Speaker 1: New York City, at one point there were hosts renting
Speaker 1: out hundreds of apartments. Even though New York has a
Speaker 1: one host, one home policy. One host managing hundreds of
Speaker 1: properties is illegal to ensure that there's enough housing for everyone,
Speaker 1: but compliance with this rule has been an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: How does the city enforce that they don't know anything
Speaker 1: about the host? They go to the bab website and
Speaker 1: there's an approximate location. The host only has a name
Speaker 1: that could be made up. They were mainly relying on
Speaker 1: complaints from neighbors saying I think someone's using Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: all these strangers wandering around in my building. I think
Speaker 1: there might be an Airbnb. But if you consider going
Speaker 1: back to when we're talking about this parrot. In New
Speaker 1: York City, the fifty thousand Airbnb listings, about twenty five
Speaker 1: or thirty thousand of them were entire apartments. A massive
Speaker 1: amount of housing was being taken off the market, and
Speaker 1: there's really no efficient way to stop it. New York
Speaker 1: even went so far as to sue one of these
Speaker 1: illegal operations, and during that case, Airbnb actually admitted that
Speaker 1: although they worked to take violators down, they could no
Speaker 1: longer stand behind the one host, one home policy. All
Speaker 1: of this made me wonder about Airbnb's real intention with
Speaker 1: regard to their mission. My opinion going into this episode
Speaker 1: was that this effect, the effect that are having on
Speaker 1: local neighborhoods is unintentional. They didn't design the platform to
Speaker 1: do this, but they also didn't design it to not
Speaker 1: do this obviously, So what is your opinion about that.
Speaker 1: Was this intentional on airbnbs part or is this unintentional?
Speaker 1: So when we look at the history of Airbnb, by
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, they have received six hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in investment, two thousand and eleven, they've got a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen million dollars in investment, and two fourteen
Speaker 1: and fifteen, they're raising millions of dollars venture capitalists like
Speaker 1: Sequoia Capital and recent horowits. They're in the boardroom of
Speaker 1: ABNB and they're talking about their business, and abb is
Speaker 1: talking about all the regulations. They're talking about that entire
Speaker 1: homes are being rented out for more, that the market
Speaker 1: seems to be driving towards entire homes. I can bet
Speaker 1: you that founders and the funders would have said, we
Speaker 1: need to maximize the revenue. In New York City, they
Speaker 1: were considering legislation to make it clear that people in
Speaker 1: apartment buildings couldn't rent out short term. While they weren't present,
Speaker 1: and ABBINGB lobbied against that. They must have known it
Speaker 1: would have been bad for business. If they just cared
Speaker 1: about home sharing or private room rentals, they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: opposed that. In January, ab and B is aware of
Speaker 1: the problem. It lobbied and spoke out publicly against the
Speaker 1: passage of the New York state law in j that
Speaker 1: banned a particular yet very popular type of short term
Speaker 1: rental in New York City. But they didn't even make
Speaker 1: changes to their side when the law went to effect.
Speaker 1: They didn't advise their hosts. I think it wasn't until
Speaker 1: that there was a settlement agreement between ebbing By and
Speaker 1: the New York State Attorney General where ebbing me said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to educate our host about this new law.
Speaker 1: So that's almost three years later. I think all that
Speaker 1: evidence shows that ebbing knew about it. They were trying
Speaker 1: to fight it. And when cities sign laws, they don't
Speaker 1: respect them, right, So I want to pivot to the
Speaker 1: topic of cooperation. You wrote a report in December called
Speaker 1: platform Failures, How short term rental platforms like Airbnb failed cities,
Speaker 1: and and by cities, you mean globally this is happening,
Speaker 1: And there were a few things that jumped out of me.
Speaker 1: So in June Airbnb publicly said we're eager to work
Speaker 1: with our host community, as well as city and state
Speaker 1: governments on clear and fair regulations for short term rentals
Speaker 1: in New York. But in your report you decayed that
Speaker 1: they say they want to cooperate, but they're actively uncooperative.
Speaker 1: What are some other examples of them seeing one thing
Speaker 1: but doing another. To understand why this is important, you
Speaker 1: have to go back, probably a few years, when cities
Speaker 1: like Portland and San Francisco started introducing their own registration systems. Initially,
Speaker 1: when the registration systems were introduced, they got very low compliance,
Speaker 1: so the host just would refuse to register. In fact,
Speaker 1: after San Francisco introduced its own registration system, Brian Chefsky
Speaker 1: used to the CEO of ABBB, used to rent out
Speaker 1: his own apartment on ABANB. Maybe when he was away,
Speaker 1: he didn't register with the city, even though there's a
Speaker 1: managery registration system right and so even a year after
Speaker 1: these registration systems were introduced, the city found that there
Speaker 1: was only about ten or of hosts had registered. Wanting
Speaker 1: some ountability, san Francisco introduced a fine of a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a day per unregistered listing. At the time, thousands
Speaker 1: of hosts were unregistered. In response, Airbnb sued the city,
Speaker 1: eventually reaching a settlement and making registration mandatory for all hosts. Today,
Speaker 1: lots of cities use registration to help gather data, enforce regulation,
Speaker 1: and collect taxes. But still Murray says a lot of
Speaker 1: airbnbs are illegal. In the report that you wrote, platform Failures,
Speaker 1: I think you say something like sixt of the listings
Speaker 1: in Paris in Berlin and in New York City are illegal.
Speaker 1: So this is a pretty big, a big problem. Who
Speaker 1: who ultimately is responsible for complying with regulations? Is it
Speaker 1: is it the platform? Is it Airbnb? Or is it
Speaker 1: the hosts themselves? Like where do you place the responsibility?
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a legal obligation and then
Speaker 1: there's you know, ethical and moral obligations moral so that
Speaker 1: these are complicated questions. I think in the case of Airbnb,
Speaker 1: they know that that this legal activity is happening. It's
Speaker 1: a majority of their business. They're profiting from it. They
Speaker 1: have an ethical obligation to do something about it. They
Speaker 1: have an ethical obligation to be honest about it. They
Speaker 1: haven't been honest about it. They don't disclose any data.
Speaker 1: They spend a massive amount of lobbying that says that
Speaker 1: these are just people trying to um make an extra back.
Speaker 1: They need this extra income to stay in their homes.
Speaker 1: They're really just lies. You can't pull a B and
Speaker 1: b's moral heart strings and expect them to react, right,
Speaker 1: because they're not that type of company. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to me if there B and B were
Speaker 1: a good company, a company that that really has a
Speaker 1: sense of moral obligation beyond its kind of legal obligations.
Speaker 1: It seems like this is a real opportunity to proactively
Speaker 1: get ahead of regulation, in other words, to stop seeing
Speaker 1: cities and towns as adversaries and instead start to actually
Speaker 1: collaborate with them and with activists like you to solve
Speaker 1: this problem. Is that just a pipe dream or is
Speaker 1: that kind of collaboration happening anywhere in the world. I
Speaker 1: say it's not happening at all. Brian Chefsky says in
Speaker 1: August this was after COVID. Brian Chesky thinks that MAB
Speaker 1: might go down. They've had to get loans, they have
Speaker 1: laid off the stuff, so maybe it was an emotional
Speaker 1: time for him, But he says, we growth of us,
Speaker 1: we made mistakes. I want to acknowledge something. If I
Speaker 1: could have done airban bill over again, I would of
Speaker 1: designed Airbnb with more stakeholders of mind, including communities. I
Speaker 1: was twenty six. I didn't really understand some of the
Speaker 1: things I understand today. I don't think any text CIO
Speaker 1: should say they're inherently making the world a better place.
Speaker 1: We have to acknowledge that there's unintended consequences the products
Speaker 1: were making, and that we have to institutionalize our intentions
Speaker 1: to serve multiple stakeholders. So I work really hard with
Speaker 1: our team to try to make sure we're having positive
Speaker 1: impacts on communities, will make hard decisions when we have to,
Speaker 1: and fundamentally, I think our relationship with cities is going
Speaker 1: to change. All the evidence Murray provides is pretty damning,
Speaker 1: But when I hear Chesky talking about it, it feels
Speaker 1: like he's maybe trying. I don't know. It seems more
Speaker 1: like Airbnb just hasn't come to grips with how to
Speaker 1: really do their purpose. You know, my wife and I
Speaker 1: have an Airbnb in in the cat Skills. It's a
Speaker 1: detached home. We use it as a guesthouse when we
Speaker 1: have us who come and visit us in Pennsylvania, but
Speaker 1: the rest of the time it's on the Airbnb platform.
Speaker 1: And doing this episode has really caused me to question
Speaker 1: the ethics of that. Um we haven't taken it off
Speaker 1: the platform yet as of this recording, but it is
Speaker 1: something that we are thinking about and talking about. How
Speaker 1: do you feel about that? You know, airbnbs in rural communities,
Speaker 1: is it ethical to operate at Airbnb in the way
Speaker 1: that we are. Would you say it's unethical. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's it's not necessarily unethical. I think it depends.
Speaker 1: I would you know, I would probably think about understanding
Speaker 1: what the housing pressure is because I think, especially in
Speaker 1: a place that the cut skills, you don't want the
Speaker 1: housing prices to go up for regular people that live there.
Speaker 1: You don't want the city and towns just to depend
Speaker 1: on tourism. Like I think there should be investment in
Speaker 1: other industries, maybe trying to home land banks or other
Speaker 1: things that provide housing. Maybe advocate for some type of
Speaker 1: rent regulations so that people can still get there. And
Speaker 1: just you know, for the record, we are registered so
Speaker 1: fully fully compliant. Very very helpful, uh, to to really
Speaker 1: think through the kind of ethical implications. Okay, Marie, two
Speaker 1: final questions for you. First of all, if you could
Speaker 1: tell Brian Chesky to do one thing, or maybe just
Speaker 1: a handful of things to change to better live out
Speaker 1: airbnbs purpose, what advice would you give him. The founders
Speaker 1: of evan b are in a unique situation. Even though
Speaker 1: they went public, they still own almost forty four percent
Speaker 1: of stock. They have twenty votes more than a regular
Speaker 1: show holder for every share that they own, so they're
Speaker 1: in a unique position that they could even overrule some
Speaker 1: of the investors. Some my advice would be, stop suing cities.
Speaker 1: Stand down your lawyers, stand down your lobbyists. In some
Speaker 1: cases they're trying to get preemptive laws and state legislatives.
Speaker 1: Stopped doing that. Stop stop their political donations, especially in
Speaker 1: locations that where they're loving for the regulations. You know,
Speaker 1: I believe every city should be able to decide for
Speaker 1: themselves what the regulations should be. And then I you know,
Speaker 1: I think they could set up some independent regulatory councils,
Speaker 1: all sustainability councils, but looking at the real long term
Speaker 1: sustainability and impact of their business. And they should also
Speaker 1: share data with cities so that cities really understand what's
Speaker 1: going on. Like the cost of doing a census right,
Speaker 1: which only happens every ten years, is like in the billions,
Speaker 1: and Airbnb is sitting on this drove of data that
Speaker 1: would be incredibly valuable for municipalities. Yeah, I love I
Speaker 1: love those ideas. So Murray, last question, and this is
Speaker 1: when we ask every guest on this show. We have
Speaker 1: on calling B something called the BS scale, and the
Speaker 1: scale goes from zero to one h zero being the
Speaker 1: best zero bs and a hundred being the worst complete bs.
Speaker 1: Airbnb says its mission is to make everyone feel like
Speaker 1: they can belong anywhere. On a scale of zero to
Speaker 1: a hundred, what score would you give Airbnb? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I really want to give them a hundred
Speaker 1: because I've been fighting them at every tone. But I
Speaker 1: want to be a little bit more analytic. So if
Speaker 1: we consider them, maybe about the revenue is real hung sharing.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm being I'm being generous there, but I'm
Speaker 1: gonna penalize them because they pretend that that's a hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the of the business or a large proportion, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm going to discount that to ten, and therefore
Speaker 1: I'm going to give them a bullshit score of ninety.
Speaker 1: All right. I love that you actually you use data
Speaker 1: to arrive at that school. Are very good, Murray. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for being with us today. This
Speaker 1: was a great conversation. I also want to thank you
Speaker 1: for the work that you're doing at inside Airbnb. Very important.
Speaker 1: Great thanks to and and I appreciate this podcast and
Speaker 1: what you're doing to really um call companies into account
Speaker 1: from a different direction than the luck that I'm doing. Folks,
Speaker 1: it's time to make the call. Is Airbnb really making
Speaker 1: everybody feel like they can belong anywhere? Based on what
Speaker 1: I've heard so far, I'm calling bullshit, But with an asterisk.
Speaker 1: In the case where a host is an individual renting
Speaker 1: out their space, Airbnb really is helping guests feel like
Speaker 1: a local and providing a lot of these hosts with
Speaker 1: the income that they might not otherwise have. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, it feels like they're using these local hosts
Speaker 1: as a convenient pr figly, since the vast majority of
Speaker 1: Airbnb listings our whole homes frequently homes owned by companies
Speaker 1: for the sole purpose of renting on Airbnb, using a
Speaker 1: small fraction of their hosts to mask the real story,
Speaker 1: avoiding transparency, and only holding themselves accountable some of the time.
Speaker 1: So with that mixed diagnosis, next we'll hear from two
Speaker 1: experts in city planning and housing justice on solutions for
Speaker 1: Airbnb to do better. Right after the break to figure
Speaker 1: out where Airbnb might go from here, We've assembled a
Speaker 1: small panel of experts and asked them to propose some
Speaker 1: on creed ideas for Airbnb to move the needle in
Speaker 1: the right direction. So first up, I want to welcome
Speaker 1: Veronica Reid, who is the executive director at Jane Place
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Veronica, welcome to the show. Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me tie. So I'd like to have you
Speaker 1: start out by just telling our listeners a little bit
Speaker 1: about your background and the work that you're doing at
Speaker 1: Jane Place. Sure. Um, I'm the executive director of Jane Place.
Speaker 1: I've been in my position for two years and prior
Speaker 1: to my coming on board, UM, Jane Place and a
Speaker 1: group of other advocates focused on short term rentals in
Speaker 1: the city of New Orleans. It was part of a
Speaker 1: broader strategy of work that we do as both a
Speaker 1: community land trust and an organization that works with tenants
Speaker 1: focusing on tenant rights in the city of New Orleans.
Speaker 1: That's great, And you said you used a word there
Speaker 1: that listeners may not be familiar with a land trust.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what a land trust is? Sure? Community
Speaker 1: land trust is a nonprofit that owns land and uses
Speaker 1: a least strategy to to reduce UM, the cost of
Speaker 1: ownership UM, whether you are a renter or homeowner. Because
Speaker 1: the cost of property is removed from the equation. I see,
Speaker 1: so you're actually creating low cost housing yourself at James,
Speaker 1: we're affordable housing developer. Yes, that's great. Okay. We are
Speaker 1: also joined by former New York City councilman Ben Klos. Ben,
Speaker 1: I want to welcome you to the show. Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. So, Ben, can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about your background? Sure, I'm a software developer, I'm
Speaker 1: an attorney, and most recently, I've been a New York
Speaker 1: City council member, representing a hundred and sixty eight thousand
Speaker 1: people on Manhattan's Upper east Side and a city of
Speaker 1: eight point eight million and h My claim to fame
Speaker 1: is I wrote the law in New York City to
Speaker 1: regulate Airbnb. And part of what made me run for
Speaker 1: office and write this law is that the rent is
Speaker 1: too damn high. Right, So let's get right into some
Speaker 1: ideas for fixing that problem. Veronica, I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 1: to go first, in two minutes or less, what is
Speaker 1: the number one thing that you think Airbnb should do
Speaker 1: to better live their purpose, which is to help everybody
Speaker 1: feel like a local. I'd like to say two things.
Speaker 1: The one thing that they could do is be a
Speaker 1: better partner with the city, and what we need is
Speaker 1: UM for Airbnb to have a field on all listings
Speaker 1: that shows the permits UM, both the operator permits and
Speaker 1: the permitting for the unit, because right now it's not
Speaker 1: a requirement, so there's no way to tell whether it
Speaker 1: is illegal short term rental or not. And what we
Speaker 1: believe is that there are a lot of listings on
Speaker 1: Airbnb across the city of New Orleans that are not
Speaker 1: licensed and therefore the city is losing potentially millions of
Speaker 1: dollars in UM permitting fees annually. And we're just a
Speaker 1: city that cannot afford um to lose those fees. Right,
Speaker 1: So you're saying, change the platform to make it easier
Speaker 1: for you to collect the taxes that are due uh
Speaker 1: the city? Is that right? Correct? Modify the platform? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes a ton of sense. Alright, Ben, You're next,
Speaker 1: what is the number one thing that Airbnb should be
Speaker 1: doing better to deliver on what they say they stand for.
Speaker 1: The biggest bulshit of Airbnb is this whole focus on
Speaker 1: their hosts. And if it was about the hosts, there
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a button to click for whole house rentals.
Speaker 1: If it was really about the if it was really
Speaker 1: about connecting people and helping people to feel local and
Speaker 1: having the the local host show people around. Then the
Speaker 1: only thing on Airbnb would be hosted stays, and that's
Speaker 1: actually where New York City may end up. M hm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there is a distinction between hosts who actually are
Speaker 1: living in the property that they've put on Airbnb and
Speaker 1: hosts who are not living in the property that they
Speaker 1: put on Airbnb. And then there's another kind of gradation,
Speaker 1: which is companies that are buying up properties and operating
Speaker 1: in some cases hundreds of properties on the platform. Short
Speaker 1: of banning those rentals, which you could absolutely do, is
Speaker 1: there anything else that Airbnb could could do in New
Speaker 1: York City. So we have a law going into effect.
Speaker 1: We learned lessons from jurisdictions like Louisiana. So host will
Speaker 1: be required to have a registration number a platform where
Speaker 1: be required to verify that that that registration number is
Speaker 1: valid before they can process a listing. And what the
Speaker 1: city will be doing is going into a regulatory process.
Speaker 1: And we know that the state law here says that
Speaker 1: you can have a hosted stay, you can have a
Speaker 1: hosted stay for less than thirty days. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: rent your apartment for longer than that and put it
Speaker 1: into the market. And one of the questions that will
Speaker 1: be determined as the city issues regulations is whether or
Speaker 1: not single family homes are a building that a person
Speaker 1: can rent out entirely or if those have to be
Speaker 1: hosted to. So ultimately, we're actually asking Airbnb just to
Speaker 1: follow the state law. But I'll tell you I went
Speaker 1: to visit London. It's a very expensive city, but there
Speaker 1: are no options in London to rent an entire unit.
Speaker 1: So they've done it in other jurisdictions where their laws
Speaker 1: were stronger, and they can do it here, and they
Speaker 1: can do it in Louisiana. They can follow the law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. Both, uh, really interesting takes on
Speaker 1: things that Airbnb could change. Um, it's my turn. And
Speaker 1: so as I thought about this, the first thing that
Speaker 1: occurred to me is that Airbnb has already gotten into
Speaker 1: the real estate development business through I guess i'd call
Speaker 1: it a side hustle called backyard. They're actually building housing
Speaker 1: of various kinds that are air quotes, you know, airbnb friendly.
Speaker 1: So they're in a great position to actually begin to
Speaker 1: directly solve the housing scarcity problem that they themselves are creating.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna call my idea local love. So imagine,
Speaker 1: with the local Love initiative, Airbnb would begin to finance
Speaker 1: and build net new, low cost housing in the neighborhood's
Speaker 1: hardest hit by gentrification. Local Love would be funded either
Speaker 1: by essentially taxing part of the profits the platform is
Speaker 1: making locally. Maybe it's by sharing the financial burden between
Speaker 1: the platform and local hosts, especially hosts who have more
Speaker 1: than one property on the platform. And since you know,
Speaker 1: presumably the local tax base is going up due to gentrification,
Speaker 1: maybe we could get municipalities to also share part of
Speaker 1: the burden. You you both will be the experts there um.
Speaker 1: But my idea, local Love would create affordable housing to
Speaker 1: preserve local communities, and wherever possible, create housing that is
Speaker 1: in itself airbnb friendly, so that it also helps some
Speaker 1: low income folks to begin to actually become Airbnb hosts
Speaker 1: and supplement their own income. So what do you both
Speaker 1: think of that idea? Any love for local loves? It's
Speaker 1: okay if you hate it, just tell me I don't
Speaker 1: hate it. I think the issue is that you have
Speaker 1: to have the available um properties for infill um at
Speaker 1: at at a scale that makes a difference, right, because
Speaker 1: when we talk about the need for housing developed here
Speaker 1: in the city, we talk about the thirty three thousand
Speaker 1: units would solve our affordable housing issue. But the thing
Speaker 1: is is that we can't build thirty three thousand units
Speaker 1: to solve that issue. We have to look at what's
Speaker 1: already here to solve the problem. Veronica is right, it's
Speaker 1: about where to build. I think that your idea could
Speaker 1: work in some places where they don't have the money
Speaker 1: to build the affordable housing. And UH Airbnb might be
Speaker 1: interested in having more hosts in the cat Skills, which,
Speaker 1: at least during this pandemic, has become a destination for
Speaker 1: families who need to get out of the city, and
Speaker 1: they might want as much money coming in from urban
Speaker 1: areas as possible. So it could be a boon for
Speaker 1: parts of this UH state, parts of this country that
Speaker 1: have seen abandonment because the jobs just weren't there. No,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Yeah, So maybe it's maybe it's not in
Speaker 1: New York and not in New Orleans, but it's maybe
Speaker 1: maybe it's an idea that could work elsewhere. Veronica. I
Speaker 1: want to build on your idea a little bit because
Speaker 1: it seems to me that what lies at the center
Speaker 1: of what you were advocating for is transparency. Um, just
Speaker 1: another flavor of transparency that I wanted to put out
Speaker 1: there and see what the two of you think of.
Speaker 1: You know, right now the platform, there is a reputation
Speaker 1: grade that you get on the platform, right, Hosts grade guests,
Speaker 1: guest grade hosts, and there's a whole hierarchy that's created
Speaker 1: there already on the platform. What if we created hosts
Speaker 1: on another dimension, which is the impact that they are
Speaker 1: having on the local economy. What if, you know, a
Speaker 1: green listing is a host that lives in the property,
Speaker 1: a yellow listing is a non resident host who owns,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe one property at most a vacation home
Speaker 1: or something that they have on the platform orm and
Speaker 1: a red host would be anyone who owns more than
Speaker 1: one additional property, or maybe it's more than two or three.
Speaker 1: I don't know where the line is. But what about
Speaker 1: grading hosts just so that guests can see clearly the
Speaker 1: impact that they're having on the local economy through the
Speaker 1: choices that they're making, and they could still choose to
Speaker 1: rent from, you know, in quotes professional host that is
Speaker 1: causing gentrification if they want to, but they at least
Speaker 1: have the choice to vote with their wallet and and
Speaker 1: go with a green host who is actually benefiting or
Speaker 1: not at least not harming the local economy. Well, the
Speaker 1: skeptic in me says, the guest has to care UM,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that Airbnb guests care at that level.
Speaker 1: But I do believe that neighbors would care about that information.
Speaker 1: Neighbors who have problems with Airbnb on their block or
Speaker 1: across the street would probably be very interested in that
Speaker 1: type of information, Right, Ben, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1: I'm concerned that ultimately, if people are approaching it in
Speaker 1: an economic sense, they are looking for an unhosted stay.
Speaker 1: If you're a family, bunking everyone into a room with
Speaker 1: two queen beds doesn't quite work. We haven't really seen
Speaker 1: UH the hotel market really adapt to the way people
Speaker 1: are now traveling today. But ultimately, I don't think that
Speaker 1: a person looking for an unhosted stay is going to
Speaker 1: care whether that metric of a green, yellow, red UH
Speaker 1: is there. So I think if we're using metrics, it
Speaker 1: needs to be something where UH the consumer is going
Speaker 1: to care or there is an impact for having a
Speaker 1: red flag. What if it was two ways and the
Speaker 1: badging was both for guests and hosts. So if you
Speaker 1: had a tendency to stay in a local friendly manner,
Speaker 1: stay in you know, owner operated airbnbs, you know, you
Speaker 1: would be a local friendly guest, or maybe you get
Speaker 1: a local neutral badge, or you get a local unfriendly
Speaker 1: badge because of the way that you use the platform.
Speaker 1: And there are you know, commensurate I don't know, awards
Speaker 1: for being local friendly. Do you think that would help me?
Speaker 1: I think we're talking about semantics. Here's because, for example,
Speaker 1: here in New Orleans we have um A residential licenses
Speaker 1: for short term rentals, and those are all supposed to
Speaker 1: be owner occupied in residential neighborhoods, and so um, in
Speaker 1: a sense what you described should be happening already. UM,
Speaker 1: but we know that's not the case. Right. Let me
Speaker 1: shift gears here a little bit, um and just pick
Speaker 1: up on another thing that Airbnb says. They have said,
Speaker 1: as a part of our commitment to our stakeholders, we
Speaker 1: commit to communities as well as to host, to strengthen
Speaker 1: the communities that we serve. What are some other ways
Speaker 1: that Airbnb could actually strengthen a community rather than weaken it.
Speaker 1: New Orleans, New York City, very crowded places in New
Speaker 1: York City this morning, Uh, there were fourteen thousand, five
Speaker 1: dred seventy eight children who woke up in a homeless
Speaker 1: shelter because they just didn't have a home. And right
Speaker 1: now we have twenty thousand Airbnbs, whereas the entire unit
Speaker 1: for rent, and so um Veronica is talking about thirty
Speaker 1: thousand units. Would solve the housing crisis in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: If we got these twenty thousand units back and could
Speaker 1: even put it towards homeless services and giving affordable rental
Speaker 1: to these families, Uh, it would be a complete game changer.
Speaker 1: And I think if they could have an honest conversation
Speaker 1: with New Orleans and abide by their laws that they
Speaker 1: had had an honest conversation with New York City, I
Speaker 1: think we'd all be in a very different play us.
Speaker 1: But they haven't been interested in that. They've been interested
Speaker 1: in the profit motive, right. Yeah, And look, I completely
Speaker 1: understand that both of you are kind of skeptical that
Speaker 1: Airbnb is going to do anything on its own to
Speaker 1: solve this problem. But I do want us to suspend
Speaker 1: our disbelief a little bit, and dream about if we
Speaker 1: were in charge, if we were Brian Chessky for a day,
Speaker 1: what are the ways in which we would change the
Speaker 1: platform to begin to strengthen our local communities. If we're
Speaker 1: going to change it fundamentally, if we if we have
Speaker 1: the magic wand it really starts with really making it
Speaker 1: about the hosts and saying, come stay in in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: or the Bronx or in Queens and this is what
Speaker 1: you're gonna have for breakfast. You're gonna stay with a
Speaker 1: a Haitian family, or a Greek family or a Russian family,
Speaker 1: And what you're really signing up for is this host
Speaker 1: who welcome you, to feed you, to be part of it.
Speaker 1: But it also means a change in the compensation and
Speaker 1: a change in what hosts are doing, and a change
Speaker 1: in the listing where you're actually looking at the listing
Speaker 1: and you're not looking at which is the least expensive,
Speaker 1: which has the most bedrooms, but which has the best
Speaker 1: host who's going to show me a great time while
Speaker 1: I'm there. Yeah, that sounds right to me. I want
Speaker 1: to circle back to the thesis of this show, which
Speaker 1: is that there are certain companies in the world that
Speaker 1: are we call them purpose led companies, and Airbnb is
Speaker 1: a company that we would characterize as being a purpose
Speaker 1: led business. They are trying to help people have you know,
Speaker 1: um paraphrasing, but have local experiences. It says that on
Speaker 1: the label, and so at some level a really good
Speaker 1: purpose led company should, because they say it on the label,
Speaker 1: should actually try to make that real. And so what
Speaker 1: I'm saying is Airbnb really should be self regulating, right,
Speaker 1: They really should be. They shouldn't be forcing the two
Speaker 1: of you to take them on and to pass laws.
Speaker 1: They should see the problem that they're creating, you know,
Speaker 1: the degradation of the local feel of the neighborhoods that
Speaker 1: in many cases they're doing business in is actually bad
Speaker 1: for the neighborhoods. It's bad for the city. It's ultimately
Speaker 1: it's bad for them because if New Orleans stops feeling
Speaker 1: like New Orleans, people are going to go there as
Speaker 1: much and Airbnb will suffer. And they're now in a
Speaker 1: place where they're creating harm. So what we want to
Speaker 1: explore here is what should they do to heal it? Right,
Speaker 1: and collaboration with folks such as yourselves who are engaged
Speaker 1: in your local communities. Seems like a good place to start.
Speaker 1: And so at the end of the day, what would
Speaker 1: be the economic impact to Airbnb if they just banned
Speaker 1: those more professionalized or corporate hosts. If Airbnb said it
Speaker 1: is illegal to put more than one property on the platform,
Speaker 1: I think that's where Airbnb is headed. In New York City.
Speaker 1: They would go from having thirty eight thousand units to
Speaker 1: about eighteen thousand units. And that's still a huge number
Speaker 1: of units, uh huge amounts of profit, but it would
Speaker 1: completely change things, and that would be enough units leftover
Speaker 1: to house every homeless family in New York City. Let
Speaker 1: me um add a sort of idea log to the
Speaker 1: fire here. Airbnb has given rise, it seems like to
Speaker 1: a new ecosystem of companies. So there are these new
Speaker 1: hotel slash short term rental companies, kind of urban development
Speaker 1: companies that are being created, like Saunder is one of them,
Speaker 1: Arriva Nativo, Blue Ground, And it seems like these companies
Speaker 1: are creating entire home style hotels in other words, kind
Speaker 1: of a hotel cobbled together from individual homes. Are also
Speaker 1: developing apartment buildings that are designed so that anyone can
Speaker 1: rent their apartment on Airbnb while they're away. Are these
Speaker 1: companies part of a potential solution or they just a
Speaker 1: bigger part of the problem. They aren't part of the
Speaker 1: problem in terms of displacement because our local residents would
Speaker 1: not be living in those those units because they're not
Speaker 1: affordable to local residents. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: could be a value is that there was a sort
Speaker 1: of um affordable like for every commercial units there could
Speaker 1: be some contribution to an affordable housing fund that could
Speaker 1: help support the development of affordable housing in neighborhoods because
Speaker 1: there are thousands of commercial short term rentals in the
Speaker 1: city of New Orleans, right. I mean, that's kind of
Speaker 1: where I was trying to go with local love is
Speaker 1: is actually funding the creation using current units to fund
Speaker 1: the creation of affordable housing. Okay, is there anything that
Speaker 1: I haven't asked either of you today that you wanted
Speaker 1: to mention or talk about in regard to Airbnb. Well,
Speaker 1: I'd just like to say that we do believe that
Speaker 1: the change in local regulations here has had a positive impact,
Speaker 1: and so UM since the change in the regulations, UM,
Speaker 1: we have definitely seen folks return to neighborhoods and that's
Speaker 1: important and we hope that um that will continue to
Speaker 1: be the case. Great, thank you, so last question for
Speaker 1: both of you. On this show, we have a scale
Speaker 1: called the b S Scale. It goes from zero to
Speaker 1: one hundred, zero being the best score zero vs. One
Speaker 1: hundred being the worst score on BS. So on a
Speaker 1: scale of zero to one, how big of a B
Speaker 1: S or do you think Airbnb is? Ben I'll start
Speaker 1: with you. That's a high score, all right, unequivocal, Thank you, Veronica.
Speaker 1: What would you give them? Maybe I'll give them around
Speaker 1: a ninety, maybe a ten, but that could be a
Speaker 1: margin Arab plus or minus right, so they might be
Speaker 1: as high as right. But those are high scores. That's
Speaker 1: eye opening for me. It's funny because I entered this
Speaker 1: this episode thinking that they were a lower BS company.
Speaker 1: But the deeper I've gotten into it, the more I've
Speaker 1: started to think, actually, it really is about maximizing profitability
Speaker 1: and it's not about delivering on the local nous. I'm
Speaker 1: actually really coming around at that point of view. I
Speaker 1: think the problem is bigger than I thought it was
Speaker 1: at first. Okay, Veronica read, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us, today. Thank you for having me and Ben Calobs,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. This was great. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate your time. Thanks for having me. I'd like to
Speaker 1: end the show today by giving Airbnb an official BS score.
Speaker 1: The scale goes from zero to a hundred. A zero
Speaker 1: means there's zero gap between word indeed, and a hundred
Speaker 1: means the gap is huge total BS. I came into
Speaker 1: the episode today thinking that Airbnb had a few problems,
Speaker 1: but I also had the strong sense that their leadership
Speaker 1: was committed to their purpose and to being a positive
Speaker 1: member of the communities that they serve. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about giving them a score, you know, in the low thirties.
Speaker 1: But now, like me, you've heard our guests today all
Speaker 1: give Airbnb really high scores, and I have to say
Speaker 1: I found a lot of what they said today. I
Speaker 1: opening Airbnb is in a more serious situation than I
Speaker 1: initially thought. I think they've reached a crossroads and they
Speaker 1: need to look inside themselves and make some decisions. If
Speaker 1: they change course now, admit that there's a problem and
Speaker 1: commit to partnering with cities to solve it, they can
Speaker 1: avoid a crisis. But if they continue on the path
Speaker 1: they're on they'll become more like some of our other
Speaker 1: ultra high scorers pretenders who get dragged through the court
Speaker 1: of public opinion and then ultimately get regulated. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to give Airbnb a cautionary and to think that
Speaker 1: it's all Barry Manilow's drummer's fault. I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 1: To weigh in with your own score for Airbnb, visit
Speaker 1: our website Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com. We'll track their
Speaker 1: behavior over time to see if they can bring that
Speaker 1: score down. You'll also be able to see where Airbnb
Speaker 1: ranks on BS compared to the other companies and organizations
Speaker 1: we feature on the show. And if you're starting a
Speaker 1: purpose led business or you're thinking of beginning the journey
Speaker 1: of transformation to become one, here are three things you
Speaker 1: can take away from this episode. One, design matters, and
Speaker 1: the founders of Airbnb went to one of the most
Speaker 1: prestigious design schools in the world, so they know it.
Speaker 1: As all of our guests pointed out today, there are
Speaker 1: functional aspects of the Airbnb platform that currently favor shareholders
Speaker 1: over stakeholders like cities and communities. When you design your product,
Speaker 1: design it with all of your stakeholders in mind two
Speaker 1: actions speak. Airbnb explicitly names communities and cities as stakeholders.
Speaker 1: They need to walk that talk. Today we talked about
Speaker 1: taking actions like banning professional hosts and reallocating housing to
Speaker 1: those in need. Your actions would undoubtedly be frint, but
Speaker 1: the point is doing is believing. And three, a principle
Speaker 1: isn't a principle until it costs you money. Is Airbnb
Speaker 1: pro community or not? Sure? Banning corporations from owning multiple
Speaker 1: properties on the platform would cost Airbnb some money in
Speaker 1: the short term, but if that action saves the neighborhoods
Speaker 1: and communities that Airbnb is a part of, shareholders will
Speaker 1: benefit longer term. Making money is a good thing. Just
Speaker 1: be long term greedy. Thank you for joining us today,
Speaker 1: Murray Cox, Veronica Read and Ben Calos. You can find
Speaker 1: links to inside Airbnb, Jane Place, and Everybody's social media
Speaker 1: handles on our website Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com. And
Speaker 1: if you have ideas for companies or organizations we should
Speaker 1: consider for future episodes, you can submit them on our
Speaker 1: website Calling Bullshit Podcast dot com. And special thanks to
Speaker 1: David A. Proserpio and also to air d n A
Speaker 1: for providing invaluable insights for today's episode, and Brian Chesky,
Speaker 1: there is still a tremendous amount of goodwill toward you
Speaker 1: and Airbnb out there right now. We're rooting for you
Speaker 1: to do the right thing, and if you ever want
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