Ugh, to be honest I get tired whenever I see the "Why did company XYZ need so many people, they're just a website!"-type comments. While it is definitely possible AirBnB was bloated, it's not hard for me to imagine at all what all these people did.
AirBnB is a relatively high-touch business, so I imagine a huge number of those people were in customer support/customer relations, both for travelers and for property owners. AirBnB also operates in a huge number of countries, and each of those countries need (a) marketers, (b) people with regulatory knowledge (often at a level much more granular than the country level - and to head off any 'but AirBnB ignores the regulations!' comments, while that may be true, I guarantee they still have people that know what they are), (c) again, customer service people knowledgeable with the local language and customs.
Yeah typically happens with each layoff. It's nice that when times are good companies are able to spread the workload more. It helps increase code quality and quality of life for everyone working there. Also part of current employee numbers is hiring to keep up with projected growth etc.
If everything was so easy to build we should all quit our jobs and do our own single developer startup.
I would imagine that most AirBnB scams are in the other direction -- travellers defrauding property managers. If you are just a customer and you don't like the experience, you simply tell your credit card company that you aren't going to pay for it and the problem is solved on your end. Meanwhile, if you manage the property people can consume nights of service and end up not paying, and you're never getting that back.
I am sure there are horror stories where people didn't like their AirBnB, but I am also sure they didn't pay for that AirBnB.
While your points are valid, we can still consider the bloatedness hypothesis but just looking at the engineering team size.
Uber was similarly accused of being bloated and it definitely was on just the engineering team - several thousands of engineers for what is definitely a complex app but not that complex really.
Not at all what I said. I was absolutely surprised and asked a legitimate question. Ignorance is one's default state, hence why we're encouraged to ask questions when we're young.
AirBnB is a relatively high-touch business, so I imagine a huge number of those people were in customer support/customer relations, both for travelers and for property owners. AirBnB also operates in a huge number of countries, and each of those countries need (a) marketers, (b) people with regulatory knowledge (often at a level much more granular than the country level - and to head off any 'but AirBnB ignores the regulations!' comments, while that may be true, I guarantee they still have people that know what they are), (c) again, customer service people knowledgeable with the local language and customs.