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From Belonging to Burnout, Five Years at Airbnb

by arciini on 4/6/22, 12:17 AM with 148 comments

by mindwok on 4/6/22, 3:52 AM
Am I crazy to think there’s something wrong with the amount of engineering effort going into these startups? When you have engineers working into the wee hours of the morning because you don’t want a cursor to blink on a text field, I can’t help but feel that’s an enormous waste of energy and effort.
Since I first used Airbnb 7 years ago, the only real change I can think of is when they added experiences (which is awesome don’t get me wrong), surely at some point you begin to wonder if we are utilising this talent effectively.
by anon2020dot00 on 4/6/22, 5:26 AM
Excellent article. The biggest thing that I got is that AirBNB doesn't have a healthy culture. It seems like AirBNB is trying to foster a family-like environment where-in there is no division between work and life and that work is life.
Basically a common tactic of corporations is to espouse "we are a family" but it is just a manipulation tactic for employees to work long-hours and to give their all to the company. The "we are a family" mantra would be fine if it was coupled with a healthy separation of work and life; with the biggest indicator being that healthy working hours (around regular 8 to 9 work hours only) is maintained.
In contrast, something like Netflix culture which is "we are a team and not a family" seems like to be more of a healthier alternative. On a last point, the "we are a family" (i.e. we care about our employees as persons instead of just means or cogs) mantra is fine but it usually turns into "we are a toxic family" (i.e. give your all to the company) instead of it being a "we are a healthy family" (i.e. our company values each employee).
by beckingz on 4/6/22, 3:51 AM
Corporations will never love you. No matter how much they say they do, they never will. Individuals within the company will intend to do good, but they will be required to do more than just good things.
Take care of yourself.
by fullshark on 4/6/22, 2:13 PM
Ultimately employees want to be seduced, they want to believe they are doing more than helping a company's owners' capital accrue + gain value in how it's implemented. They don't want to just punch the clock, they want to be part of a larger mission (and get rich doing it). A lot of this is because the traditional ways people have found value in their time on earth: religion, family, and friends are disappearing and being replaced with careerism.
This guy's story is not a rare one, and it points to a larger spiritual crisis in modern life I think.
by abledon on 4/6/22, 5:06 AM
> As burnt out as I was, I worked even more, clinging to this promise of acceptance, hoping that I could somehow work myself into being enough.
The perfect worker for them oh god lol.
The term "airfam" is such a weird thing, people saying 'Thanks fam!" these days... I am not your family, I will not lend you 20,000$ if you in a rough spot, I will not take care of your kids if you die. Maybe I just take the word 'family' too literally hah, maybe a bad habit from expecting variable names to do what they are called
by ta3411 on 4/6/22, 5:57 AM
I am going to be voted down into oblivion but it's okay. This is my throwaway account anyway. Here are my 3 pragmatic takes regarding this situation:
- If you are an engineer, your total comp is easily north of $200,000. At that pay scale compared to other careers, I expect (and I did) to burn through the night as needed. That's a lot of money for anyone to expect to have a comfortable work/life balance. I always compare myself with doctors residency, accountants, or labor jobs, who would do a lot more work for a lot less. Tech pay, benefit, and work/life balance are outrageously good in my opinion.
- I have worked at AirBnB, Stripe, and Robinhood. And between the 3, AirBnB actually has the chillest work culture. It's known to be "too much democratic debate vs work output". But your experience may be different.
- Most importantly: Just as much as you can quit the company whenever you like, companies can also lay you off whenever they want. My main takeaway is to take care of yourself. Don't buy into Airfam or company family. You do what's right for you and company does what's right for them. (I can't comment on the specifics if Airbnb layoff was the right business move).
by farseer on 4/6/22, 4:41 AM
Honestly this doesn't sound too bad. You seem to have volunteered for a lot of assignments and it seems you were fairly well compensated. Once AirBnb becomes even bigger, the midnight code runs will end just like they have mostly ended in the likes of Microsoft and Google. Remember folks taking care of your mental health and avoiding burnout is your own responsibility. In this case, taking on less responsibility was an option.
by cudgy on 4/6/22, 9:46 AM
Great expression of the dark, hollow corporate experience disguised as a fulfilling, productive career. It saddens me that the author (and many others) drink the corporate kool-aid to the point of considering self-harm. I learned a similar lesson early in my career: noone can single-handedly satiate the enormous appetite of a large corporate enterprise. It will literally consume you alive.
Perhaps, the contractors had a better gig? At least they might have felt less pressure to please the corporate ethos, and they were hopefully paid hourly overtime during the silly death marches.
by thom on 4/6/22, 9:12 AM
AirBnB’s mission isn’t “create a world where anyone can belong anywhere” it’s “get people to pay money to stay in each other’s properties”. Perhaps there would be slightly less misalignment of expectations and values if we were a bit more honest with ourselves?
by cosmiccatnap on 4/6/22, 12:32 PM
"the founders announced that they had no choice but to lay off all 500ish contractors and around 1,900 employees. The CEO cried on a broadcast that we needed to say goodbye to some of our Airfam and called on us to support each other through this difficult time. “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers played at the end of the broadcast"
This stuff is sickening and toxic.
by anarticle on 4/6/22, 4:10 AM
“The CEO cried on a broadcast that we needed to say goodbye to some of our Airfam and called on us to support each other through this difficult time. “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers played at the end of the broadcast.”
Wow, incredible, and insulting.
I can't imagine getting played out by Bill Withers.
by milkshakes on 4/6/22, 4:14 AM
I worked at Airbnb for four years in a dysfunctional department that had been significantly under resourced for the first 7 years of the company’s existence then tried to turn everything important up to eleven when senior leadership finally figured out it was a critical blocker for going public. That went about as well as you would expect— It wasn’t pretty at first but things definitely improved over time. I think we were “lucky” because we owned a business critical, measurable outcome.
When I started, I didn’t even have a manager for a few months. I actually burned out within my first 3 months there, and my Director personally helped me navigate the leave process —- I wound up taking a 3 month fully paid leave (they topped the difference between what the STD insurance they provided me paid and my full salary). When I returned I had a great manager!
I worked with a lot of contractors too, but my department converted well over half of the ones I worked with, and eventually the others churned out until they hired people full time. Mostly we started with contractors because it was easier to hire them but very difficult to get headcount (we sure did try).
Anyway it was a pretty wild ride but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Things were definitely uneven though. One thing that really made me sad was when they replaced the food team who we all loved with contractors (who we also all loved). After I left they really screwed over the Portland office too. But it wasn’t all bad and I cherish the friends I made there.
by langsoul-com on 4/6/22, 5:03 AM
Never treat a company as family or believe in any of that bullshit. Businesses are a business.
At the end of the day, you have to prioritise your own well being.
by paul7986 on 4/6/22, 6:47 AM
Just reading the title hits me as I never thought I'd get to a place where I wouldnt like where I work. It's been four years (longest IT job I've held in ten year career) but suddenly starting in 2022 I havent been paid by the same date I've always been and when asked the owner he said thats just how it is for contractors. Yet it's never been like that and I even noted to him paying me a week or two later then all other times/years causes stress I definitely don't need. He didnt seem to care cause I was paid even later in March and then i was offered a raise in Feb. which was to start March 1st per our conversation over Slack. In the beginning of this month (April) he said "oh sorry your raise is not effective to April 1st, I'm sorry." That was my first raise in four years as for me i'm not driven by money (he offered me a raise in 2020 I said that's ok im just happy to return/be brought back after 6 months away) rather a show of respect and that I am a value to you/your company. His actions to me say he does not value my contribution/work, so...
by AndrewThrowaway on 4/6/22, 1:52 PM
> 7,000-plus workforce
It is sometimes just too hard to wrap your head around this. How what is basically a website requires such a workforce? I get that it is much more than a website, there are various aspects of platform and etc. I understand that my comment might seem off. However 7000 is really a lot people.
by shmde on 4/6/22, 6:53 AM
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
by isuckatcoding on 4/6/22, 7:38 AM
> while some of us took Ubers to work and shopped at Barney’s, others maxed out credit cards or could only afford to live in the East Bay
Hey now what’s wrong with being in the East Bay?
by lkrubner on 4/6/22, 4:31 PM
About this:
"I could have left Airbnb before things got so bad. But despite all that I observed and experienced, I truly loved my job."
If I love a job, I hesitate to quit just because some of the management is terrible. As a point of reference, many people on Hacker News have read my book "How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps":
https://www.amazon.com/Destroy-Tech-Startup-Easy-Steps/dp/09...
If you go read the reviews on that book, one of the most common sentiments is "Lawrence should have left that job much earlier than he did." And yet, I really loved the work and I had a lot of fun, in many ways. Maybe I didn't emphasize how much fun we had along the way, but I think, getting to work on great tech while being well paid is a relatively rare gift to an engineer, so I don't think many of us really want to walk away from a job too soon. I do understand why an engineer might stick with a place like AirBnB, even if the burden is heavy.
by agd on 4/6/22, 1:28 PM
I read these kind of blog posts, but honestly, it’s hard to have too much sympathy. This guy presumably earned millions out of working at AirBnB, is staggeringly rich compared to most people, and he could have left at any time for another job.
by frakkingcylons on 4/6/22, 3:34 PM
Really, they were shocked to learn that customer support makes only $18 an hour?
How insulated from the rest of society in the US do you have to be to find that shocking?
by ceeplusplus on 4/6/22, 4:00 AM
> I was sure that refraining from lavish lunches, canceling ski offsites, and raising $1 billion from emergency venture capital investments was enough to keep Airbnb afloat, so I grew skeptical that executives had considered everything in the budget when trying to save jobs
How can this person even say this when they don't touch any financial data? A quick look at Q4 2020 results for Airbnb shows a $1B loss on net income ex. IPO costs and a $21M loss on the financially engineered/hacked "adjusted EBITDA". An unprofitable company is not in a position to be keeping jobs for the sake of it.
> These material conditions bled into work-life - while some of us took Ubers to work and shopped at Barney’s, others maxed out credit cards or could only afford to live in the East Bay
Oh no, customer support can only afford to live in the East Bay. This person needs to get a grip. A customer service agent is not making 200k+ in any world. That is a recipe for running a failed business. You know what does let people live where they want? Building more housing.
> a clearer non-product career ladder
There is no "ladder" to being a customer service agent. Experience doesn't scale your value to the company, so there's no reason for there to be a ladder. And with the advent of gig platforms there's no reason for there to be a manager either. Saying that customer service agents need a career ladder shows how delusional this person is with respect to running a business.
This person needs to realize that life is about working for yourself, never for the "Airfam". Loyalty means nothing. If they're burned out (it sounds like they are) then they can leave with their multi-million dollar stock options and free up a job for the rest of us who would gladly get paid half a million dollars a year to complain about "inequities". Corporate won't care they left and they shouldn't feel bad about it either. Sometimes some people just aren't cut out to keep going hard day in and day out for 5+ years. And that's okay, because if you worked at Airbnb then you can easily get a cushy job somewhere else.
by twomoonsbysurf on 4/6/22, 3:53 AM
It is sad to see that folks put a company and its equity-holders first, before attending to their own lives outside of work. They put off their personal relationships and personal care activities (such as exercise, getting outside, various healthy activities away from a computer), and instead put that time into going above and beyond a 40 hour work week... and yet are barely (if at all) recognized for their efforts.
I am so glad to see people speak out about their experience, especially at companies which claim to uphold a certain set of values. Such as Amazon or Airbnb.
I recall at Twilio, I was emailed by an HR person ... from the email account of a Director of Engineering. An HR person impersonated a Director of Engineering in order to recruit and have a better chance of getting the attention of software engineers, to attempt to persuade those engineers to join their team.
Yet, one of Twilio's principles is/was "Transparency". Yet, there they were-- their HR people engaging in practices which are deceptive.
We must hold companies to their supposed principles, and to a reasonable expectation of professional ethics in general. \
Bravo, I say, to the author of this article.