<i>"Then came the May 5 layoffs. To blunt the shock, Airbnb’s severance packages included three months of salary and a year of health benefits, which was more generous than many other start-ups doing layoffs."</i><p>That's not terrible.
I work for a family owned company that does have a little of that "we are all family" sense of things and I think the distinguishing marks are:<p>1. You are not fully trusted until the founder's son personally has some trust in you (this usually involves proving yourself professionally but also making an impression)<p>2. If you are not fully trusted, the company loyalty is about the same as any other company<p>3. If you are fully trusted, the company will go out of its way to avoid firing you even if you become ineffective, ie, they will shift you between positions, change you from full-time to part-time, sometimes even completely change your department.<p>4. Sometimes this trust gets to the point of not really paying attention to what so-and-so is doing<p>5. The downside is our company is heavily top-heavy, with a lot of people in vague senior positions with ill-defined zones of responsibility. People who are not able to stabilize somewhere into a new senior position usually move on but that can take a while<p>6. Partly because of #5, the exact responsibilities of senior people can be vague and the chain of command for certain things can be confusing<p>7. There is a lot of hiring within family and friends, not necessarily resulting in incompetence, but sometimes you wonder if there might be better people for some positions<p>8. The company is slow moving and stays relatively small, procedures are highly informal<p>9. Raises are probably below industry average, bonuses are probably above industry average<p>Altogether, for me personally, the trade-offs are worth it. That being said, I can understand why most companies do not structure themselves this way.
Why can't Airbnb do furloughs - take the amount they hope to save through a layoff, and have all employees not work for some x number of days each (staggered so as to not disrupt operations), so that the pain is shared, rather than borne by the laid-off few?
"New employees, who were screened for empathy in job interviews, were welcomed “home” and told: “You belong here.”" - What a distrubing quote, was it a cult?!?!
"We are family" is only meaningful if everyone has a meaningful share of equity, and that does not scale very well. An actual family shares resources. I personally know that I will inherit some property from my parents. My parents took care of me when I was young, I have helped them in recent years. That is family. Among commercial relationships, the only thing that comes close is a partnership where everyone has some significant amount of equity. And that doesn't scale. A partnership of ten people is often like an actual family, in the economic aspects, and maybe you could stretch that to a hundred people. But you could you stretch that to 1,000 people? Or 10,000 people? At some point it is just not possible.<p>Also, many workers enjoy working from home, but in terms of approaching the feeling of true alliance that is implied by "We are family" the only places (that I've been at) that have come close have been small startups where everyone had equity and everyone was working in one office.<p>Mind you, when I say equity, I mean actual equity, not stock options. And to get actual equity, typically a worker needs to bring something to the table, other than a willingness to commit future hours. Typically they need to invest their own money, and become a true partner, or invest something else of value (one of my partners had inherited an old farmhouse and donated that, which became our office).
Every startup I ever worked at was like a family until the money started to run out; then you very quickly realize this “we’re a family” rhetoric works exactly one way and those 60 hour weeks you were pulling for free lunches and a significantly below-market salary were never going to be rewarded by anything.
Much of the time, when companies say things, it's because they're not true, but they need you to believe they are. The things that are true don't need as much saying. The stated aspects of a company's culture are no exception. If they say their culture is one way, it's probably because it's distinctly not.
If AirBnB is so certain in its "we are family" speeches: Why not give every current employee who has to be laid off because of the current situation an option to get back to AirBnB as soon as the economic situation of AirBnB improves again?
Your employer is not your family nor like your family. It isn't your parent, nor brother, nor cousin. It isn't your friend, in the sense that even if your boss may personally be your friend - the company has an interest that's contradictory to yours: Making more profit off of your work.<p>---<p>As for AirBnB - I really dislike them. They eats away at the supply of apartments available to people for actual rent - you know, to live in - in favor to catering to rich(er) tourists. This naturally drives rents up. So, the employees were part of a somewhat nasty "family".
How much did AirBnB have to pay for this PR piece?<p>>it built a reputation as the polar opposite of its sharing economy peers such as Uber, which prized ruthless competition, and WeWork, which collapsed under a partying culture and its founder’s self-dealing.<p>>instead, Airbnb stood for earnest idealism.<p>As I recall, just like Uber, Airbnb created a platform that facilitated breaking laws and regulations in many jurisdictions...and ultimately caused damages to many owners whose property values went down as a result of their neighbors running illegal short term rentals.
“Part of the compensation is being part of this family,”<p>I grew up in the 80ies and communities were much stronger then. We had a community run iceskating course during winter, community run 'neighbourhood'-house with games, music etc. We supplemented our schools budget by collecting old paper every six weeks, people just showed up and did the work together ( teachers, parents & kids ).<p>Our municipality had a very nice pool-complex and library. All gone. Somehow this is all too expensive now.
Hate for Airbnb aside. I have to commend the CEO for directly addressing everyone in a meeting. Giving bad news like layoffs is extremely hard unless you are a sociopath.<p>My current CEO left it for all the directors to tell the rest of the team, a trend I've seen several times in my career. I wish there was a name for a CEO who only gives the good news and leaves the bad news for middle management.
It reminds me of one of my first jobs. "We're a family" yadda yadda yadda... They told me my contract wouldn't be renewed during a meeting which was initially planned to talk about a salary raise. Adding insult to injury they waited until they were legally obligated to tell me even though they knew much earlier that it was going to happen, what a great family.<p>A job is a job, that's it. You'll be treated like waste as soon as the money runs out.<p>> "Mr. Chesky aspired to a capitalism that had an “infinite time horizon” and was good for society."<p>Ah ah ah, what a time to be alive
Oh dear. I wish people would get the "family" idea out of their heads when it comes to working a job at a company. I'm at X company to offer my skills, help others grow, grow my own skills and making money so I support my actual family after 5pm. on the dot.