Airbnb promised to turn homeowners into entrepreneurs, a vacation spot into a home and a company into a family. Then the pandemic froze travel, Airbnb’s sales dried up and it fired a quarter of its workers. Some employees felt betrayed by a company that said it was more than dollars and cents, my colleague Erin Griffith wrote on Friday. Erin talked to me about Airbnb’s crisis, and how the coronavirus-related economic downturn is changing the fortunes and perception of start-ups that have known only good times. Shira: Companies have laid off tens of millions of Americans, and most of them didn’t get the generous severance that Airbnb offered.

Source: International New York Times July 17, 2020 17:19 UTC