[majormajor]

Google suggests Marriot has 176,000 employees, and Hilton 169,000. So AirBnB is massively smaller, still.

Underestimating employee counts is a phenomenon similar to underestimating software rewrite costs/time. The happy path seems simple... but then there's thousands of marginal features or requirements that have come up over the years that make the thing more viable that all take more people and more time.

[tootie]

AirBnb doesn't operate any properties. I'd bet 90% of Marriott and Hilton staff are running hotels. Not applying machine learning to the check-in process.

[majormajor]

Well, yes, exactly. That's the theory behind their valuation: that they might be able to capture the revenue with much lower overhead.

[beering]

Your guess of 90% seems in line with AirBnB: 0.1 * 170,000 = 17,000, which is still more than AirBnB's current headcount, right?

[tonyhb]

A marginal amount considering you need to have far less operational staff "below the line" when you don't have thousands of properties to manage.

[wyre]

Its understandable why a global hotel chain would have so many employees. Each location needs management staff, supervisors, front desk attendants, housekeepers, etc. Makes sense why AirBnB is so much smaller. It's still curious why they have so many employees. Probably a lot of regional support staff but idk.

[foobar1962]

> Google suggests Marriot has 176,000 employees, and Hilton 169,000. So AirBnB is massively smaller, still.

Marriot et al employ hotel staff, cleaners, chefs, restaurant staff, bar staff... people to run a hospitality business.

[break_the_bank]

Should Airbnb start counting every host on the platform and then every cleaning person that cleans the apartment?

Fairer comparison would be booking.com with 17000 people. Which still seems quite high to be honest.

[imtringued]

The core strength of tech startups is the scalability without increasing headcounts. AirBnB is throwing that strength away in the pursuit of growth.