[fullshark]

Well why do they have so many employees?

[whymauri]

The number of countries they operate in and the assumption that the next few years would be growth years. This isn't really rocket-science.

[jonathankoren]

It’s not just that. Being flush with cash causes engineering bloat. You start chasing blue sky trendy ideas (AirBnb was reportedly doing chatbot for a while, ala Volara.) or chasing more and marginal gains on existing products. It’s inevitable, when money is cheap.

[xchaotic]

So they probably need to let go of those staff and projects rather than raising money at high interest?

[thelittleone]

The vulnerabilities of this business model laid bare. If you're a business like Airbnb you have to be global, otherwise a competitor will be and they'll eat you up. You need solid in country representation otherwise competitors with a deeper regional focus (even smaller companies) will have better offerings and eat your market share. It seems being global and local is possible with 13,000 employees.... except when tourism crashes 90+%.