[hintklb]

I never even understood why people even think Airbnb is a tech company.

They basically operate a pretty simple website. Most of their busines is about arbitrating issues when they come. This has nothing to do with tech.

I would bet that United Airlines or American Airlines website handles way more queries than Airbnb.

But for some reason they managed to market themselves as a "design driven" "Tech company".

[huevosabio]

It's a tech assisted operations company, similar to Uber and Lyft.

The key distinction between say United Airlines and gig tech companies is that the latter will aggressively avoid owning physical assets and use tech to be a streamlined middle man in a market that actually requires a lot of operations.

They are a tech company, but in the sense that they get their edge from software not that they sell it.