I think the crucial context is even larger than that. There's a lot of anxiety in the tech community about the recent valuations of several startups. First there was the revelation that a lot of Groupon's reported "profits" are products of clever accounting. Then Color implodes after a ridiculously disproportionate funding round. And now AirBNB, the poster child of internet disintermediation of old, hidebound industries, is caught totally unprepared for a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming.
I suspect I'm not the only one that thinks that there's a lot of willful ignorance underlying this boom we're all enjoying.
"a business model threatening crisis that everyone should have seen coming"
Airbnb did see it coming and were careful to cover it in their TOS section 1.2 and 1.4. They have, however, been marketing their service very differently. They've now taken down the FAQ answer about security that had only a joke about grand pianos, but it shows that they were deliberately trying to obfuscate security issues in order to make more sales.
That makes it even more amazing that they had no PR or operational plan in place to deal with the inevitable criminal user.
Since LinkedIn everyone behaves like 2001, every buzz company is trying to get an IPO.
Facebook, Groupon, AirBnB, Twitter and Zynga. All of them without a clean history.
My feeling is they all try to go public as fast as possible as long as the Buzz is still there and don't try to create a sustainable business. All of them have bad finances or questionable business models. I would trust Zynga financially the most, but i assume they make their big bucks from people with compulsive gambling disorders.
I think all these people involved know about this and they try to cash out as fast as possible. This is why everyone is so stressed.
I suspect I'm not the only one that thinks that there's a lot of willful ignorance underlying this boom we're all enjoying.