Today, we were back to the business world of Dublin.
This morning, I heard from Stephen Dillion, who is a local entrepreneur and a beer connoisseur. Mr. Dillion started a public blog called startups.ie that provides professional counseling to people who want to start their own businesses. He also has his own craft beers and his own breweries. While he has a startup website, his main passion is in the wine, beer, and spirits industry.
Mr. Dillion also gave us life advice and talked about how quickly industry changes. By the time I graduate, I need to be adaptable and ready to changes jobs at a moments notice.
After Mr. Dillion, we headed to the European headquarters of Airbnb. Airbnb has an awesome facility and their culture is really unique. Their facility is broken down into teams, with groups of desks in areas of the building as your teamwork zones. However, employees do not receive a personal desk. Everyday, employees must sit in different places in their work zones to form new connections with teammates and to gain different perspectives for solutions they may be working on. Because employees cannot put pictures of loved ones on their desk, each work zone has a mantle that the team shares and can decorate. Pictures, sports teams, and other memorabilia hang on the mantle place for the team to enjoy. Meeting rooms are all designed after dining rooms in iconic Airbnb lodging locations across the world. It brings a multi-cultural experience to the work environment.
We spoke with one of their Trust and Safety employees as well as one of their human resources employees today. There is a large difference between the two sectors of the company. HR, on a daily basis, deals with more positive problems; the representative we talked to explained their tradition of “Giraffing,” which is just a general term used for looking out for others and rewarding those around you. On the other hand, Trust and Safety employees deal with real-time emergencies on Airbnb sites and online privacy invasions. The employee I spoke to today focuses on sexual assault and abuse cases on Airbnb sites and also handles live emergencies across the world. Airbnb’s mission statement is about the inclusion of all types of people; I can only imagine how difficult it is for a person in Trust and Safety to feel warm and welcome in the same perspective as an HR employee feels like in the same exact facility.
To remain profitable, Airbnb takes 6-12 percent off the top of each home lender. Also, Airbnb is developing a new project called “Airbnb Experiences” that will collate all types of travel information into one hub, so travelers can go to one place to get all of the research before a trip. For Airbnb Experiences, Airbnb will hire the home leasers as mini tour guides to give a fully-immersed, cultural experience to any user. I thought the idea was awesome, and I am excited to see where Airbnb goes with its development.
The next time I look for lodging accommodations, I will definitely search Airbnb more often. Tomorrow will be my last Ireland blog.