Let's talk about Airbnb. Shall we put the post up on Instagram this morning that Airbnb CEO, Brian Cheshire.

He recently said that there's the company is fundamentally broken amongst shrinking profits. So this is pretty disturbing and it comes from challenges that are faced in 2023 and previous years prior to this host have stage protests.

Due to declining profits, complicating matters. Competitive verbal has seen significant growth during this period to add to Airbnb's challenges last month, New York City, which makes up a large portion of Airbnb profits, induced stricter rules on short term rentals, putting immense pressure on the platform's operation there. They've been under attack from the hotel lobby for a very long time.

Yes. So, you know, in response to the setbacks Cheshire has expressed intentions to revert to the company's core values, focusing on consistent quality of affordable top notch service and reliability for its users.

And it is notable to mention our good friend Andre Lyon from Cool and Dre. He actually commented on it and he said in the post, he said Airbnb and their founder happened to be one of the very few companies that care about our community. Stay tuned. You'll see what I'm talking about. Shout out to Brian, Breach, LL and the whole team.

Okay. So, I don't know. So, how do we fit here, Airbnb, Airbnb is a company that I've been a shareholder in for a long time. So, in full disclosure. But yeah, they've had, they've had some, some pretty challenging times. So, where do we, how do you feel about Airbnb?

DJ Clue voice, do you remember when you are looking to be disruptive, you always, number one, have to please write this down. You have to look back for where your pushback is going to come from from your enemies sideline. So, if you have lobbying and litigation against you, it's going to be tough.

Number two, when all these companies started to go up during COVID and had a decline in 2021, most of the companies that were promising individual investors to be able to make a lot of money doing something.

You have to be airtight and what you are promising and what you're going to deliver. So, like if I have to book an Airbnb and then safety issues and I have to play a clean and fee and a dog removal fee and a hair removal fee.

The fees are added up and it's not in favor of the consumer. Number three, when you look and you're building a brand, I think it's really important to state, what do you do that no one else in your space is capable of doing?

There is a convenient side of Airbnb and you get more space, but the reliability isn't there comparison to, I don't know, let's say a four seasons or a Marriott, if you will.

I think they got a little bit too hyped off of the quantitative easing, low interest rates when everything was doing well, but I said it here a couple years ago on the show like, I don't love this stock.

It's a mixed-use real estate play. It was a great idea, but the profit margins once again are not where they need to be.

The high was at 219 is currently at 125 58, not the biggest drop that we've seen of companies recently, but they have some stiff competition, the VRBO, the whole hotel industry.

And I think people got fed up with paying too much like it used to be, if you book the Airbnb, it was on par or as affordable as a hotel, that kind of went away.

And I think everyone ended up pricing all the consumers out and here we are. Final lesson, do what is best for the consumers that you're serving.

So when we do hit a recession or a down market, your consumer base does not leave with you.

Not a big fan of the stock is definitely not what I would name Coinbase or the like, which we'll talk about next week, but this will be a C minus and hopefully they can turn things around. Shout it to Dre.

Shout to Dre. It's an interesting time when you talk about inflation, you talk about interest rates rising. These are the effects of it.

So even if you look at the high of Airbnb, when did it happen? It happened during pandemic. So there was a boost in short term rentals. There was a boost in people investing in properties and having the income to have properties that they can rent out.

That changes right when interest rates rise. Now people can't afford to have that second property anymore because who wants to pay seven percent when they do it.

In addition, and you look at places where Airbnb was driving regulations have changed, but even in places like Arizona, Phoenix, specifically in Tennessee, during the time that Airbnb was at its peak, the number of investment properties was outweighing the number of home sales.

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