APPS
APPS
APPS
After an executive shuffle, Airbnb says it won’t go public in 2018
Airbnb Inc. Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi has left the building, leaving investors wondering when the company will go public. Apparently, that won’t be this year after all.
The San Francisco property rental marketplace, which rose to fame in a similar timeline to Uber Technologies Inc., lost its CFO after reportedly butting heads with Chief Executive Brian Chesky regarding the future of the home-rental company.
The company said in a statement today that Tosi “has decided to dedicate his full time and energy to his investment fund, Weston Capital Partners, and dedicate time to the several external boards he currently sits on and will be leaving Airbnb.”
Belinda Johnson, who previously worked as chief business affairs and legal officer at Airbnb, will now fill the position of chief operating officer. Reports state that Tosi had actually had this role in mind for himself, and amid differences with Chesky concerning what direction the company should go in, he decided to leave.
This leaves the $31 billion startup without a financial chief and puts it in the same boat as Uber. Many believe it was down to Tosi’s shrewd business moves and maturity at a fairly young firm that were largely responsible for turning the startup into a profitable enterprise seeing continual growth. He was also seen as the person that would take the 10-year-old company toward an IPO.
“I know people will ask what these changes mean for a potential IPO,” Chesky said. “Let me address this directly. We are not going public in 2018. We’re working on getting ready to go public, and we will make decisions about going public on our own timetable.”
Johnson, former general counsel at Yahoo, seems to have had a difference of opinion with Tosi. “It ultimately came down to a difference in philosophy,” a source told CNBC. The difference, the source said, “Belinda’s Silicon Valley mentality toward organic growth versus LT’s Wall Street mentality.”
Tosi didn’t give any reasons for his departure, only stating that his time there had been “thrilling” and that it was time to concentrate on building his own business.
Image: Pixabay
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
