Airbnb Open 2016 in Los Angeles blog and anecdotes

Thank you Deborah for taking the time to write this, and also welcome back! You were of course missed. I look forward to reading through it tomorrow on the train.

Yes, the sight seeing was more enjoyable than the Open -- I think that with these Airbnb Opens, it's sort of like, "if you've seen one you've seen them all". There isn't that much difference from year to year. It's hoo-hah and rah-rah. It's fun to see other hosts, colorful lights, music and free food, but for the most part we've heard the spiels. Now to be sure there are always some new interesting talks that are going on -- and I guess if Airbnb brings in "movie stars" like Ashton Kutcher or Gwyneth Paltrow then people will come just for that -- but particularly for introverts like myself it isn't all that compelling. I'd rather be out being truly creative -- having authentic (unpackaged) experience, exploring, and writing or doing art about my explorations.

Thanks so much Grace for your kind and beautiful feedback.

I love photography, and as an artist I have a good eye for beauty in both more "typical" as well as more unusual situations...and I particularly like creative photography, which I've been able to get involved in since buying a digital camera. Yes I tend to be old school in a lot of things but finally got a decent digital camera about 3 years ago. It's much easier to do creative effects with digital cameras since you can do it on your computer and don't need the expense or space or time for the darkroom!! Not to mention the expertise.

And, partly due to being so busy and involved in so many things, I only just recently learned how to do some basic photo enhancing on Photoshop! It's really amazing what can be done on the LESS expensive version of Photoshop -- meaning the $99 version, Photoshop Elements, as opposed to the $2000 Photoshop!

I'm glad you enjoyed the story.

It's funny about the Tony Robbins aspect --- I actually did not know of Tony Robbins other than vaguely recognizing the name, but it turned out that one of the hosts (call him Edward) that I met at a host gathering I went to the day before the Open started, was a very enthusiastic advocate of Tony Robbins, and the last thing he did before coming to the Open, was to attend a Tony Robbins event in California, that he said went for 14 hrs each day.

"Everyone was all pumped up!" He exclaimed, wide-eyed, smiling. I said, "But what if I dont' want to be pumped up?" He said "You can't help it! The energy is there." I dont' think he got my point. I don't want to be all pumped up, particularly in a group where everyone else is all pumped up!!

Well I guess Edward can't help it, but as a lifetime practitioner of the path of "be who you are", a staunch advocate of being our luscious unique individual selves, I have good practice of not feeling obligated to go with the flow of any particular social gathering. I am able to sit down if everyone else is sitting up, to not be clapping if everyone else is clapping. It's ironic because I don't think Brian or Nate or Joe or any of those at Airbnb can grasp how they are simultaneously promoting creativity and individualism -- such as through the promotion of Elizabeth Gilbert's work, and other talks on creativity and creating unique surroundings and listings -- they are also suppressing creativity and individualism. The original poor graphic design of the Community Center (which has since been much improved) Their Community Commitment which seeks to banish those who disagree. They recently introduced new "minimalistic" search results pages which completely removed the titles of hosts' listings...thus censoring out host's unique creativity. The lack of options for hosts to run their businesses in their own creative ways that work for them....such as an expanded range of cancellation policies far beyond what Airbnb offers.


I do credit Airbnb for supporting creativity in business to the extent that they do, but they could do more to give hosts freedom to be creative, and let our creativity really be shown...not hidden behind minimalistic search results.