Airbnb is buying trust during the COVID-19 travel slowdown

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

Airbnb’s recent moves in the wake of a global travel slowdown are interesting and worth understanding in chronological order. What it details is a company spending heavily today to keep up its future health. Demand will return to the world travel market in time — how much, no one knows — and Airbnb wants to be a well-liked participant in the return to form.

Building off our last look at the company, we should understand how Airbnb intends to not only survive, but come out the other side of the pandemic with enough user trust to get back to work.

An IPO promise