Airbnb Slips a Grand Experiment Into Its IPO

Airbnb’s long-anticipated IPO filing showed impressive resilience despite a pandemic that has battered the travel sector. But there’s something else notable in the documents: The company is holding out 9.2 million shares for a host endowment that it is aiming to grow to upwards of $1 billion. It could be a model for the future of the sharing economy.

At the moment, Airbnb operates like most companies in its sector: It offers a marketplace that enables users (in this case, travelers) to transact with suppliers (people who rent out their spaces); the platform receives a cut of each transaction in return. It’s a relationship that doesn’t so much “develop” as persist from one transaction to the next.