Airbnb’s CEO, Brian Chesky, who earlier hinted at a 2018 public offering, put forth a conclusive statement on an IPO and set the record straight while reporting the departure of the organization’s CFO, Laurence Tosi, in a blog entry early this month. The news came from technology news site, The Information, a week ago which affirmed tensions amongst Chesky and Tosi, who had been at the organization for more than two years.
“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.”
Airbnb was last estimated at $31 billion and has been a privately-owned business for a long time—once considered an unfathomable length of time in the investment world, yet no longer an anomaly as more tech start-up companies are remaining private for longer. Trust in Tosi’s savvy business moves and maturity at a young firm transformed the startup into a gainful venture seeing consistent development. He was likewise considered as the individual who would take the 10-year-old organization toward an IPO.
“We are not going public in 2018,” he wrote. “Our primary focus is becoming a 21st-century company and advancing our mission. We’re working on getting ready to go public and we will make decisions about going public on our own timetable.”
Johnson, previous general counsel at Yahoo, appears to have had a distinct opinion with Tosi: “It ultimately came down to a difference in philosophy,” a source informed CNBC. The difference, the source said is “Belinda’s Silicon Valley mentality toward organic growth versus LT’s Wall Street mentality.” Tosi didn’t give any purposes behind his departure from the company besides expressing that his time spent in the company had been “exciting” and that the time had come to focus without anyone else business.
