ABNB, Airbnb, Inc.
We operate a global marketplace connecting guests with stays, experiences, and services, collectively in over 220 countries and regions.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- A consumer-brand business, where the durable asset is the brand and its hold on the shelf.
- Situation
- Cyclical. margins collapse repeatedly across the cycle, a single year misleads; look at normalized, through-cycle earnings and the balance sheet at the trough.
- What moves the needle
- Volume against price, and shelf position. What decides it: whether it can raise prices without losing the customer, and whether the brand still commands its margin.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has run high across the record (median 56%, above 15% in 5 of 5 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. High, durable returns can mark a moat, but whether this one is real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
The record, 2019–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $4.8B | $3.4B | $6.0B | $8.4B | $9.9B | $11.1B | $12.2B | $12.6B |
| Gross marginGross mgn | 75% | 74% | 81% | 82% | 83% | 83% | 83% | 83% |
| Operating marginOp. mgn | −10.4% | −106.3% | 7.2% | 21.5% | 15.3% | 23.0% | 20.8% | 20.5% |
| Net incomeNet inc. | ($674M) | ($4.6B) | ($352M) | $1.9B | $4.8B | $2.6B | $2.5B | $2.5B |
| EPS (diluted)EPS | $-1.19 | $-7.44 | $-0.57 | $2.78 | $7.24 | $4.11 | $4.03 | $4.14 |
| Owner earningsOwner earn. | $97M | ($777M) | $2.3B | $3.4B | — | — | — | $4.5B |
| ROICROIC | — | — | 49% | 1015% | 46% | 57% | 56% | 65% |
| Cash & investmentsCash+inv | $2.0B | $6.4B | $8.3B | $9.6B | $10.1B | $10.6B | $11.0B | $12.0B |
| Net debt / (cash)Net debt | ($2.0B) | ($4.6B) | ($6.3B) | ($7.6B) | ($8.1B) | ($8.6B) | ($9.0B) | ($9.5B) |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $-1.43 | $4.71 | $7.75 | $8.18 | $12.33 | $13.04 | $13.16 | $12.56 |
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- No meaningful interest burdenLittle or no interest expense reported
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
- ConservativeTotal debt $2.0B ÷ operating income $2.5B
Years of operating profit it would take to repay all debt. A first read, not a credit rating: it's gross debt (not netted against cash) over EBIT (not EBITDA), and a cyclical year distorts it.
- Debt, net of cash +$9.0BNet cashCash $6.6B + ST investments $4.5B − debt $2.0B
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $9.0B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters; the gross ratio above ignores the cash already set against it. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- ExceptionalNOPAT $2.0B ÷ invested capital $3.6B (debt + equity − cash)
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; below ~8% the company may destroy value as it grows. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Cash machineOwner Earnings $4.6B = operating cash $4.6B − capex $25M
What an owner could take out without starving the business. That's 38% of revenue. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $1.6B of SBC) leaves $3.0B. Honest caveat: capex here blends maintenance and growth, so steady-state Owner Earnings may run higher (see capex vs. depreciation).
- Cash-backedCash from ops $4.6B ÷ net income $2.5B
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Returns about halfDividends + buybacks $3.8B ÷ Owner Earnings $4.6B
Of $4.6B Owner Earnings, $3.8B (82%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $3.8B buybacks. Net of $1.6B stock comp, the real buyback was about $2.2B. Returning most of it signals a mature cash machine; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.59×HarvestingCapex $25M ÷ depreciation $43M
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Durability & moat, 2019–2025
A moat is a high return that doesn’t fade, reinvested at high returns. Here is what the record says, judgments, not another chart of the numbers.
- Profitable years 4 of 7
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 5 of 5 yrs
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin −10% (FY2019) → 21% (FY2025)
Margins widened over the record, pricing power intact or improving.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 134%
Every extra dollar the company reinvested earned a high return, it is still compounding, not coasting on an old moat.
- Worst year 2020 · −106.3% op. margin
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
How the cash was used, 2019–2025
Over the record, the business generated $18.3B of operating cash, and how management split it is, as Buffett insists, the job that matters most. Here it reads as a mature cash machine, most of what it earns goes straight back to owners.
- Reinvested$212M · 1%
- Buybacks$11.0B · 60%
- Retained (debt / cash)$7.1B · 39%
It reinvested $212M (1%) back into the business and returned $11.0B (60%) to owners, $0 in dividends, $11.0B in buybacks.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to employees; net of that, the real return to owners is lower (see Management & pay). And the mix alone doesn't grade management, what matters is the return earned on the dollars reinvested (see incremental ROIC in the durability report).
Management & pay
Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- Stock-based compensation$1.6B
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 13% of revenue, equal to 63% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the trap, the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Graham’s defensive-investor test
2 of 5 metGraham gave the defensive investor seven numerical criteria in The Intelligent Investor. Here they are, run mechanically on the filings, his framework, not our verdict. Meeting them is a floor of safety, not a reason to buy; missing one is no veto, since many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity tests by design. The worth is in seeing exactly where a company stands against the canon, every number sourced.
- Adequate size PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $12.2B
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.38×
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt PassDebt ≤ working capital · $2.0B vs $5.1B WC
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Earnings stability MissA profit every year (7-yr record) · 3 loss years
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · none paid
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Earnings growth —Earnings +33% over the record · —
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Earnings are $4.03/share and book value $13.16/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Graham would be the first to say a checklist is a starting point, not an answer. These are his defensive, bargain-hunter's tests, the cigar-butt lens. Buffett and Munger grew past it, paying fair prices for wonderful businesses; that lens lives in the moat and owner-earnings work above, and both still matter. Clearing Graham’s tests earns a closer look; failing them earns harder questions, not a dismissal.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFA price is the one input we don't pull, you bring it. Type today's close (read it off any broker or quote site) and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, set beside what Airbnb, Inc. has actually delivered. Nothing is stored; the number stays in your browser.
Enter a price above to run it.
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go, a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. Read it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a ceiling on good sense.
The discount rate is your interest rate, what a dollar years from now is worth today, anchored to the long-term Treasury yield (~4–5% today, plus whatever premium you want for risk). Drag it toward the risk-free rate and watch how much growth the price suddenly “needs”: interest rates are gravity on valuations.
Owner earnings $4.5B on 608M diluted shares; net cash $9.5B. This is a lens, not a price target, it says what you'd have to believe, not what the company is worth, and it runs on one year of (noisy) owner earnings at assumptions you can see and change.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Customer concentrationRisk Factors
Who the revenue leans on. When one buyer is a large slice of sales, that buyer holds the pricing power, and its troubles become the company's.
“In certain jurisdictions, we are required to either safeguard customer funds in bankruptcy-remote bank accounts, or hold such funds in eligible liquid assets, as defined by the relevant regulators in such jurisdictions, equal to at least 100% of the aggregate amount held on behalf of customers.”
From the recordRevenue exposed (TTM)$12.6B - Pricing power & competitionRisk Factors
Whether the company sets its price or takes it. Durable pricing power is the surest mark of a moat; price competition is the surest mark there isn't one.
“Our ability to continue to adopt, integrate, and use such technologies at the scale we may need may be dependent on access to specific third-party software, and infrastructure, such as processing hardware or third-party AI models, and we cannot control the quality, availability, or pricing of such t…”
From the recordOperating margin20.5% now (TTM), off a 23.0% peak (FY2024) - Supplier & input dependenceRisk Factors
A choke point upstream. A sole or limited supplier can dictate terms, and a single shortage can stop the line.
“Our future revenue growth depends on the growth of supply and demand for listings on our platform and the development and adoption of new offerings and initiatives.”
From the recordGross-margin cushion (TTM)83% - Concentrated dependenceRisk Factors
What the whole business leans on, a product, a platform, a partner. Concentration cuts both ways, and the filing is where management has to admit it.
“A significant portion of our business is denominated and transacted in foreign currencies, which subjects us to foreign exchange risk.”
From the recordOwner-earnings margin at stake (TTM)36% - Debt terms & refinancingRisk Factors
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“Noteholders may require us to repurchase their notes for cash following a fundamental change, potentially straining our financial resources and leading to defaults under the indenture or other debt agreements.”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)+$9.0B net cash · no real interest burden - Litigation & contingenciesRisk Factors
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“For example, in 2025, the Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs proposed to assess a fine of approximately 65 million Euro ($76 million) in connection with alleged non-compliance with short-term rental listing regulations in Spain.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - DilutionRisk Factors
Whether your slice quietly shrinks. New shares fund the company at the existing owner's expense.
“We may from time to time issue additional shares of common stock, including as consideration for any future acquisitions.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “We expect our effective tax rate in the future to depend upon the proportion between the following items and income before income taxes: U.S. tax benefits from foreign-derived intangible income, U.S. tax on foreign income net of allowable credits, tax effects from share-based compensation, research …”
- “To date, these conditions have not had a material impact on our business, results of operations, cash flows, and financial condition; however, the impact in the future of these macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions on our business, results of operations, cash flows, and financial condition is un…”
- “(in millions, except percentages) 2024 2025 % Change Other expense, net $ (40) $ (112) 180 % The change in other expense, net of $72 million in 2025, was primarily due to net foreign exchange losses of $64 million, partially offset by lower impairment charges on investments in privately-held compani…”
- “Macroeconomic and Geopolitical Conditions on our Business As we look forward, we recognize the potential impact of challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions on our business, including inflation, interest rates, foreign currency fluctuations, tariffs and trade controls, and potential decr…”
- “The EU Consumer Rights Directive and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, the United Kingdom Digital Market, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 ("DMCCA"), and national consumer laws impose strict consumer protection requirements, with potential fines for non-compliance and in the case of the D…”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, To Dwellings & Other Buildings
The same industry, side by side on owner economics, compare, don't rank by a single number.● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPGIS&P Global Inc. | $15.3B | 70% | 42.2% | 12% | 36% |
| DASHDoordash, Inc. | $13.7B | — | 5.3% | 13% | 16% |
| NOWServicenow, Inc. | $13.3B | 78% | 13.7% | 15% | 34% |
| ABNBAirbnb, Inc. | $12.2B | 83% | 20.8% | 56% | 38% |
| EBAYEbay Inc. | $11.1B | 71% | 20.5% | 19% | 13% |
| WDAYWorkday, Inc. | $9.6B | 99% | 7.5% | 5% | 29% |
| MCOMoody’s Corporation | $7.7B | 74% | 43.4% | 30% | 33% |
| GPNGlobal Payments Inc. | $7.7B | 73% | 22.8% | 4% | 26% |