I spent 11+ years at Airbnb, most recently as a Global Director working closely with hosts.
When Airbnb IPO'd, the tax bill that came with it was more than I could afford. Around the same time, I was looking to invest in a dream house at Sea Ranch — I'd loved hosting for years and wanted a place of my own to host from.
I did the research and paid a firm $6,000 for a cost segregation study, expecting to use it to help offset the tax hit.
The study came back inaccurate. When I asked the firm to walk me through the calculations and allocations, they couldn't. They handed me a PDF and a number; they couldn't show me how either was produced.
I ended up rebuilding the entire study by hand in Google Sheets to validate it. That's when I discovered they had never disposed of the assets from the remodel I'd done — a real, real-money mistake. It took me almost five months to confirm the math was right, which put me right up against the filing deadline.
Through that process I realized my CPA had not generated the study himself. He had outsourced it to a third party. He didn't have the actual insight or knowledge into how each component was being calculated — he was just the conduit.
I knew there had to be a better way.
I'd spent years running SQL for business strategy, designing product, and leading go-to-market work. It was the right time to put those skills toward building a platform that empowers tax professionals to bring this work in-house — with full transparency into how every number is produced, so they can confidently defend it for their clients.
That's Unlevered.
— Bola