Since the Expedia acquisition, the company has internally been on the rapid decline. The new CEO has seen fit to push politics to the forefront of the agenda rather than the needs of our customers.
Many of us liked the talk of promoting diversity in the beginning. And this may even sound great to you reading this. But the manner in which is it being forced from the top-down is causing rifts. They are even pressing for people to take the scientifically dubious "implicit bias" test (which is highly ironic considering they are attempting to brand the company as being scientific).
To illustrate the type of strife this is causing, on International Women's Day, some of the women (I don't know who they are, but I believe they are involved in promoting events and activities either at HomeAway or possibly Expedia as a whole) decided to celebrate and raise awareness of the day by generously buying flowers (thanks!).
This stirred some controversy as most of the commentary on this was that it was a regressive action as opposed to the sign of appreciation and promotion of the day that it was intended to be. There were a handful that voiced their appreciation of the action, and given the environment, I have a hunch that there were more who felt the same, but didn't want to stand out.
Additionally, it's become acceptable to tell individuals not to speak on a topic unless they belong to certain groups. There was a discussion regarding an increase in the number of women in a certain group. And it was rightly pointed out that it still was not equal. A man pointed out that it was important to celebrate the progress on the way to the goal, but was told something along the lines of "maybe we should let the women speak on this instead of the men".
Mind you, this was not a random comment in the hall. This was in a company chat room. Which the CEO personally reads. Which makes it clear that the company is ok with certain discrimination and wants to encourage, no, force, this division from the top down. My guess is that it's an attempt to drive off those who disagree with the direction and create more of an echo chamber.
Bottom line, if you care about the work and satisfying customers, HomeAway is to be avoided.