Brian Chesky, Founder and CEO of Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB)
Brian Chesky, Founder and CEO of Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB)
Studying business leaders is fun. This was one of the reasons I started this blog. Studying Brian Chesky was extremely fun.
First: Chesky in his 30s (he is 39) is worth over $10B. Other three founder-CEOs worth over $10B and still in their 30s are Mark Zukerberg, Tobias Lütke and Daniel Ek. Being a self-made multi billionaire under 40 is a definition of extreme business success.
Second: Despite huge success Chesky seems to be a humble and down-to-earth person. He is a good guy. He is a learning machine - he surrounds himself with outstanding mentors. His compensation in 2019 was just $400k (we will see if he keeps it low after IPO). He initiated paying generous compensation packages for employees which were laid off during early days of COVID pandemics. He used to rent out his appartment on Airbnb up to 2016.
Third: Chesky is an excellent communicator (one of the features of great founders). He learnt the importance of communication quite early at Airbnb and he keeps practicing this skill.
Fourth: He is passionate about Airbnb and changing the way people travel (see Bonus at the end of this post).
Fifth: he is a rare breed of a successful tech company founder without not being an engineer himself. He is a designer similar to Steve Jobs.
To summarize, I think Brian Chesky is an outstanding business leader, still in his 30s with lots of potential and an enormous opportunity ahead of him. Brian is a CEO I would like to partner with for the long-term.
If you know nothing about Chesky, here is a short bio from Business Insider:
Here's how the Brian Chesky, an upstate New York native, became one of the richest young tech founders in America.
Chesky grew up in Niskayuna, New York, north of Albany. He was into hockey, and he also liked to draw and design new versions Nike sneakers, which turned into an interest in art. Chesky's high school yearbook quote was "I'm sure I'll amount to nothing." He thought it was funny — his dad didn't. "Earlier this year, he was happy to find out I'd be speaking at both my high school and college as the commencement speaker," Chesky wrote on Instagram in 2017. "See you soon Dad!"
In 1999, Chesky attended Rhode Island School of Design, where he served as captain of the hockey team and studied industrial design. At RISD, Chesky met Joe Gebbia, with whom he would eventually cofound Airbnb. Right before graduation, Gebbia reportedly pulled Chesky aside and said: "Before you get on the plane, there's something I need to tell you. We're going to start a company one day, and they're going to write a book about it."
After graduating from RISD, Chesky moved to Los Angeles to work as an industrial designer, for which he made $40,000 a year. But shortly thereafter, he moved to San Francisco and in with Gebbia. The two unemployed grads soon ran out of cash. When a design conference came to town in October 2007 and caused all the hotels to sell out, Gebbia pitched Chesky the idea of renting out their space to those who couldn't find a place to stay — a "designers bed and breakfast."
The roommates ended up housing three people that weekend, offering up air mattresses and floor space, as well as Pop-Tarts for breakfast. A few months later, Gebbia and Chesky were joined by their engineer friend, Nathan Blecharczyk. Together, the three guys started what was at the time called Airbedandbreakfast.com in August 2008. Chesky "gravitated naturally to the role of leader," Fortune wrote in 2015.
Since then, Airbnb has not only shortened its name, but has listings in more than 191 countries worldwide. The company has served an estimated 800 million guests since its 2008 launch. Airbnb was last valued at $18 billion, making it one of the most valuable startups in the US.
In 2015, Chesky was named to the Time 100 as one of the most influential people alive. Apple's former design chief, Jony Ive, wrote at the time that Chesky's "audacity is fabulous."
In 2016, Chesky, as well as Airbnb's two other cofounders, all publicly signed the Giving Pledge, a philanthropic initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. By doing so, they promise donate more than half of their wealth within their lifetimes.
Up until 2016, Chesky was still renting out his couch in his San Francisco apartment on Airbnb. But after getting caught flouting a San Francisco law that requires hosts to register with the city, Chesky was forced to take the listing down.
While he remains CEO, Chesky handed over daily operations of the company to Blecharczyk in 2014. These days, Chesky remains focused on Airbnb's future moves.
Below are quotes from Chesky:
ON AIRBNB
On the long-term plans: I think it can be a way for a generation of people to travel. I would love one day for us to have more rooms available on a website and the world’s largest hotel chain which have 500,000 rooms around the world, or maybe 600,000. And I would love one day to have more rooms than that offered, all throughout the world, where a generation of people… it’s the way they travel. (Sep-10) [3]
On what is Airbnb: Community marketplace that connects people through unique spaces around the world. (Feb-11) [4]
On the next few years for Airbnb: We are creating a new economy. We are giving consumers access to millions of people, unique spaces and experiences around the world. Airbnb turns online connections into real world meetings. It’s a new way of life, a new way to meet people, a new way to make money and a new way to travel. We also bring liquidity to a new marketplace that previously didn’t exist. In the next few years we will do for space what eBay did in the late 1990s. Some of our customers call it a revolution; some call it a movement. We’re living in a peer-to-peer, collaborative consumption era and Airbnb is helping to propel that forward. (Feb-11) [4]
Trust is the currency that lubricates the entire system. (Jun-12) [19]
On Airbnb being a design-led company: We're very much a design-driven company. Everything we do is design driven, not just the products we make or how we design them. Every decision, from the board meetings we run, through how we hire people, to our office design.
We have this methodology that's called Snow White. It's inspired by the film Snow White, the feature-length animated movie. It was the first time Walt Disney created storyboards, and we did that for the trip. We storyboarded what was the perfect trip, from the time you book your trip, you leave your home. We did every frame, which in our business is the story board trip. We design it and make sure it's great every time.
We created this whole end-to-end service design system, design every part of the trip. Hotels, Expedia, booking websites, they don't do that. They typically use financial data to make their own decisions. We make decisions based on people. We do the same things with employees, how we recruit them, how they join, how we train them. We storyboard and try to design the end-to-end system. We try to see things very differently. For our office design, we redesigned meeting rooms to look like apartments because we thought meeting rooms were ugly and meetings suck.
We have really simple core values that are really like designing the culture. I think there's a lot of intent around things that before us, there weren't a lot of intent around. And they weren't considered from a human basis. Typically, they were done from a financial basis. (Jan-14) [35]
On Airbnb’s growth: The reason it’s grown so fast is, unlike traditional businesses, we don’t have to pour concrete. The infrastructure and the investment was already made by cities a generation ago. And so all of a sudden, all you needed was the Internet.(Oct-14) [46]
The thing that will destroy Airbnb, is if we stop being crazy. (Jun-15) [51]
When we started this company, people thought we were crazy. They said strangers will never stay with strangers, and horrible things are going to happen. (Jan-16) [61]
If you want to build something that truly viral you have to create a total mind-fuck experience that you tell everyone about. And getting to that requires thinking about the most rudimentary thing you can provide, up to the most outrageous thing, and then identifying the steps you could realistically take to bring your product or service to the next level. (Feb-18) [84]
On Experiences business: We’re approaching a million booking run rate for Experiences. That is going to be growing by orders of magnitude. I don’t know when exactly, but we’ll be profitable. It’s not a major importance to be profitable, but it’s growing really, really fast, faster than I expected.
When we first started with Experiences, we started with mostly three-day immersions. Those were very popular from an excitement perspective, but initially the price point was probably a little more than a lot of our travelers were willing to pay for.
We learned that starting with three-hour experiences was a great way to start. We’re still going to be doubling down on these longer traveler adventures and immersions, but once we figured out the formula for these typically three-hour experiences and activities, it really just started taking off.
We have 5,000 Experiences now. The major way to grow is to add more. We have 55,000 on the waitlist. I’ve kind of purposely kept it small. I asked the leaders, I said, “Don’t rush growing this because the bigger it gets the harder it is to improve it.”
It’s really easy to make something small really great and then fix it; it’s super hard to fix something once it’s really big. Our real focus with Experiences this time was quality - let’s nail the quality first, and then we’ll scale it.
Ninety-one percent of Experiences when people leave a review are five-star. That’s a lot higher than Homes. Our core Homes marketplace is 70%. (Feb-18) [86]
On what needs to be accomplished prior to an IPO: Well we’ve certainly accomplished everything we need to as a brand. I think we would need to have a CFO and an independent board of directors. The third really big thing that I don’t think companies even do when they go public, and partly why it’s painful for companies - we want to basically institutionalize our intentions before we go public.
In other words, if you have a fuzzy notion of what you want to become, the public markets are going to crush you because they are very principled about the economic markets and you’re up against [institutions with experience for] decades and decades.
It’s really important that you’re intentional and you’re clear about how you’re going to react.
For example, if you don’t have a plan to be long-term oriented, you will be short-term. No matter how much you wish you were long-term oriented, you’re going to manage the company quarter by quarter.
And by the way, the vast majority of travel companies you cover are managed quarter to quarter, not decade to decade. It’s almost a joke if you ask them where they’ll be in a decade. Maybe they’ll have an opinion, but you really think they could run the company that way? No, they run the company based on the next quarter. Their equity and incentives are paid quarter to quarter based on EBITDA. But you know what - guess how much a customer cares about your quarterly EBITDA? They don’t care. (Feb-18) [86]
I think the key that makes Airbnb is the fact that we’re a community, not just a series of commodities. (May-18) [87]
We want to focus on the things that are most differentiated, the things that are most oriented around community, whether that’s going into Experiences or doubling down on China. (May-18) [87]
We want to design a company to meet the unique needs of the 21st-century. We want Airbnb to be a 21st-century company with two defining characteristics:
1. We will have an infinite time horizon. 2. We will serve all of our stakeholders. (Jun-18) [89]
ON HIMSELF
On how to be a successful entrepreneur: I haven’t organized my thoughts around that… I think there’s a number of things. Number one, you need to solve your own problem, make something to solve your own problem, that’s what I think. I think a lot of people were looking at trends, at what’s popular; I mean if that’s the problem you’re solving, that’s great, but if you’re just doing it because you’re reading about other people doing it, it might not be the best opportunity. Make something for yourself. Solve your own problem and hope that you’re representative enough of a large enough market for this to become a larger business.
Number two, have an excellent partner or co-founders, and that’s so important. That’s more important than solving your own problem or the idea. The first thing you should do is find your co-founder and then try to solve a problem for both of you. Finding a great co-founder… somebody, it’s like being married.
Finding your co-founders is probably very similar to finding a wife. In fact you’re probably going to spend more time with your co-founder than your wife. Day and night, you’re going to be with them, and if things aren’t going well, you’ll spend more time with them. Running a business is a day and night thing. It consumes your life and you’re going to be with that person all the time. So yes, I think those are the two most important ingredients. (Sep-10) [3]
On the most difficult lesson: One of the lessons I learned from Paul Graham was to do important things that don’t scale. Frequently advisers tell you not to do things that can’t be done for millions of users at a time. Paul encouraged us to knock on doors to meet our users face-to-face. You obviously can’t do that for millions of people, but even on a small scale, it helps to build loyalty among your customer base and the information helps you improve on your product.
Another important lesson I learned is that as an entrepreneur, you have to be able to tell your story well—and frequently. It’s remarkable how much time you spend telling your story, whether to potential investors, employees, partners or the media. You need to seek out people with leverage and ask for their help in telling your story, as well.(Feb-11) [4]
On what motivates him: Achieving. Moving toward my personal vision of the future. What motivates you to walk is the place you are walking toward. What motivates to build a company is what you want the company to become. I would love it if someday people forget what life was like before Airbnb. (Feb-11) [4]
On how he would describe himself: Passionate. Driven. Creative. Imaginative. Inspiring. (Nov-11) [14]
On what values are important for an entrepreneur: Devotion. A sense of possibility and an open mind. Resilience. Be yourself. Don’t try to be a clone of someone else. (Nov-11) [14]
On the best business advice he has ever heard: “Build the machine.” It means that in addition to focusing on building the product, you have to build the machine that builds the product. The machine is the human capital and the core values of the culture. (Nov-11) [14]
On his motto: As a kid I wore a couple of shirts in hockey camp. Both of them are relevant to what I do today. The first is a Wayne Gretzky quote: “Skate to where the puck is going not to where it’s been.” The other was “100% or nothing.” (Nov-11) [14]
On whom he admires most: Steve Jobs. He changed the rules. He showed that someone with a liberal arts background can runs a technology company and become a leader. That is what I want to do. (Nov-11) [14]
On what he is passionate about: Two things: Design and turning Airbnb into a movement. (Nov-11) [14]
On what company he would like to start: If you’d told me three years ago what Airbnb looks like today, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. The vision I have for Airbnb in 20 years is that it will be a much different company than it is now. I think there’s plenty to contribute to the path Airbnb is on and have no ambitions to start another type of company. (Nov-11) [14]
On managing company during period of rapid growth: I hired the best people who understood our values and our vision. I’ve also learned how to say, “No.” I have surrounded myself with mentors that have been where I am. (Nov-11) [14]
On his No. 1 hiring tip: Have a clear idea of your values and don't compromise. (Nov-11) [14]
On the biggest lesson he learned in 2012: A year ago, we were a much smaller company–what happens when you grow super-fast is that you have more people working on more projects and there are so many more opportunities to pursue. At some point you wake up and you’re the one responsible for making sure the company is focused. You wake up and realize that there are literally hundreds of things happening and people are pursuing different priorities and interactions. The lesson I learned is that it’s really important to learn how to prioritize what people are doing and making sure that everyone is aligned on a single vision.
“We created a framework for keeping ourselves focused. Most startups are only focused on growing faster. We realized that was the wrong thing to focus on solely – that would not make us a great company. To be a great company we realized we had to focus on three things: Love, Growth and Foundation.
Love was making sure our customers love the experience of Airbnb. The constituent is our community.
Growth helps us focus on gaining momentum. This is what most startups focus on, and it’s a good thing to focus on, but shouldn’t be all that you focus on. The constituents for this are our shareholders.
Foundation ensures the long-term success of our company and that it’s a great place to work. The constituents for this are our employees.
We are focused on making sure we take care of our community, or shareholders and our employees–those are the constituents of Airbnb. This was our big insight. (Nov-12) [24]
It’s better to have 100 people [who] love you than finding a million who just sort of like you. Build your business one person at a time. Just focus on 100 people. If they love you, they will market the product for you and tell everyone else. Go to your users. Do one scalable thing, one person at a time. It’s actually so simple, that’s the secret… that’s all you need to do.
Every entrepreneur is worried about appeasing investors. Every investor wants the graph to go up and to the right… Who gives a shit? That’s not what going to make your company successful. Your customer don’t care how fast your [company is] growing. Your customer only cares about how great the experience you have is. (Oct-13) [32]
On how his leadership style evolved since starting the company: The most important thing I’ve learned how to do is learn. I’ve had to embrace the fact that I’m constantly going to be in uncharted waters, and I’m constantly going to be doing something I’ve never done before. I had to learn to get comfortable in a role of ambiguity where I had to seek out advisers and learn quickly.
The second thing I had to do was not to be reluctant as a leader. When you first start leading people, it can be a little uncomfortable — you feel like maybe you’re bossy, maybe you’re mean, you might be reticent about making decisions or reluctant to give feedback. But I removed all reticence whenever a crisis occurred, and I made a unilateral decision to be direct. And when I started doing that, I realized that people are thriving from this, and that it’s so much more helpful for people. (Oct-14) [46]
Ask anyone who knows Chesky what he’s like, and he will say one of a few things: Intense. Focused. Really, really, really curious. (Jun-15) [51]
(Jun-15) [51]
I still live in the original Airbnb and I still Airbnb it so you can book it. It’s available throughout the year, you can book the couch for just like $50. (Aug-15) [53]
Jeff Jordan of Andreessen Horowitz on Chesky: He’s incredibly charismatic. He just draws you in. There’s this elegance in how he describes the business and how he envisions the future. (Jan-16) [61]
On curiosity: That’s probably the most important trait you can have, especially as an entrepreneur. And even though I’m still young, I try to always look at what people significantly younger than me are doing. What’s the next thing? I like to imagine the world five years from now. Or imagine what I want the world to look like five years from now. (Sep-17) [79]
ON CULTURE
Don’t fuck up the culture… Culture is so incredibly important because it is the foundation for all future innovation. People with passion can change the world. (Oct-13) [32]
Our culture is the foundation for our company. We may not be remembered for much after we are gone, and if Airbnb is around 100 years from now, surely we won’t be a booking website for homes. We will be far past this in our evolution (not to mention that kids 100 years from now will be asking their grandparents what websites were).
The thing that will endure for 100 years, the way it has for most 100 year companies, is the culture. The culture is what creates the foundation for all future innovation. If you break the culture, you break the machine that creates your products. (Apr-14) [39]
On hiring process: For every hire, you need a very specific thesis of what you’re looking for, and it has to be simple. It can’t be a bunch of responsibilities; it’s got to be a word, or a mantra, and it has to be around the outcome or goal that I want them to achieve.
More broadly, we’re looking for people who see the world as it could be rather than as it is. They’re dreamers, big thinkers, and they are generally trusting — they’re not cynical, although they are very contrarian and they are willing to challenge the status quo. They are kids at heart — not in terms of maturity, but in terms of curiosity.
I also ask people to summarize their life in three minutes. I’m trying to figure out the formative decisions and experiences that influenced who you are as a person. Once I figure that out, I’m trying to understand the two or three most remarkable things you’ve ever done in your life. Because if you’ve never done anything remarkable in your life until this point, you probably never will. (Oct-14) [46]
Strengthen the culture, and you will need less corporate processes. You can rely on the fact that each one will do the right thing. The entrepreneurial spirit is encouraged among employees. And if our company is driven by an entrepreneurial spirit, then we shall be able to take our next step into the future. (Sep-17) [79]
When Airbnb started 10 years ago it was kind of the culture that you really can’t take responsibility for what happens on your platform. We changed our point of view. (Feb-18) [83]
On hiring people: You want diversity of background, age, but you don’t want diversity of values. You want very very homogeneous beliefs or values – that’s the one thing that shouldn’t be diverse. (Apr-19) [94]
We will focus on connection and belonging. We will prioritize the individual hosts who deliver it. We will invest in building our community. We will use curiosity and imagination to create unconventional solutions. We will take a unique, design-driven approach. We will ensure creative people always have a seat at the table. We will design for the long-term benefit of all stakeholders. We will measure our progress for serving each of them. We will adjust when we don’t get it right.
Our responsibility to our stakeholders will continue to guide how we operate. (Nov-20) [114]
ON THE FUTURE OF AIRBNB AND TRAVEL INDUSTRY
Travel is going to go away in the future. People won’t travel, they will be mobile, staying in one place for a night, and perhaps moving onto another locale for four months. When you are actually connecting and meeting in the real world, that is what travel is going to be. (Nov-12) [23]
On plans for the future: We want travelers to be able to book homes anywhere. Anywhere includes Asia. Asia’s a nascent market for us. Number two, we’re also looking at other use cases. Airbnb started as a way for travelers to find a budget way to vacation in a city. But now we’re starting to see people who aren’t on a budget. They want a much more high-end experience. And the third is that at the end of the day, if you’re traveling to Tokyo, you’re not traveling to Tokyo to stay in a home or a hotel. You’re traveling to Tokyo—if you’re on vacation—because you want to have an experience. And we’d love to do more to make that experience special and memorable. (Oct-14) [46]
If you think about it, Airbnb is like a giant ship. And as CEO I’m the captain of the ship. But I really have two jobs: The first job is, I have to worry about everything below the waterline; anything that can sink the ship. Beyond that, I have to focus on two to three areas that I’m deeply passionate about—that aren’t below the waterline but that I focus on because I can add unique value, I’m truly passionate about them, and they can truly transform the company if they go well.” The three areas he’s picked: product, brand, and culture. “I’m pretty hands-on with those three,” he says. “And with the others I really try to empower leaders and get involved only when there are holes below the waterline.” (Jun-15) [51]
It may seem odd for Chesky, the CEO of the company that, along with ride-sharing giant Uber, has become the poster child for the so-called sharing economy, to seek advice from the man who signed off on the intelligence that led to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. But Tenet is just one of a long list of leaders Chesky has sought out since co-founding the home-rental website—some inside the box and some very far outside it. Others he’s reached out to for lessons include Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRK.A) Warren Buffett and Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger; a long list of tech luminaries that includes Apple’s (APPL) Jony Ive, LinkedIn’s (LNKD) Jeff Weiner, and Salesforce.com’s (CRM) Marc Benioff; and a separate group he’s taken posthumous lessons from, including Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, George Bernard Shaw, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. “It’s kind of like the old Robert McNamara saying,” says Chesky, referencing a comment about nuclear weapons by the controversial 1960s U.S. defense secretary to explain his own voracious pursuit of management knowledge. “There’s no learning curve for people who are in war or in startups.” (Jun-15) [51]
This is a revolution created by everyone being connected to everyone else. We in the sharing economy represent what happens when the Internet moves into your neighborhood. I believe we're just in Chapter 2 of a really long book about this age. There's huge growth ahead of us. (Aug-15) [53]
On the next dream: Basically, right now the vast majority of people still think of Airbnb as a place to sleep and my hope is five years from now people will think of Airbnb as a trip that had a huge impact on their life and maybe even changed their life, every part of it. The world will feel a little more magical because of the places you’ve been on Airbnb. We have hundreds of millions of people using the [Trips] service, so that’s really where we’re going. If all that happens, then we’ve accomplished or get closer to accomplishing why we do all this in the first place. Which is to say, we want you to feel like when you go to a community you should belong in that community. You should be able to belong in this world and not feel like an outsider and not feel unwelcome. We want to bring that to every home, every business and every community. (Jun-17) [76]
We imagine a world where every one of us can belong anywhere. A world where you can go to any community and someone says, "Welcome home." Where home isn't just a house, but anywhere you belong. Where every city is a village, every block a community, and every kitchen table a conversation. In this world, we can be anything we want. This is the magical world of Airbnb. We will probably never fully realize this vision, but we will die trying. (Jun-18) [89]
On how travel will look like when it returns: I do think it’s going to take time. I think people are not going to get on an airplane for a while. Travel is going to resume by car, and the really big trend is going to be people traveling near them. For example, 13% of our business pre-COVID was people traveling and staying at Airbnbs 50 miles from them. Now that’s 30%. A third of our business is basically people traveling to the next town over. So travel will become more last minute, more affordable, more nearby. And more leisure than business. One other thing is, we’re going to be in less urban areas. People aren’t going to be interested — as much — in staying in super mega metropolises. (Jun-20) [110]
On putting on hold some non-core projects: I really want Airbnb to use this crisis to sharpen our focus, to get back to basics, back to the core of everyday hosts that offer homes and experiences. And I think the people who really yearn for that are going to want to stay in places that are really authentic and personal. We’re going to put in as many or more resources than before. It’s just going to come at the expense of not doing as many things. Transportation, for example, is on pause. I certainly don’t expect in the next year or year and a half to be working on it. One day? Very, very possible. It’s super hard to imagine what the world will look like in a year, let alone five years. (Jun-20) [110]
On post-COVID trends: I do think that instead of the world population travelling to only a few cities and staying in big tourist districts, I think you're going to see a redistribution of where people travel… I think more people are going to work remotely and work from home also could be work from any home. And that's an opportunity for Airbnb because you're going to see major population redistribution on the table. (Jun-20) [111]
ON COMPETITION
On whether Airbnb is trying to make hotels obsolete: No. I still don't really think that way. I don't think we're disrupting hotels unless hotels refuse to change. Silicon Valley does have this mentality, "for me to win, you don't have to lose." We generally believe that the pie can grow so much, it's not a fixed pie. Around the world, tourism is as big an industry as oil. Oil is $4 trillion and tourism is between $2 trillion and $6 trillion. With the rise of Brazil, Russian, India, China, you have all of these new travelers, 300 million people from China alone. Think about what that means for the industry. (Aug-13) [29]
On relationships with hotel industry: Well we're as big as they are now so there's a little bit of angst to them. But I think I can't yet generalise the whole hotel industry and I think it's because a lot of people have a lot of different views. Some are trying to figure out what we are. I was just in Davos [for the World Economic Forum] and met with a couple of CEOs of large hotel chains. They were actually really friendly and one of them said: "We don't know what to think about you yet, how should we think about you?" and another said "We don't actually think of ourselves as competitors with you." But I heard off the record that another one does think we're a competitor and has some concerns. So I can't really generalise, they all have different views.
But I don't think we're as much competitors as people make us out to be. Most hotels make all their money in business travel. There's not a lot of profit for them in ordinary people. We're the other way around; we have some business travel but most people on Airbnb are using it for vacation. (Jan-14) [35]
The spreadsheet below contains all links to articles used in this post:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s8aPM1pfhu23Xgg0Wz-DHv3_GcPaAj8iQaraUQy6mYE/edit?usp=sharing
Bonus:
Airbnb's plan to go public during a pandemic might be too rushed for Warren Buffett's liking, but the famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO appears to be a big fan of the home-sharing platform and its leader.
"It clearly has very strong appeal on both sides, to the customer and the provider," Buffett told Fortune editor Leigh Gallagher for her 2017 book, "The Airbnb Story: How three ordinary guys disrupted an industry, made billions ... and created plenty of enemies."
"It's a very, very big hosting machine," Buffett continued.
The 12-year-old company boasts north of 7 million listings across more than 220 countries and regions, and has racked up at least 750 million guest arrivals to date, according to its website.
The Berkshire chief predicted Airbnb would compete with the world's largest hotel chains, pointing to its rapid growth and the rate at which it adds listings. He also regretted that he didn't have the idea first.
"It's got a lot of advantages," he told Gallagher. "I wish I'd thought of it myself."
Buffett also expressed admiration at Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky's passion for his job.
"He feels it all the way through," the investor said. "I think he would be doing what he's doing if he didn't get paid a dime for it."
Buffett recognized the value of Airbnb's service partly because his family has hosted people many times in the past.