Technology
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on Holiday Hosting, Where to Travel in 2023, and Why Designers Belong in the Boardroom
In this episode of Design Time, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shares insights on holiday hosting, travel trends for 2023, and the importance of design in business. He discusses his journey from industrial d...
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on Holiday Hosting, Where to Travel in 2023, and Why Designers Belong in the Boardroom
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Interactive Transcript
Speaker A
Hello there. I'm Julie Vadnal, deputy editor of Domino, and this is Design Time. The Rebellious Ones. If you've listened to this podcast before, you know that we interviewed some of the biggest names in interior design. But this season, I'm doing things a little differently. I'm going to be talking to rebels, the out of the box thinkers who put their creative stamps on our world, whether they work in design, fashion, or even food. After all, you don't have to paint a room all black to be a rebel, though I think that'd be super cool. Some of us engage in tiny acts of resistance every day, and that counts, too. Each week, I'll talk to a new guest, a rebellious one, if you will, about how they turn off the doubting voices in their heads and how you can find your only you style. Let's do this. I'd bet good money that you're familiar with today's guests. A co founder of a little company called Airbnb. As the CEO, he's taken it from a scrappy startup in 2007 to a verb, as in, we Airbnb this weekend. And if you've ever scrolled through and made lists of your dream stays, I am definitely guilty of this. You know that design is a huge part of the company ethos. Speaking of design, he attended risd, and his belief in community, something we love here at Domino, is, is a huge part of Airbnb's success. Please welcome Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky to Design Time. The Rebellious Ones.
Speaker B
Well, thank you for having me on today.
Speaker A
I'm so excited to talk with you. I am a big fan of Airbnb. Something we ask every guest to do at the beginning of the podcast is introduce themselves by saying, hi, I'm Brian Chesky and I'm a rebel blank. So you have to fill in that blank.
Speaker B
Oh, my God. What am I?
Speaker A
Yeah, what are you?
Speaker B
I'm Brian Chesky, and I'm a rebel designer. I guess that doesn't seem very creative, but I can explain if you want.
Speaker A
Yes, please explain.
Speaker B
I remember the first weekend I started Airbnb with my friend. I was with the first guest, and I remember him saying, you're a business person. Because I had just started this company, I said, I'm not a business person. Business people make money. I'm a designer, and designers solve problems. And when I was at risd, everyone said, how can we get designers in the boardroom? And I thought, well, why can't a designer just run the boardroom? And so maybe that's what made me a rebel? A rebel designer who had the audacity think they could kind of run the show rather than just be part of the show. I kind of feel like the creative community is a little bit marginalized in business. You know, design is one of the only functions where people spend a large percent of their job just defining their existence. And I think one of the best ways to do that is just to run a company as a designer and show people it's value. So I guess I'm a rebel designer.
Speaker A
No, I feel you on that because I'm a writer and I feel like sometimes people don't value words in the same way they do business skills. But words can be so powerful. And like you're saying, design can also be a really powerful tool and maybe business and design don't have to fight each other. They can work together.
Speaker B
Yes, definitely agree with that.
Speaker A
So when you were at risd, like to go back a little bit, is this what you saw yourself doing? Like, what was your plan when you went to RISD and when you graduated, what were you going to do with that degree? It's hard to imagine that you thought about Airbnb back then.
Speaker B
I exited RISD wanting to be an entrepreneur, and I entered RISD just wanting to be an artist. I thought maybe I want to be a designer, but maybe want to be a fine artist or an illustrator. And I got to RISD and then I realized I was born 100 years too late for what I loved. I love drawing, I love painting, but photography was replacing a lot of illustration. Many I didn't quite realize know what I wanted to do. So then I had to pick a major and all the department heads pitched their major and one of the department's heads pitched this field called industrial design, which was said industrial designed of everything from a toothbrush to a spaceship and everything in between. And I thought that's exactly what I want to do. And industrial design really prepared me for entrepreneurship because industrial designers are the designers that are most responsible for the sales of the things they design. If I'm an architect, if I design an office building, I'm not graded based on whether the landlord like leased out all the units in the building. But a product, you have to kind of keep repurchasing. So if you make a product like a razor and no one likes it, they won't use it. And if they use it once, they don't like it, they're not going to repurchase it. So the thing about industrial design was that you have to work with, like, engineers, you have to understand my manufacturing, you have to understand sales, and you have to understand about marketing. And it was just like a very, like, end to end function. That felt like a kind of good preparation for being an entrepreneur. So I entered RISD thinking I wanted to be an artist, to then say, you know what? I don't want to make other people's products. I think I want to be an more of an entrepreneur. But I didn't think I was going to start Airbnb, and I didn't start a company right away. Took a couple years.
Speaker A
I know you've told the story a bajillion times, but I remember the first time I heard you tell it, I was like, whoa, mind blown. But why? The company is called Airbnb.
Speaker B
Yes. So I graduate RISD and I get a job in Los Angeles, California as an industrial designer. But I don't get a job at like, Ido or one of the big industrial design firms that was really prestigious and had huge budgets. What I did is I got a job at a small industrial design firm that had very small clients with very small budgets. And it's like, actually, that's great for entrepreneurship because when you're an entrepreneur, you have no money and you've got to, like, be really scrappy and you have to do a lot with very few resources. So it is actually great preparation. I'm doing that for a couple years in Los angeles now. I'm 25. I get a package in the mail. The package is a seat cushion shaped in the form of human buttocks with a handle on it. And it was a design that my friend at Rhode island school, Design Joe Gebbia, had created. He was inspired by design crits when you're sitting all day. And he thought to create a seat cushion. And he basically said, you should come to San Francisco and we should start a company together. And I have this moment in my life, like, I can go the road more traveled, the road less traveled. And the life I was living, it looked like the road in front of me looked exactly like the road behind me, and it disappeared in the horizon. I thought, wow, I could just be a designer and this is the rest of my life. And I did not want that. So one day I go to work and I quit my job, and my boss is pretty surprised. And I'm living in Los Angeles in a house with three friends that moved across the country with me. I told them, hey, guys, going to San Francisco now. I have $1,000 in the bank and I get to San Francisco. And Joe tells me the rent is $1,150. So I've got a math problem. I can't pay rent. It turns out that weekend an international design conference has come to San Francisco. And all the hotels in San Francisco that they were recommending on the conference website were sold out. And that's when we had an idea. We said, well, what if we just turned our house into a bed and breakfast for design conference? Joe had three airbeds in the closet. So we pulled the three airbeds out of the closet, we inflated the airbeds, and we called it airbed and breakfast dot com. And that's where the name Airbnb comes from. So when I tell you that I didn't think this was going to be a big company, how could anyone think airbed and breakfast, which is meant to create airbeds for a conference one weekend, was going to be a big idea? We ended up hosting three people that weekend. A 35 year old woman from Boston, a 45 year old father, five from Utah, and a 30 year old originally from India. We made enough money to pay our rent. But more importantly, something kind of remarkable happened. These three people stayed with us for nearly a week. We took them to design conferences, we went to dinner, and we went to parties and all that. I felt like I knew them my whole life by the time they left. So now I paid my rent, I made some friends, they had a local experience in San Francisco. And Joe and I are waving these three guests goodbye and we're looking at each other thinking like, wow, we're pretty ordinary guys. We just made a bunch of money to meet cool people. I bet you there's a lot of other ordinary people like us. I asked Joe, I said, well, who's the best engineer you knew? Because we knew that two designers weren't going to start a tech company without an engineer. And he said, well, my old roommate Nate is. And Nate, Joe and I got together and we basically said, what if we could build a website? We could book someone's home the way you could book a hotel anywhere in the world. We launched it and no one used it. And then we launched again, and then no one used it again. And we just kept relaunching and eventually it took off. But it was not like a success story right away.
Speaker A
What has founding Airbnb, I mean, looking back now, taught you about interior design?
Speaker B
That's a good question. I've seen the range of spaces. I think that a great space tells a story of the person who's in that space, who's sharing it. You can see and learn a lot about a space from the people in it. And I encourage people to express themselves, to showcase their individuality. Because of the way Airbnb is set up, it's not like a hotel. A hotel is a one size fits all business. So if I'm designing a hotel room, I have to design a style that is appealing to a mass number of people. If I'm designing Airbnb, I'm only going to host maybe 10 people a year. So of the like hundreds of millions people come to Airbnb, it only needs appeal to like 20 people. So you might as well have really strong tastes, be deeply personal about who you are. And I think that authenticity in a space telling a story is one of the most important things. And I think that it's important for spaces to feel organic, to use natural materials, to have plans, things, things that evoke references of life. My favorite architect is probably Frank Lloyd Wright. And Frank Lloyd Wright was not a fan of what we now call modernism or the new School. The New School would have been Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson and Walter Gropius. And, you know, I'm a fan of the Bauhaus to an extent, but my opinion is that modernism went too far. I think there was this infatuation with modernism and industrialism that led to a lot of glass and steel, which are not organic materials as much as wood and stone. And I think the more we live in a digital age, the more I think people are going to yearn for life, learn for color, for fabric, for texture, for a harmony of the nature in the natural world and the physical world. And to realize that were some great contributions to modernism, but we shouldn't be living in machines.
Speaker A
It's funny you say that, because my absolute favorite Airbnb, which I will not name because I don't want anyone to book it, is a wood cabin upstate that, you know, is heated like a, you know, a stove. And it is so special to me and makes me feel at home. And so I'm wondering, when you're scrolling, what are you looking for when you're staying in an Airbnb? Like, is there a certain color that turns you off, or do you only like white bedding? Or what are the things that you're looking for in images when you're booking an Airbnb?
Speaker B
Yeah, I really try to stick to certain pantens and I really don't diverge. I'm just kidding. Now that'd be weird.
Speaker A
That would Be amazing.
Speaker B
Exactly. I think there is such a thing as good design and bad. But I think more than good design and bad design, there's just people who've attempted design and I prefer being in spaces that have been designed, even if the design is not my taste because there's an effort. For example, I stayed in a fairy tale princess cottage. It was all pink. And I can't say that that's my style, but I appreciated it because it was a cohesive, really intentional design. I look for things that are authentic. For example, we have categories. Ryokins in Japan, we have Hunoks in South Korea. We have Truly's. We have like all these really interesting architectural styles that are of the location. When you're like an industry like ours, travel, I try to be equally curious about all design styles and all design cultures. So I guess I would say I like things that are really intentionally designed. I like things that are very natural. And I also like things that are whimsical and fun. So those would be my three things.
Speaker A
I love that. I was looking through the categories. Is there one that gets booked up more than others? What's the most popular category?
Speaker B
Probably, omg. I mean, it's literally a category that like, it's like, I can't believe that exists. That's probably the biggest one. But tree houses are really big. Tiny homes are extremely popular. The design category is popular A frames. What is popular in Airbnb is what's unique. It's one of a kind.
Speaker A
I saw that people can now stay with you in your home. So. So how have you changed your home and how do you prepare for guests to stay? Also, the holidays are coming and I feel like a lot of people are going to want to know how to be the best host you can be. I always read magazines that say, like, leave a carafe of water by the bed. And I'm like, I don't want that. I want like a phone charger by the bed, you know. So I'm wondering how you're setting up your house for guests to make it guest friendly.
Speaker B
So it's a really good question. The first thing I did is I like when I was about to photograph my home, I looked at my home and I said, well, is this ready to be photographed? And I decided it wasn't. First of all, I had some nice furniture. I moved in like two and a half years ago, but I never felt like I fully moved in. I was kind of gradually designing it and I had a lot of bare walls. So I decided I would Put up stuff on the walls, like art. But what kind of art do I get? And I thought, well, why would somebody come to my house and book it? They booked it because I'm the founder of being. They'd be interested in me and my story. I mean, that's what makes my home unique. Every home should highlight what makes that home unique. And so I did a lot of art growing up and I had it in storage. And so I ended up framing like a dozen pieces of my art from high school and college and I put it all up. I mean my tips are put yourself in the shoes of the guests. Literally walk outside your house and just stand in front of your house and then walk into the front door as if you've never been in that house. And just try to put yourself in the shoes of the user, the guest. And so that's what I did. And so I said, okay, well the first thing I'm doing, the walk up, does the space look inviting? Is there a focal point to look at? So I design art in the walls. A focal point. Then you walk in. Okay, I'm going to have a welcome basket. Well, what's in the welcome basket? So I basically curated like local chocolates and cheeses in a wine from the local mart. And then I'm going to have a little guidebook for them and then you know, you go to the bathroom. And I wanted to have like more things you can ever imagine. So I'm going to stock it with like tons of bathroom supplies. I got like a nice Dyson hair dryer. Then in the bed. I mean, yes, chargers everywhere. I mean that is like super annoying, right, when you have chargers. I try to have intuitive interfaces. So I got nest thermostats. Like you get to someone's house, you can't figure out how to turn on the lights. So I wanted everything to be intuitive. I like having directions for things without labels, right. So on the one hand I don't want to get a house and not know anything is but then I sometimes get to other host house and they label everything. But too many labels everywhere. Feels like you don't live there because. So I try to make the home a very intuitive design and I have fresh flowers everywhere, just small details and accents. But then I also think about the experience. So I'm going to make Chesky's chips. Chesky's chips are my famous chocolate chip cookies. They're a very long standing family recipe. It's been in the family since I downloaded the recipe off Google a few months ago. So we'll put those Cesky's chips out. We can walk Sophie to the park, do some drawing at Dolores Park. I'm going to take them to the gym if they want to go to the gym. And basically the point was, like, you live my life. I'll take you to the office. You can critique our product and yell at our product managers and designers and give them critiques. So I thought, just walk in my shoes and live my life with me. I mean, that was just my experience, but I thought it'd be fun.
Speaker A
No, I love that. So on the other side, what makes someone a good guest? Like, if I'm going to stay at your Airbnb, what makes me a good guest?
Speaker B
Imagine you're visiting a friend from out of town and, like, they were trusting you with their home. How would you want to leave the home? So I think I would say treat the home as your own. At Burning man, they have core principles. One of them is leave no trace. You don't have to leave no trace. We don't want you to feel like you have to do laundry, but, like, a small footprint's probably good. And so I think that's the basic idea.
Speaker A
I love that. I want to talk a little bit quickly about traveling. I feel like you know where all the good Airbnbs are, and I want to know where I should be traveling, but I'm not, like, what's going to be the new city or country or place I should be booking an Airbnb.
Speaker B
So I think before the pandemic, like, or let's even zoom out, I think in the 20th century, when people were first starting to travel, travel was very destination oriented. And people want to go to Paris, Rome, Vegas, Miami. I mean, you can think of the top a hundred travel destinations in the world. And I think that what the world's done with the Internet is it's kind of like democratized things, right? And so suddenly Airbnb is in a hundred thousand communities. There are not hotels in a hundred thousand communities, because hotels can only build a hotel where there's a density of people. There's not hotels everywhere, but there are homes everywhere. And wherever there are homes, there are Airbnbs. And so I think where travel is going is travel redistribution. People are going to spread out. So instead of everyone going here or everyone going there, everyone goes everywhere. So if you limit travel to the places you've heard of, most people can only name like 100 places. And then you go to a search box on a website, you'll type in the Place you heard. And so we wanted to break away from that. So this past May, we launched Airbnb categories. We wanted to organize travel not just by location, but by activity. So, like, we have a top of the world category on Airbnb we just launched. These are homes 10,000ft or higher. So if we can make travel less about the destination and more about what you want to do when you get there, then we can spread people out to more locations, not over concentrate any one area. The best communities have some insiders and some outsiders. And it's like the right balance.
Speaker A
Yeah.
Speaker B
And so I try to think of this as ingredients that the most vibrant communities are diverse. There are diverse balance of insiders and outsiders, locals and guests, guest and host. And when you flood a city like Rome or Paris or Barcelona and it's just all like travelers, that's not good for the city. But when there's no economic opportunity and no one ever visits, that's probably also generally not good either.
Speaker A
That's so interesting. What do you do to recharge when you're not being a rebel? Is it travel? Like, how do you recharge?
Speaker B
Twice a year, I tend to try to take a vacation where I'm plugged for a couple of weeks. So summer, July or August, I'll usually take one or two weeks off. Then over the holidays, we shut down from like mid December to January. And I generally take time off. So I do like four things probably. I travel, I read, I exercise, and I draw. So those are the key things I do the way I like, recharge or get more energy. I get energy from other people, so I generally like to spend time with other people. And I definitely like traveling. I like adventure.
Speaker A
What's a piece of design advice you would give to your fellow rebels?
Speaker B
My design advice to my rebels is if you want to have an opportunity, you need to make that opportunity. If you're a designer or creator, be more assertive. Speak up. And if you want to be the advocate of design, then make sure that the loudest voices aren't the only voices heard. Because sometimes the designers are the quietest voices in the room, but they often have some the best ideas.
Speaker A
Ah, I love that. Finally, before we get to the never have I ever questions, what do you think your next act of rebellion will be?
Speaker B
Well, I think our work is just getting started, and our next act of rebellion will be in May of 2023. I mean, without giving too much away, I think that my next act, if I were just give a tease something I want to Make a giant step change in trust. I want people to remember that trust still matters in this world. And I think that if we can invent more ways for people to trust one another, then I think that so many more things could happen. And Airbnb was built on this idea of trust. Without trust, I couldn't allow people in my home. And so designing for trust is something I think about every day, and that's probably my next act.
Speaker A
Yeah. This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask you, which is if you've seen Barbarian.
Speaker B
I haven't, but, you know, there's a whole genre now of movies. Airbnb movies. Every premise is guest comes to the house, and the host basically, like, stores you in their basement, or they, like, are surveying you or all these other things. And, hey, listen, part of me is flattered that, like, we are so a part of culture. I think, you know, when you build something that ubiquitous, Airbnb, you're going to find yourself in songs, TV shows, now movies. So it's flattering. I want to have a sense of humor, and I also want to not take myself so seriously.
Speaker A
Well, I mean, I haven't seen it either, but that's because I'm a scaredy cat. So. Okay, we're gonna play Never have I ever. I'm going to read you a prompt, and you're gonna tell me if you've done this thing or not. So the first one is never have I ever built a terrarium.
Speaker B
I have. We have Airbnb experiences. And there was a terrarium class that I took. I was in London. I made a terrarium. It did not look so great. It was in elementary school when you do, like, an art class and the thing doesn't look like these teachers.
Speaker A
You tried.
Speaker B
Yes.
Speaker A
Never have I ever accidentally broken something at an Airbnb.
Speaker B
Well, never have I ever broken something, but I'm not saying a family member of mine didn't, so.
Speaker A
Oh, are we going to leave it at that?
Speaker B
Leave it at that.
Speaker A
Okay. Never have I ever painted an accent wall.
Speaker B
I have.
Speaker A
What color?
Speaker B
Yes. Oh, this is horrible. When I was in Los Angeles, I was 23, and I was living with three other guys, and I decided to paint all the walls like red in the living room. I thought it was really cool. I thought it'd be, like, a cool. Cause I went to a bar once, and all the walls were red and they were lit up, and I thought, that's really fun. And the thing about red is it really gets your heart rate going. So that was interesting. It was a little intense. And there's a reason why most rooms aren't bright red. Yeah, but I tried it when I was 23.
Speaker A
You learned. Never have I ever dated someone for their apartment.
Speaker B
I have not. Why would I do that? I have Airbnb.
Speaker A
Never have I ever decorated with sports memorabilia.
Speaker B
Oh, my God. No, I. Growing up, every square inch of my wall was filled with, like, cutouts of, like, Sports Illustrated. I was very into sports, like a lot of boys in upstate New York. And hockey. No, never had I ever, growing up, had, like, a square inch of wall not covered in sports memorabilia.
Speaker A
Well, thank you, Brian. I really appreciate it. I learned a lot from talking with you, and I think that the listeners will, too. So I really appreciate your time.
Speaker B
Well, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Well, Julie, so thank you.
Speaker A
When I found out that I was doing this podcast, my one and really only request in the whole process was that Shadi Al Hindi, the head of IT at our parent company Recurrent, read the closing credits. And I know that might sound funny, but. But Shadi has a voice that I swear could soothe a hundred crying babies. And I know this because sometimes when my computer's not working, I am that crying baby. And just hearing him talk instantly lowers my blood pressure. You will hear what I mean in just a second. I am so excited to share Shadi and his beautiful voice with the world. Take it away, Shadi.
Speaker C
Hello, I'm Shadi Al Hindi, and contrary to popular belief, I am not a voiceover actor yet at least. But I am the vice president of technology at Recurrent Domino's parent company. Julie's asked me to read the credits to the podcast you've just heard. I blindly said yes, so I think that makes me a rebel, too. And here we are. Design Time the Rebellious Ones is hosted by Julie Vadno and produced by Ali Alquiza. With special thanks to Lindsay Matha, Britt Ashcraft, Claire Urshachon, Michaela Klein, Kim Gray, Lindsay DeSimone, and Maria Luna. Our Chief content officer is Kate Berry. Our theme music is by the talented Alex Weinstein, and I'm Shadi Al Hindi, Vice President of technology at Recurrent Ventures. If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave us. Review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. See you all next week right here on Design Time. The Rebellious One.