WEBVTT - Airbnb CEO and Cofounder Brian Chesky Talks App Redesign 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.240 Airbnb out with a redesign app that puts a great 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:06.080 emphasis on services, on one of the kind experiences. But 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:08.680 this is as of course, anxiety remains about consumer sentiment, 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:11.760 about our desire to travel abroad. Right now, let's get 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.520 through all of that with Airbnb's plans. We're John by CEO, 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.840 Brian Chesky, Brian Welcome and airbmb more than a home. 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.480 You want to be sort of an Airbnb for the 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.480 world and for services. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.200 Tell us the revenue drivers here. 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.159 Why is more experiences, more services going to lead to 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.360 a bigger business and investable opportunity. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:32.519 Well, I mean as big as the Verbnb is, and 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:35.560 we do around ninety billion dollars a year in bookings. 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:40.600 There's so much greater opportunity for people to monetize the biggest. 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:42.280 Asset in their life. And it's not their home, it's 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:42.800 their time. 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:45.280 And so what if all the people's skills, all the 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.360 people's passion, their expertise could be monetized. A huge percent 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.120 of the jobs in the United States around the world 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.040 are becoming essentially services jobs. And there is no Amazon 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.680 for services. You know, people say Amazon's the everything stored 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.720 It's kind of the everything in a cardboard box store. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:05.119 But there's this whole other world. It requires trust, It requires. 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.520 Two people to have an exchange between one another. I 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.600 think that's where airbyscore competency is. What we built is 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.080 an extensible platform that's not limited to homes. 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.280 What's interesting is the chefs, the massages, the other key 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.280 at services that you're offering do have to be vetted? Yes, 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:21.280 that's when you get the scale. How are you going 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.520 to scale that if you're doing this on a person 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.039 to person basis, How much does mL then take over? 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:26.319 Yeah? 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.280 I mean, I mean a lot of what we do, 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.320 and I think a lot of what everyone in technology 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.120 does is you start things by hand, You learn the rules, 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.800 and you train the technology, and the technology takes over 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.000 either does it or augments the people. 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:39.600 And that's exactly what it was like here. 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:41.880 We start very much by hand, and then we build 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.039 tools to automate the task that people are doing. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.240 Brian, I started using Airbnb in the UK around twenty 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.160 ten eleven when I went to college, right, and that 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.880 was before Uber even launched in the UK. And when 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.880 I think about the development of platforms and app technologies 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.840 like yours, one point of difference than Airbnb has versus 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.400 n Uber is that you don't yet have advertising, whereas 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.360 you look at Uber's ad growth now for them on 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.359 the investor side, it's a really big thing. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:13.800 How do you think about that? I think it's a 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.560 huge opportunity. You know, one of the frameworks I really 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.880 like around how to invest is you want to invest 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.040 in the most perishable opportunities first, and so we think 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:29.280 a really perishable opportunity is, you know, launching services and experiences. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:30.359 The timing is right. 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.519 We think advertising is a huge opportunity for us. It's 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:36.880 an inevitable opportunity for us, but we don't think it's 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.200 the most parishal opportunity, so it hasn't been something we've 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:42.440 prioritized in our near term roadmap. I also think it's 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:48.040 really good to first extend our platform from homes to services, experiences. 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.040 In beyond, so when we build things, we can build. 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.640 Them as a horizontal platform inevitable. 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.320 That's that's really interesting. You've got a lot of credit 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.880 this week for the relaunch of the app and its 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.880 ability to give you some long term growth. I'd just 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.400 be grateful to hear how you think it will drive 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.040 long term growth. I think from the streets perspective, that's 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.920 more about revenue growth and profit, but maybe scale of 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:11.960 the platform as well. 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:13.919 I think there's three things. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.919 Number one, there's a whole bunch of people who don't 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.440 book Airbnbs because they don't come with services. 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:20.360 They go to hotels. 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:22.840 So what if you get affer all the services of 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.760 a hotel and more in a Airbnb. So that's one 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:27.840 way we actually could grow is to get a lot 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.800 more customers. The second way we can grow is a 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.239 lot of people use Airbnb, but the only book one 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.720 thing on the reservation home, so we can essentially get 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.200 a greater share of wallet on the trip. The third 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.480 and the longest term opportunity is local demand. We think 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.120 a lot of these services and experiences that we're initially 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.280 building out for travel consumers are eventually going to be things. 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:48.920 Are going to want a book in your own city, 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.480 and that is an even significantly greater market. So there's 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.320 really these three types of horizons. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:59.200 Coast playing with Megandee Stallion, learning volleyball within Olympian in Rio. 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.560 How did you get these one off experiences? I mean, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:02.760 is this making some phone calls? 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:03.040 Yeah? 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.400 I mean like, well a year ago we launched icons 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.440 We're sure these extraordinary experiences hosted by the biggest names 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.200 and culture we had. You know, we've made the uphouse 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:12.840 float in the sky, and we did all these really 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:15.640 cool experiences, and then we started thinking to ourselves, how 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.480 do we bring that magic to experiences? And we built 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.840 this network of really interesting celebrities and global icons. And 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:23.680 one of the things that we found is they a 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.400 lot of them heard about what we're doing. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:26.400 They reached out to us. 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.480 I think a lot of these global celebrities want to 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.560 connect direct with their fans. They don't just want to 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:34.760 have a parasocial relationship on social media. And I think 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.960 the more we talk about AI, the more we start 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.719 to realize that we are accelerating our life living in 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.240 a digital realm. We're spending more and more time on devices, 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:44.880 and we want to be the kind of company they're 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.760 getting people off devices into the real world just as 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:49.200 a balance, and I think that could be a very 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:50.600 exciting proposition for the future. 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:52.920 As you can imagine, this show's been talking about AI 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.800 relentlessly for the last three years, but we took a pause, 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:59.520 started talking about taris and the economy relentlessly. You said, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.040 now it's the perfect moment to be launching these services 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.480 and experiences. Why in this environment where you saw consumer 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:07.440 sentiment today is woefully low. 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.360 I mean, well, number one, we reported really really good 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.880 growth within travel, So I think people are still traveling, 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.560 and I think when the consumer sentiment is and steady, 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:19.599 they still want to travel, but they often want to 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:21.000 find more affordable options. 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:22.400 Airbombs a great way to do that. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.560 But beyond that, this is a very long term bet 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.479 that we're making over the next five years, and I 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.400 think this will endure across any kind of economy. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:31.520 It's just good to remind people. 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:34.360 Airboby started during the Great recession of two thousand and eight, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:36.320 and so I think a lot of the great businesses 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.440 are starting during you know, kind of a weekend economy. 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.240 Brian, you're pivoting to founder mode, right, Yeah, how's that 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:47.920 going to help Airbnb navigate the world that it's in 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:48.479 right now? 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.920 I think founder mode basically just means like running a 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:56.040 large company with the hands on approach, where you're in 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.799 the details, your leaders in the details, and everyone's rolling 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.880 in the same direction like a startup. I think those 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.080 principles are more important now than ever with this new 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:08.280 technological revolution. 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:09.320 That's in front of us. 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.120 You need people that are able to basically have their 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.440 hands on the steering wheel and not be in essentially 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.880 a self driving car, which is you know how more 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.520 professional managers typically run things. So I think this is 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.400 the perfect time to lean into the future, to put 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.560 the pederal the metal, put your hand in the steering wheel, 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.360 and really drive transformation. And I think a lot of 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.560 the great companies in history have been led that way. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:32.520 With that in mind. 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.040 Airbnb the technology company, what's its call competency? What are 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.240 your people really good at that other companies are not? 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.080 I think a few things all probably a few, but 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.240 I'll highlight just two on the right now. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:49.400 The first is our application. 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.440 I think we have one of the most beautifully well 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.839 designed and build apps in the world. We're able to 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.680 show it is incredibly intuitive. I know we I believe 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:58.279 we're one of the best design teams in the world. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.680 So we have really rate applications and so take AI. 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:05.280 There's a lot of development on the application, the on 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:09.360 the large language model layer, but the applications haven't seen 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:11.440 a lot of development. If you pick up your phone, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.920 almost every app looks exactly like it did before. Generative 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:16.960 AI came on the scene. So that's the first thing. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.440 The second is probably even more important the offline world. 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:23.440 We're really good at building apps, but I think we're 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.560 even better at designing the system of trust between two 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.480 strangers to live together. I mean, nearly four million people 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.440 a day live together in Airbnb and nearly every country 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:34.840 in the world. Think about all the ways you need 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.360 to keep people safe, handle their issues, match supply and demand, 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.760 facilitate money, you know, make sure they're having great experiences. 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.600 There's so much more the offline world the Airbnb. When 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.000 people Seebnb, they see an app, and the app is 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.040 just to scratch the surface of our community. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:51.960 I love that you're. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.600 Talking online and offline. Briefly, when you're thinking about Karna, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.320 having to decide that actually, all the AI focus has 0:07:58.360 --> 0:07:59.360 to be unwound a little bit. 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:00.080 Customers of this. 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.119 Is not working as they want to bring people back. 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.080 You're bringing AI to customer service. How's that going? And 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.000 how much do you have to rely on people's stuff. 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:08.960 We still have to rely a lot on people. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.640 I think it's going incredibly well. We launched a customer 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.520 service agent in the United States to all English speaking users. 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.880 Where now if you need help, you can reach out 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:19.440 to an AI customer service agent. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:20.440 It's a front line. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.800 It's been trained on, you know, hundreds of millions of 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.840 customer trips to be able to be twenty four to 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.000 seven and be an escalation point to humans or. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:31.400 Be able to answer the question themselves. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.080 But I think the key lesson here is you don't 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.040 want to rush into a trend. I think that people 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.160 got really really excited AI be invitably thought it's the future. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:40.840 It's going to do all these tasks in the future. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.080 All that's true, but you can't skip steps and people 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.440 want things to work, and so, you know, we didn't 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.200 want it to be an AI lab. We wanted to 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.640 be something people could trust, and so we've been very 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:54.480 very careful about focusing on solving real problems responsibly with 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:55.800 a model that doesn't hallucinate. 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:56.880 And I think that's what we're doing 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.680 At BNBC, you know, and co founder Branchester, it's great 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:03.240 to have you back on Bloombog technology.