Speaker 1: Welcome to our Bloomberg TV, radio and YouTube audiences. I'm
Speaker 1: Emily Chang. No sign of a recession when it comes
Speaker 1: to travel on Airbnb. At least, the company reported its
Speaker 1: first full year of profitability ever, with knights and experiences
Speaker 1: book now sixteen percent higher than they were a pre
Speaker 1: pandemic shares closing up today, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky joins me. Now, Brian,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time to join us. As
Speaker 1: always so look, travels robust, but let's talk about the color.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing signs of people making trade offs? Ten
Speaker 1: days turns into seven days, A hundred dollars a night
Speaker 1: turns into seventy five. You know, it's funny. And we
Speaker 1: we are not seeing um any like any like measurable slowdown.
Speaker 1: What we said in our Q one outlook as we're
Speaker 1: expecting pretty steady growth. Now we are expecting a little
Speaker 1: bit more accelerated growth in short and stays, but that's
Speaker 1: that's more of a recovery. We're seeing more recovery short
Speaker 1: term stays. We're seeing more people go to cities, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing more people cross borders between urban and cross border.
Speaker 1: That was around eight percent of our Night's book before
Speaker 1: the pandemic. So it's really more a matter of a
Speaker 1: recovery of the old ways of traveling and a real
Speaker 1: sustainability of the new ways, like including people staying longer
Speaker 1: and traveling to more to places. Dave Stevenson, your CFO,
Speaker 1: said yesterday on the call, this is growth mode now,
Speaker 1: not necessarily profit maximization mode. What is growth mode actually
Speaker 1: look like? Well, you know what, there's something kind of
Speaker 1: interesting that I've learned in Silken Valley. I think there's
Speaker 1: this really like simple way of thinking. You're either in
Speaker 1: growth mode or profitability mode. And what I've learned since
Speaker 1: the pandemic is as we've gotten more profitable, we also
Speaker 1: got more efficient. And as we got more efficient, we
Speaker 1: got more focused we were able to grow faster. So
Speaker 1: we're going to continue to do both. But we are
Speaker 1: focused on three priorities this year. Number one, we want
Speaker 1: to affect the core service. We want people to love Airbnb,
Speaker 1: and that means loving every detail about it. So we
Speaker 1: basically did the storyboard of the end end experience for
Speaker 1: a guest and host, and we are listening out all
Speaker 1: the different things that people want to be better a
Speaker 1: VnB and we're trying to systematically fix them one at
Speaker 1: a time. Once we do that, then we need when
Speaker 1: to make sure we have enough host If people are
Speaker 1: watching on TV, they probably have traveled their MNB or
Speaker 1: know someone who has. I want people to say the
Speaker 1: same thing about hosting. They know somebody who is a
Speaker 1: host because it's so mainstream and so popular. And along
Speaker 1: the way, we're actually laying the foundation for us to
Speaker 1: extend beyond our core business, and we're thinking about pretty
Speaker 1: expansive the big ideas. So that's what we mean by
Speaker 1: growth mode, that we are perfecting the core, making hosting mainstream,
Speaker 1: and we're thinking about big ideas beyond beyond the core business.
Speaker 1: But the cool thing is that we can stay really lean,
Speaker 1: really disciplined, because I don't think growth and profitably have
Speaker 1: to be a major trade off. And I hope that's
Speaker 1: what the lesson of Airbnb is that you can do.
Speaker 1: So what are the big ideas beyond the core business?
Speaker 1: Because you know, obviously you made some hard chill voices
Speaker 1: during the pandemic to pull back on some of those, Well,
Speaker 1: I'll just share a couple of small things. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I I gotta, I gotta, I gotta have a hook
Speaker 1: to get you to get me back on this show.
Speaker 1: So so I'm gonna I'm gonna hold something back. But
Speaker 1: um so, let me just say that twice a year,
Speaker 1: around May and November, we do these releases the summer
Speaker 1: in winter release. We've got a pretty big idea for May.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna hold that back. I gotta have you back,
Speaker 1: have me back on the show. But we are thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, investing a little bit more in experiences, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm really really excited for that opportunity. You know,
Speaker 1: Longer term stays we think is a really continual opportunity
Speaker 1: for us. So we think those are really interesting. We
Speaker 1: also think that there's some really great services for guests
Speaker 1: in hosts that we think they're going to really like,
Speaker 1: and there might even be some things people want to
Speaker 1: pay for. So these are some of the initial ideas
Speaker 1: we have. But you know, a lot of the big
Speaker 1: exciting things I'm gonna have to come back on to
Speaker 1: tell you about, all right, t v D. So long
Speaker 1: term stays you mentioned of Gross Night's book, has that plateau?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's max at this point? I honestly, Um, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's think about from a first principal standpoint, why
Speaker 1: does that business even exist In the first place. That
Speaker 1: business exists because there's a gap between people traveling in
Speaker 1: a short term basis and people signing one year leases.
Speaker 1: And that gap has increased as more people have gotten flexible.
Speaker 1: You know, not everyone works remotely as flexible work of policies,
Speaker 1: but a lot more people than before the pandemic. We're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot more people want to travel for summer.
Speaker 1: We're seeing a lot more people relocating. We're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot more people that are kind of living different places
Speaker 1: month to month. I think this is a very long
Speaker 1: term trend. I think there was an initial like adoption
Speaker 1: that was unique in his vertical nature during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I think it is normalizing, but over the course of
Speaker 1: ten years, that's going to keep going up because people
Speaker 1: are gonna continue to get more flexible. Still, you've got
Speaker 1: inflation layoffs happening almost everywhere but airbnb, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if this catches up, Like, what are you worried about
Speaker 1: when you see a tough few years ahead for the
Speaker 1: global economy. Well, I certainly worry about um, you know
Speaker 1: our host I mean a lot of them live at
Speaker 1: or below meeting income and aravon B is an incredibly
Speaker 1: important way from them to make money. And I think
Speaker 1: the air VYB can be a way for more people
Speaker 1: to become a host. As far as our employees, though,
Speaker 1: you know, we did make some hard choices, but here's
Speaker 1: a stat we have five percent fewer employees than before
Speaker 1: the pandemic and we have more revenue. So we're extremely disciplined,
Speaker 1: very focused, were very lean, and I think we're pretty
Speaker 1: insulated from um A reduction four standpoint, and we are
Speaker 1: really lean. We're really focused, and you know, we basically
Speaker 1: made a lot of hard decisions and then we never
Speaker 1: left that discipline. And it was partly because we didn't
Speaker 1: We knew we were living in a time and certainty.
Speaker 1: But it's also because we knew that as we got
Speaker 1: more disciplined in Lean, it actually became a better experience
Speaker 1: to work here. It was easier to get work done,
Speaker 1: it was easier to innovate. So I think that you know,
Speaker 1: we're ready for whatever storms ahead. Let's talk about the storm.
Speaker 1: We've got fourteen billion dollars in cash a mass. How
Speaker 1: are you thinking about what to do with that? Is
Speaker 1: that just a massive rainy Day recession. Fund Well, I
Speaker 1: hope it's more than that. You know, we are. We
Speaker 1: are absolutely going to be looking at growth opportunities to
Speaker 1: invest in. But one of the lessons I learned from
Speaker 1: before the pandemic is I remember I had a teacher said, Brian,
Speaker 1: you can do everything you want in your life, just
Speaker 1: not at the same time. And so I want us
Speaker 1: to be incredibly rigorous, thinking one step in front of
Speaker 1: the other. But we are absolutely looking at expanding our market,
Speaker 1: going to some new opportunities. So where there's a good opportunity,
Speaker 1: we will invest. Where We're going to continue to be
Speaker 1: extremely disciplined, and you know, expect us to generate a
Speaker 1: lot more free cash flow this year as well. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to have you back to talk about
Speaker 1: new opportunities and big ideas. You've got me curious. Brian Chesky,
Speaker 1: Airbnb CEO. Thank you so much for taking the time. Guys,
Speaker 1: I'll send it back to thank you very much. Elling