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Speaker 1: Still living in manually taking notes, there is a better
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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric and I'm bosmas st John
Speaker 1: and this is Back to Biz with Katie and Bose Bose.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have Brian Chesky on our podcast today.
Speaker 1: I've known him for a long time. He's been the
Speaker 1: boy wonder as the CEO of air B and B. Yes,
Speaker 1: for sure. I mean even when I was in Silcom
Speaker 1: Valley at Apple and then at Uber, I was always
Speaker 1: impressed by what he was doing. But his backstory is
Speaker 1: so interesting for people who don't know. Brian started the
Speaker 1: company twelve years ago, yes, during a recession, with two buddies.
Speaker 1: He had studied industrial design at Risdy. He moved to
Speaker 1: San Francisco Go so he and his friends rented out
Speaker 1: their apartment. When there was a convention in town, but
Speaker 1: not enough hotel rooms, they blew up a few air
Speaker 1: mattresses and voila. The idea was born. Air Go Airbnb,
Speaker 1: get it. Listen. I'm a marketer, and that joint is fresh.
Speaker 1: I like it, very fresh. But the last couple of
Speaker 1: months have been crazy, right, he was about to go
Speaker 1: public and then bam, here comes the pandemic. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine bows the stress he's been under in recent weeks.
Speaker 1: So we started there, we asked Brian just how he's
Speaker 1: managing right now? Yeah, let's get to it. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I think I'm I'm doing about as well as somebody
Speaker 1: in my circumstance could be doing. Right. Um, it's been
Speaker 1: a pretty uh intense and harrowing four months or so,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure I'm sure most people listening will have
Speaker 1: identified with that experience. You know, when we started Airbnb
Speaker 1: a dozen years ago, I told myself, no, I don't
Speaker 1: think I'll ever do something as crazy as that. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think I've just we have experienced something that
Speaker 1: is probably even crazier than starting this company. When you're
Speaker 1: the child the two social workers and you're like unemployed,
Speaker 1: and suddenly twelve years later you have a company like
Speaker 1: Airbnb and you're gonna go public, you just you have
Speaker 1: this real sense of, um, wow, I've really done something
Speaker 1: the last twelve years. So then to lose eight of
Speaker 1: it in five weeks is like, um, you know that
Speaker 1: was definitely um. And if if I thought my life
Speaker 1: was crazy the first twelve years, the next five weeks
Speaker 1: got even crazier. Losing eight percent of it or of
Speaker 1: it and um, and then suddenly you know, we found
Speaker 1: ourselves in this kind of total crisis where it felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know, probably like a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you feel like you're staring into the abyss and you
Speaker 1: can't quite tell if it will ever be better. And
Speaker 1: for me, so much of it was your psychology. It
Speaker 1: would have been so easy to just say the spiral
Speaker 1: and you know, when you're responsible for thousand the people
Speaker 1: and you know everyone's pretty scared and a little freaked out,
Speaker 1: it's really really important that the psychology organization maps, matches
Speaker 1: and mirrors the psychology of the leader. And so you
Speaker 1: have to find your way to stay positive and you
Speaker 1: have to find a way to say, for every single
Speaker 1: bad thing, this is an opportunity. I'm not gonna exploit this,
Speaker 1: but every moment is a moment for us to do
Speaker 1: something that's defining to make us better. And that was
Speaker 1: the thing that we like went into this crisis with.
Speaker 1: How did the pandemic fundamentally change your business? As you
Speaker 1: said you were set to go public, Uh, instead, you've
Speaker 1: taken a huge hip, you had to lay off of
Speaker 1: your workforce in may Um. I know you've tried to
Speaker 1: be very generous to your employees. You let them keep
Speaker 1: their laptops, keep their health insurance for a year. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, how did you figure out how to move forward?
Speaker 1: And with all your hopes and dreams, as you said,
Speaker 1: shattered in a period of five weeks. Boo oh god, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and I felt so terrible because it wasn't
Speaker 1: just our hopes and dreams. It was all these employees
Speaker 1: who had stock and you know, I, you know, and
Speaker 1: many people. I'm sure they were employed planning to do
Speaker 1: things like buy homes and stuff with that money, and
Speaker 1: they really counting on it. And investors have been really
Speaker 1: paci with me. Probably the hardest thing though, um with
Speaker 1: the host. We have four million hosts and of them
Speaker 1: telling us they depend on me to pay their rent
Speaker 1: or the mortgage. And we had guests who wanted to
Speaker 1: cancel their their future A bookings because they told us
Speaker 1: I can't travel. Well. Was more than a billion dollars
Speaker 1: of cancelations and the problem was that these were a
Speaker 1: host who were depending on the money to pay the
Speaker 1: rent or mortgage entering an economic recession. So what do
Speaker 1: you do when guests are telling you I feel unsafe,
Speaker 1: I can't travel, I need a refund, and host saying
Speaker 1: if you refund them their money, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in a really bad economic position. And we ultimately did
Speaker 1: the following. We decided to refund the guests the money.
Speaker 1: We felt like, we told the host like, we have
Speaker 1: to do this because we can't. We have to say
Speaker 1: we were not signing with the guests, were signing with
Speaker 1: health and safety. We can't have people being put in
Speaker 1: harm's way. And you know, um, this is a global
Speaker 1: at the time was global shutdown too, and a billion
Speaker 1: people shutdowns. So we can't be part of everyone traveling
Speaker 1: right now if they don't want to travel and they
Speaker 1: want their money back. But then you know, there was
Speaker 1: a huge uproar and host were like super upset and
Speaker 1: they were very upset with us and me, and we
Speaker 1: decided to take and this was at the depth of
Speaker 1: our kind of our own despair. Um, two million dollars
Speaker 1: of our own money. Now in good times it's you know,
Speaker 1: you could you raise money, and bad times though, it
Speaker 1: wasn't clearly we'd be able to raise any money. So
Speaker 1: this was two we thought we'd probably need and we
Speaker 1: just gave it to our host. Um, we didn't make
Speaker 1: them whole, but it was the most we could do.
Speaker 1: And then something crazier happened. Our employees pulled together of
Speaker 1: their own money, a million dollars in their own money
Speaker 1: UM to of the host and so then we the founders,
Speaker 1: we we put some of our own money in and
Speaker 1: we started doing all these things. And that was probably
Speaker 1: the first kind of defining action we did. And then
Speaker 1: after that we said to ourselves, you know, we can't
Speaker 1: we're not as relevant right now as we used to
Speaker 1: be because people aren't traveling, but we can be useful
Speaker 1: in a crisis. And so we noticed that these nurses
Speaker 1: and UM and fireworks, firefighters and others UM and doctors, UM,
Speaker 1: we're going to sites and they needed Airbnb. They need
Speaker 1: homes to stay in or they didn't want to stay
Speaker 1: with their families and get their families sick. So we
Speaker 1: worked with our host community and two thousand of our
Speaker 1: hosts offered homes for workers on the front line for
Speaker 1: a discount, and we kind of shared the discount. We
Speaker 1: had these products, this product called Experiences where you can
Speaker 1: do these three our activities with locals. I remember, I remember, Brian,
Speaker 1: when you and I talked about how you were expanding
Speaker 1: that that service to Airbnb. You know, and it was
Speaker 1: the next second act of Airbnb, and then it got
Speaker 1: stopped because, um, you know, social distancing. You can't be
Speaker 1: bringing travelers together from countries. It's like the exact opposite
Speaker 1: what people want. So our host said, well, we're um,
Speaker 1: can we offer them online? And so in fourteen days
Speaker 1: our team build a product to create online experiences, which
Speaker 1: ended up being like the fastest growing product we ever created.
Speaker 1: So that worked out really well. But like master classes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of but they're interactive so um so
Speaker 1: basically it's a one hour activity. So I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. We have Olympic athletes, so we did a
Speaker 1: partnership we did we're one of the sponsors the Olympics.
Speaker 1: The Olympics aren't happening this year. We got I think
Speaker 1: thirty Olympian athletes and by the way, the average Olympic athlete,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know this, lives around the
Speaker 1: poverty line because a lot of them, you know there
Speaker 1: that you dedicate your life to your sport and then
Speaker 1: a lot of sports you don't get a sponsorship, so
Speaker 1: they kind of have to start their careers over. And
Speaker 1: so we said, well, you know, we we created a
Speaker 1: way for them to be able to offer a one
Speaker 1: hour kind of online class. Um. You know, it could
Speaker 1: be a workout, it could be like learning about setting goals,
Speaker 1: it can be a bunch of things. We have about
Speaker 1: thirty of them now and hope they hope to get
Speaker 1: a lot more. And then of course we had to
Speaker 1: raise two billion dollars because we were burning cash very
Speaker 1: very quickly. And then of course we had the layoff,
Speaker 1: which was probably the heart decision I've ever made in
Speaker 1: my life. And um, and it became an unavoidable truth
Speaker 1: when we we realized, you know, travel stopped, and we
Speaker 1: don't know what's gonna return, and when it does return,
Speaker 1: we know it's going to be different. When you're in
Speaker 1: a crisis, you learn a lot about yourself in a crisis.
Speaker 1: You also get clarity in a crisis that you may
Speaker 1: not have had in any other period in your life.
Speaker 1: And in this crisis, I kind of got clarity and
Speaker 1: like like we got clarity, like why are we even
Speaker 1: doing this in the first place? Like what would the
Speaker 1: world lose if we just disappeared tomorrow? And it became
Speaker 1: really clear that the part of yournb that was special,
Speaker 1: where the everyday host that we're offering, like connection and belonging,
Speaker 1: and if we disappeared from this earth and they couldn't
Speaker 1: offer what they're offering, that would be the thing that
Speaker 1: would be bad. And she thought, you know, that's what
Speaker 1: we need to get back to. We need to get
Speaker 1: it back to why we started this company. Back to belonging,
Speaker 1: back to connection, back to empowering regular people, um, back
Speaker 1: to our roots. And so we decided we're gonna like
Speaker 1: scale back or shut down things that aren't that. So
Speaker 1: we paused our transportation effort, we had a content effort,
Speaker 1: we paused that. We scaled back our hotels business. You
Speaker 1: really just got really focused and we said, that's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. And UM, you know, I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna build off that base now. So we can't do it.
Speaker 1: We're not as big as we were in some ways,
Speaker 1: we can't do everything we used to. But things we're
Speaker 1: gonna do, we're gonna be very very passionate about. And
Speaker 1: I I think ultimately, I'm hoping years from now, we'll
Speaker 1: look back on that as a really important decision when
Speaker 1: we come back. Brian Chesky on how travel will forever change,
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Speaker 1: You're listening to Back to Biz with Katie and Bows.
Speaker 1: Let's return to our conversation with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.
Speaker 1: By the way, I do have a confession for you
Speaker 1: that when I was at uber Um. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a nerd of marketing, right I I obsess
Speaker 1: over everyone's creative, everyone's strategy, everyone's vision. And I was
Speaker 1: absolutely in love with the idea of belonging. But I
Speaker 1: thought it was just it just hit the mark so
Speaker 1: beautifully because in that instance, you don't have to pick
Speaker 1: a side. You know, it's not you're you know, the
Speaker 1: folks who are booking versus the host. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not it's not versus, it's just belonging. Everybody wants to
Speaker 1: belong and we all understand that from a very deeply
Speaker 1: emotional human level. And it is still true, you know,
Speaker 1: it's what we are dealing with right now with the
Speaker 1: crises in the world around racial inequality and everything else.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to belong. It is the fundamental need, you know.
Speaker 1: And now I think there's also an opportunity to serve
Speaker 1: in sort of future hope about continuing to belong to
Speaker 1: the world, because what this pandemic has done has brought
Speaker 1: us home and we are you know, inside, and we
Speaker 1: are concerned and we're anxious, but we also want to
Speaker 1: connect back to people and back to outside, and you know,
Speaker 1: we all have a deep longing for that. So what
Speaker 1: do you think is the future of travel and of
Speaker 1: that belonging to the world. Because let me tell you something,
Speaker 1: I'm tired of my house. Can I get some kind
Speaker 1: of membership, you know, for Airbnb where I could just,
Speaker 1: you know, frequently, just move around the way I want to,
Speaker 1: because because I would like that future for myself. That's
Speaker 1: actually a really good idea to talk about. That, I mean,
Speaker 1: a really good idea we should definitely talk about. Um,
Speaker 1: what is the future of travel? Well, um, I'm hoping,
Speaker 1: and I think that travel will get more focused on communities,
Speaker 1: more focused on people, more intimate, authentic, small, off the
Speaker 1: beaten path, truly being connected to communities where you go,
Speaker 1: not being an outsider, being an insider. And I think
Speaker 1: that the last fifty years of travel has been very
Speaker 1: defined by being an outsider. The only other thing I'd
Speaker 1: say is I think that we used to live in
Speaker 1: this world where you lived in one place and you
Speaker 1: would take a week vacation somewhere else, or you travel
Speaker 1: for business, and I think that is also changing. I
Speaker 1: think that living and traveling will blur together because now
Speaker 1: you could instead, like you could go somewhere for a
Speaker 1: few months. Is that living or traveling or is that
Speaker 1: something in between? And so I think you're gonna see
Speaker 1: this blurring this the idea that people will be mobile.
Speaker 1: They won't just have moble devices, they themselves would be mobile.
Speaker 1: I think that you're gonna see UM travel being longer
Speaker 1: length of stay, two smaller communities, UM to you know, local, authentic,
Speaker 1: and UM more immersive, more experiential. Maybe the one thing
Speaker 1: that makes that obvious to me is you ever want
Speaker 1: to know what the future will look like, just look
Speaker 1: at what young people want, because they're going to define
Speaker 1: that future. And the younger the person is, the more
Speaker 1: they want something that's authentic, and the more they want
Speaker 1: to have an experience, not own a thing. I remember
Speaker 1: reading that all these small towns across America were dying
Speaker 1: because the older residents were passing away, the younger people
Speaker 1: didn't stick want to stick around, and they were all
Speaker 1: migreeting to cities because that was where the exciting cultural
Speaker 1: things were happening. So I'm curious what you what you
Speaker 1: see in the future for some of these major metropolitan areas.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there will be a return to
Speaker 1: more rural kind of pastoral or bucolic and all those
Speaker 1: words lifestyles? Yeah, I think the short answer is yes,
Speaker 1: but UM, I thought that the small communities, UM, Pittsburgh's um,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'll just pick Pittsburgh and Cleveland. I
Speaker 1: thought they were going to see a resurgence, but I
Speaker 1: thought that would happen over the course of ten years.
Speaker 1: So I thought, you know, before COVID, that maybe by
Speaker 1: the orty that you would see the rise of small communities.
Speaker 1: And the reason why was, UM, you know, for the
Speaker 1: first time in human history, more people live in cities
Speaker 1: than out of cities. And the cities they're they're they're
Speaker 1: congering to are not just metropolis mega metropolisis so these
Speaker 1: are like ten million plus cities like New York or
Speaker 1: you know, SF is only a million, but it feels
Speaker 1: really dense, the second densist city in the country, and
Speaker 1: then outside of the United States. And I think there
Speaker 1: was this problem where there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: an alienation of urban living. So UM people lived in
Speaker 1: apartment buildings, but they didn't quite know their neighbors. It
Speaker 1: was really expensive live in cities, and if you live
Speaker 1: in if you live in San Francisco, l A, New York, London, you'll,
Speaker 1: I mean anyone living these seas will know how expensive
Speaker 1: it is. And they're really it was becoming like city
Speaker 1: life was becoming a thing really really hard, and for
Speaker 1: each new generation going to city, I think it was
Speaker 1: it was it was getting a little bit difficult. And
Speaker 1: so we're in a way. I think we were reaching
Speaker 1: what I call a temporary not a permanent, a temporary
Speaker 1: peak city moment um. I thought that was going to
Speaker 1: take a lot longer, and I think what COVID did
Speaker 1: is I think it accelerated that. And I think the
Speaker 1: big other unlock was Zoom, because now people are realizing, actually,
Speaker 1: you can get work done without being in the space. Now.
Speaker 1: To be clear, I do think there's a huge value
Speaker 1: people being together, and I also want to be clear
Speaker 1: that I do not think this is the death of
Speaker 1: the city at all. I think it's a sign wave.
Speaker 1: So I think you're gonna see over the next five
Speaker 1: years people doing what I'm what we're calling travel redistribution
Speaker 1: and population redistribution. Um. I think you're gonna see people
Speaker 1: traveling to smaller communities. And I think people are kind
Speaker 1: of We've got used to this industrialized mass tourism world
Speaker 1: where you were in lines and crowds, and I think
Speaker 1: people really want something more intimate more authentic. What I
Speaker 1: would say, though, is the is the following. I think
Speaker 1: New York's best days are ahead of it. I think
Speaker 1: Los angeles best days are ahead of it. I think
Speaker 1: big cities best days are ahead of them, not behind them.
Speaker 1: But I think before they get better, they're gonna get
Speaker 1: a little tougher. And I think what's going to happen
Speaker 1: is that you're gonna see, um, the business predictions. So
Speaker 1: it's the risk of predictions. Is I'm wrong, um but
Speaker 1: um But I do think you're gonna see a population
Speaker 1: slow down in urban cities. A lot of creative people
Speaker 1: I come from a creative background, are going to choose.
Speaker 1: They were already a lot of creative people were already
Speaker 1: not living in New York. They were going to New Jersey,
Speaker 1: they were going all sorts of other places. It was
Speaker 1: just too expensive. They're going to redistribute. And then I
Speaker 1: think what's gonna happen is cities are gonna be cheaper.
Speaker 1: And as cities like New York gets cheaper than a
Speaker 1: new generation of people are going to go into cities.
Speaker 1: But they're gonna come and they're gonna bring a whole
Speaker 1: fresh perspective to new urban living. And I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna do something awesome that like, and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: you know, in the next five or ten years, I
Speaker 1: can't predict, and I think the city will be something
Speaker 1: different when we come back. We asked Brian about Airbnb's
Speaker 1: race problem. That's right after this, still living in and
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Speaker 1: That's O T T E R dot Ai. The moment
Speaker 1: you realized you were mistaking your kids for co workers? Okay, team,
Speaker 1: I'm taking my fifteen Now. What was the moment you
Speaker 1: knew it was time to get back to work? Let's
Speaker 1: drop it up. A career builder are simple, customizable search
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Speaker 1: Back to Biz with Katie and Bows. Let's pick back
Speaker 1: up with Brian Chesky. One of the things I'm hearing
Speaker 1: you say, Brian, is you think this pandemic is going
Speaker 1: to result in a real reset for society for all
Speaker 1: of us. Our priorities, our relationships are, you know, our
Speaker 1: hopes and dreams, how we want to live our lives
Speaker 1: um and and I'm wondering, you know, I hope so,
Speaker 1: because I think the world needed to be recalibrated. There
Speaker 1: was something that was off. But I wonder after a
Speaker 1: vaccine is is uh you know comes about do you
Speaker 1: worry and wonder is it just going to go back
Speaker 1: to the way it was or do you think we
Speaker 1: will be forever changed. I think it will be forever changed.
Speaker 1: I think the big question is how long does this
Speaker 1: go on? And the longer the shutdown happens, the more
Speaker 1: we can't go back, and the more profound the shifts,
Speaker 1: because where people are gonna invent and they're gonna adapt,
Speaker 1: they're going to create new habits. And I think the
Speaker 1: way to ask this question is how many things were
Speaker 1: we doing in the old way just because we were
Speaker 1: doing them or because they were habits. Because now we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to make a choice to go back to
Speaker 1: the old way. We're not going to be doing that
Speaker 1: because we were just doing it all along. And so
Speaker 1: I think we will go back to a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff because people will choose, but they're not gonna choose everything.
Speaker 1: They're going to choose to only go back to the
Speaker 1: things that were essential. And then I think new things
Speaker 1: are going to emerge, so we'll go back a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's like a pendulum. We we're gonna but we're not.
Speaker 1: I don't think we go back all the way. And
Speaker 1: my my point of view on this would be um
Speaker 1: less will return than than than is intuitive that that
Speaker 1: that this is a new world. Um and I think
Speaker 1: we're only the beginning of it, because what are we
Speaker 1: only four months into this? So I mean, and it's
Speaker 1: probably gonna go on, Like we may not be in
Speaker 1: lockdown the rest of the year, but like you know,
Speaker 1: I think another four months of this, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I know, our industry is going to be changed forever,
Speaker 1: and I doubt we're the only one. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the conversation around change because we've been
Speaker 1: waiting for it a long time, especially as it relates
Speaker 1: to diversity, inclusion, just crimination. Like this is a time
Speaker 1: of real change. And you know, as a as a
Speaker 1: black woman who travels alone by her you know, a
Speaker 1: lot for work and sometimes were personal. Um, it's always
Speaker 1: been on my mind, you know how discrimination or my
Speaker 1: own safety, Uh how I managed that in the world.
Speaker 1: And I wish that more companies and more businesses would
Speaker 1: pay attention, you know, to my particular plight. I know
Speaker 1: Airbnb is certainly one in which you know, discrimination on
Speaker 1: the platform and within you know the product has been
Speaker 1: a challenge and so what what are you thinking around that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think this has been like a wake up call
Speaker 1: for a lot of a lot of US and white
Speaker 1: people and like business leaders and others, like it's been
Speaker 1: a it's just been a it's has just been like
Speaker 1: a fundamental wake up call that I think that everyone needed.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's another example and a good example.
Speaker 1: But we're not going back act like whatever change happens
Speaker 1: this front, it's it's it's happened, and it's not going backwards. UM.
Speaker 1: I think specifically to Airbnb, UM, we have a unique
Speaker 1: history in this area. You know, in two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: there was a hashtag that was trending on Twitter and
Speaker 1: the hashtag was airbm hashtag Airbnb wall black, and the
Speaker 1: hashtag basically meant that black travelers, primarily United States, We're
Speaker 1: chronicling their experiences trying to book an Airbnb and being
Speaker 1: rejected by white hosts primarily. And it took me by surprise,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were not fully conscious that some
Speaker 1: of our platform could be used for discrimination. So this
Speaker 1: became an existential risk to our business and we um
Speaker 1: we ended up actually bringing Eric Holder before Uber, so
Speaker 1: we were the first ones to I think bring an
Speaker 1: Airic Holder and he did. He did a whole report
Speaker 1: and analysis. We worked in the American Civil Liberties Union,
Speaker 1: this woman Laura Murphy, and we basically created Anti Discrimination
Speaker 1: TAW Force and we made a bunch of progress. We
Speaker 1: did a couple of things, like one of the things
Speaker 1: we did, which seems really basic, was we asked everyone
Speaker 1: to basically like a test. It's kind of like checking
Speaker 1: a box, like in terms of service box saying that
Speaker 1: you will not discriminate on the base of like age, race, religion,
Speaker 1: um orientation, gender, things like that. In one point three
Speaker 1: million people chose not to do that. So we said, fine,
Speaker 1: see you later. We were moving through the platform and
Speaker 1: so but we we we had we had limitations because
Speaker 1: we were not measuring the amount of discrimination or platform.
Speaker 1: And as you know in Silken Valley, what you can't measure,
Speaker 1: you don't often optimize, and we were only responding to anecdotes. Now,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to measure discrimination. How do you do it?
Speaker 1: You have to know people's races to do that. Well,
Speaker 1: how do you find out someone's race without violating their privacy?
Speaker 1: And so we ended up doing two years ago, as
Speaker 1: we started engaging with Color of Change. There obviously you
Speaker 1: know the I think they're the largest online civil rights
Speaker 1: group UM, and we worked with them other civil rights
Speaker 1: organizations and c P and we worked at privacy groups
Speaker 1: because you know, you've got to be thinking of us
Speaker 1: the rights and privacy. And we designed a way where
Speaker 1: and we just launched this like I think it was
Speaker 1: a week ago, where we can collect this thing called
Speaker 1: perceived race data because of course discrimination is about perceived race,
Speaker 1: because no one asked somebody what their races. They just
Speaker 1: perceive a race. But we had to do it in
Speaker 1: a way that was UM consistent with privacy. So it
Speaker 1: took us longer than I wouldn't want admit, and we
Speaker 1: developed a bunch of principles. We said, you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna anyone who doesn't want to be in this research
Speaker 1: can opt out. UM, we're gonna decouple your perceived race
Speaker 1: from your account, and we're gonna be transparent about UM
Speaker 1: what we're doing with this information and the results. And
Speaker 1: so now we have a way to like follow cohorts
Speaker 1: of data on our platform and then measure the bias
Speaker 1: and discrimination on our platform, and hopefully with that data
Speaker 1: we can then design our platform to be more equitable
Speaker 1: and UM and and create more belonging. I'm hoping there's
Speaker 1: a really big silver lining here, and we're going to
Speaker 1: open source our learnings around discrimination and also even how
Speaker 1: we work to anonymize this data. So this is just
Speaker 1: one of the things we're doing. And I don't say
Speaker 1: this to pat ourselves in the back, because frankly, we
Speaker 1: got issues we gotta work on. But I think we'll
Speaker 1: be remembered for what we do, and I think that
Speaker 1: every tech company and probably every company, but every tech
Speaker 1: company the world will remember what we did on this issue.
Speaker 1: We can either choose to be a mirror to society,
Speaker 1: or we can be a mirror to what we want
Speaker 1: society to look like. Those are those are literally choices
Speaker 1: we have and why wouldn't we make that second choice?
Speaker 1: And why don't we at least try, And so that's
Speaker 1: what we're doing. I'm also very proud of Alexis Sahanian,
Speaker 1: who is a is a friend because some friends with
Speaker 1: Serena williams Um But I am very impressed by his
Speaker 1: decision to, you know, stepped down from Reddit's board so
Speaker 1: that it could be flat filled by a black candidate.
Speaker 1: And can I tell me? Can I tell you about
Speaker 1: who that person is. Do you know him? Yes? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Michael right, you know his history with Airbnb? No? No,
Speaker 1: please share. Had it not been from Michael Cybel, I
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't be here telling you this story. Michael Cybel
Speaker 1: um is um. Joe Night and I started Airbnb, and
Speaker 1: I remember telling like people about Airbnb and they thought
Speaker 1: it was like like the worst day they've ever heard of.
Speaker 1: And so we were trying to raise a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: dollars at a one point five million dollar evaluation. Nobody
Speaker 1: wanted that deal. I mean, just like we remember we
Speaker 1: got in True to twenty investors couldn't get raised money
Speaker 1: and we ended up meeting Michael Cybel. We met Michael
Speaker 1: Cybel in March. Now we launched in October Town seven
Speaker 1: and he basically when I was like we were nobody
Speaker 1: and we didn't know anybody, he took us under his
Speaker 1: wing because our roommate, my roommate Joe and I, my
Speaker 1: roommate had was this guy named Phil. He worked for
Speaker 1: a company called Justin Do TV. Michael Cybel was a
Speaker 1: CEO justin I TV, which is the basically the predecessor
Speaker 1: to Twitch with Amasam bought and Michael basically met with
Speaker 1: us every Friday, and I'm not exaggaly for like three
Speaker 1: to five hours. We'd go for a happy hour. He'd
Speaker 1: take us through a site and we'd be there until
Speaker 1: like late in the evening. And he eventually helped us
Speaker 1: get into y Combinator. And I think that he's probably,
Speaker 1: after the founders, the most significant person um in the
Speaker 1: founding story of Airbnb. Um, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: we used to call Michael the god founder because like
Speaker 1: the Godfather, we'd go every week to him everything. Michael,
Speaker 1: we got problems, can you help us? But I just
Speaker 1: wanted to give a shout out to Michael because um,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he he embodies the culture of Silk
Speaker 1: and Valley, you know, he he he didn't want something
Speaker 1: from us and we he said, this is the culture
Speaker 1: is a culture of trust and you pay it forward.
Speaker 1: I think that's so. I mean, that's a that's an
Speaker 1: amazing story. But it goes to the Testament and probably
Speaker 1: points out even more so why there needs to be
Speaker 1: more open spots, you know, for people of color, black
Speaker 1: people to be on board, you know, ordinarily wouldn't make it.
Speaker 1: So is there another Michael cybel or MICHAELA Cybel somewhere
Speaker 1: who can step onto your board. Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about that, Brian, because you know,
Speaker 1: there's a Courts article granted from two thousand and sixteen
Speaker 1: that says the dirty secret of Airbnb is that it's really,
Speaker 1: really white. So I'm curious about how you if you've
Speaker 1: managed to change that, and how you plan to continue
Speaker 1: changing it in the future. Yeah. We're part of the
Speaker 1: way there, but not not nearly where we need to be. UM.
Speaker 1: We've just let's start with the board. So probably the
Speaker 1: time that article was written, UM, it was it would
Speaker 1: have been five people on the board. Were three founders
Speaker 1: were white guys, and then we had to venture capitalists.
Speaker 1: You know, when you raise money, a VC takes a
Speaker 1: board seat, typically in UM. And so since then we've
Speaker 1: appointed four independent board members. UM. Three were women, UM,
Speaker 1: including my former CEO. We have an Mathers. She was
Speaker 1: the CFO of Pixar for Steve Jobs, Audit Chaff, Google
Speaker 1: and Netflix. And then Angela Renz you probably know she
Speaker 1: UM ran Apple Retail. Before that was CEO Burbery, and
Speaker 1: then we added Ken Channel, who was CEO of amex
Speaker 1: um so UM not to make excuses, but we are
Speaker 1: we are trying, but we definitely need to get more diverse,
Speaker 1: even on the board. And so absolutely, I I would
Speaker 1: definitely be interested in US, UM continuing to add a
Speaker 1: couple more people, UM, you know, in time I don't
Speaker 1: know win, but absolutely on the executive team. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: we UM, we also need to make progress. We UM
Speaker 1: we we we were. We We have set diversity targets
Speaker 1: that we want by the end of next year of
Speaker 1: our board and executive team to be people of color. UM.
Speaker 1: I think I think we can get there for sure.
Speaker 1: UM and maybe we can we can beat that actually
Speaker 1: and UM, and you know, I think that we've the
Speaker 1: last three hires I made to them or women, UM,
Speaker 1: my head of operations, UM, Tara Bunch, she was running
Speaker 1: operations for Apple. And I hired this woman named Katherine Powell,
Speaker 1: who ran basically seventy of the Disney parks. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I would just say from my experience that I can
Speaker 1: say this, UM, a more diverse company is not only
Speaker 1: the responsible thing to do, it is actually a competitive advantage.
Speaker 1: UM you know, And I really mean that, like, like
Speaker 1: we we became so much higher performing when we started
Speaker 1: becoming more diverse, and we're not there. We're not even
Speaker 1: close to where we need to be. We should at
Speaker 1: least map to the demographics and the country you operate.
Speaker 1: So if you know, like you shouldn't and you could
Speaker 1: be better, but you shouldn't be worse than that. So
Speaker 1: we want to go a lot further. I was going
Speaker 1: to say, given this reckoning that and the movement we're
Speaker 1: witnessing and this realization and wake up call as you
Speaker 1: referred to it, Brian too of systemic racism and what,
Speaker 1: it's just no longer acceptable. I mean, you can't really
Speaker 1: get away without with with not being diverse. I mean,
Speaker 1: not only for all the reasons you just outlined, but
Speaker 1: let's face it, it's just not it's not an acceptable
Speaker 1: look anymore. No, it's and and that is as it
Speaker 1: should be. Um. It probably overdue and and um and
Speaker 1: so that will be one of the one of the
Speaker 1: good that come out of a crisis. Are you embarrassed
Speaker 1: you haven't done more? Brian? Um? I wish I did more.
Speaker 1: I wish I did more sooner um and um and
Speaker 1: I'm proud of what we have done. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that UM, I think you know, coming like ours um
Speaker 1: mission is built around belonging connection. I think that's like
Speaker 1: really really important and so um yeah, if I could
Speaker 1: it over again, I would have done more sooner. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a good lesson here for everyone, that
Speaker 1: every one of us could be doing more sooner. Bose.
Speaker 1: I think Brian is absolutely right. I think there wasn't
Speaker 1: an urgency to fix this problem before, but there's certainly
Speaker 1: an urgency now and hopefully this will be a real
Speaker 1: moment in time where things will change for the better finally,
Speaker 1: I really hope. So. I mean, we're demanding more of
Speaker 1: ourselves right now, and that's really what matters. Again, we've
Speaker 1: been talking to Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, and
Speaker 1: that does it for this week's episode of Back to
Speaker 1: Biz with Katie and Bow. If you're not already, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe to the podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about all the cool people
Speaker 1: were talking to, as well as our favorite moments from
Speaker 1: these interviews on our Instagram feeds and stories. Until next time,
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Currik and I'm Bozema st. John and this
Speaker 1: is Back to Biz. With Katie and Bo's Thanks for listening. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Back to Biz with Katie and Bows is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Katie Curve Media. The executive
Speaker 1: producers are Katie kurrit bozmus St John, and Courtney Litz.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. The associate producers are
Speaker 1: Derrek Clements, Eliza Costas and Emily Pinto. Editing by Derek
Speaker 1: Clements and Lauren Hansen, Mixing by Derek Clements. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Adriana Fasio. For more information about today's episode, go
Speaker 1: to Katie Kirk dot com. You can also follow Katie
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