Brian Chesky’s new playbook

way too many Founders apologize for how

they want to run the company they find

some midpoint between how they want to

run a company and how the people they

lead want to run the company that's a

good way to make everyone miserable

because what everyone really wants is

Clarity what everyone really wants is to

be able to row in the same direction

really quickly and so I basically got

involved in every single detail and I

basically told leaders that leaders are

in the details and there's this negative

term called micromanagement I think

there's a difference between

micromanagement which is like telling

people exactly what to do and being in

the details being in the details is what

every responsible company's board does

to the CEO it doesn't mean the board is

telling them what to do but if you don't

know the details how do you know people

are doing a good job people think that

great leader job is to like hire people

and and just Empower them to do a good

job well how do you know they're doing a

good job if you're not in the details

and so I made sure I was in the details

and we really drove the

product

today my guest is Brian chesy Brian is

the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb which

he started in his apartment with his

co-founders Joe Nate and has turned into

an80 billion Global business with

Travelers and homes in 220 countries I

was very lucky to get to work with Brian

for many years and my sense is if you

ask people who they consider the most

inspiring Tech or Business Leaders today

Brian would be right near the top of

that list in our conversation Brian

shares an depth explanation of what's

happening with product management at

Airbnb which caused quite a stir in the

product world when he talked about this

previously we also get deep into Brian's

new approach of how he runs Airbnb

including shifting away from traditional

growth channels like paid growth and

instead betting that if they just build

the best possible product and tell

people about it growth will happen also

how the product team now operates

including having just one single road

map across the entire company and Brian

staying very close to every design and

every feature we also get a bit into his

personal life including how he finds

balance and avoids burnout how he

continues to learn himself so that he

can stay ahead of the business and its

growth this is a very special episode

for me and I'm thrilled to bring you

Brian chesy after a short word from our

sponsors this episode is brought to you

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Lenny you fell in love with building

products for a reason but sometimes the

day-to-day reality is a little different

than you imagined instead of dreaming up

Big Ideas talking to customers and

crafting a strategy you're drowning in

spreadsheets and road map updates and

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Brian thank you so much for being here

welcome to the podcast well thank you

for having me did you ever think when I

left airbeam be one that I would have a

podcast and two that you would be on my

podcast I had no idea you would become a

podcast host and that you would have

such sucessful podcast yeah congrats on

everything it is awesome I appreciate it

congrats to you too Brian things seem to

be going great I'm excited that you're

here I want to start with the elephant

in the room for a lot of listeners of

this podcast uh what is going on with

product management at Airbnb you made

some comments at figma config and a lot

of people got this impression that you

eliminated product management Airbnb and

I've heard from a lot of product execs

having boardroom conversations as a

result of that and they were trying to

decide should we remove product

management from the company should we

significantly cut product management so

I'm just curious to hear from you what

is the latest on your thinking on

product management and what's happening

with product management at Airbnb I

spoke at figma you know like four or

five months ago

I spoke to a room of designers I then uh

got off stage I saw people somebody

tweet that said something to the nature

of that I said I got rid of the product

management function all the desires room

started shearing that's right so I want

to I want to I want to talk about two

things what I actually meant because I

didn't actually get rid of the people

and also why do the people in the room

cheer because that's also like a thing

we should ask ourselves I hope everyone

listening to this podcast should

understand where did that place come

from that 5,000 designers in the room

cheered because I thought I eliminated

the existence of a function because if I

said I eliminated the engineering

function no one would have cheered it

was specifically that function so I want

to talk about what that might mean it

wasn't the people it's the way they're

working together so we don't have any

longer the traditional product

management function as it existed with

when you were Z but we didn't get rid of

people helping Drive the product what we

did

is we combined what one might call the

inbound product development

responsibilities of product manager with

the outbound or marketing

responsibilities of product marketing

that's the first thing we did the second

thing we did is we offboard much of the

program management functions that

product managers may do to actual

program managers a lot of people the

product management title are actually

program managers so we actually started

offboarding some responsibilities to

program management the last thing we did

is we made the group smaller and more

senior so we don't really have a lot of

Junior product marketers so the most

senior people are called Product

marketers but everyone has to understand

how to talk about the product so the

basic idea is this you can't build a

product unless you know how to talk

about the product you can't be an expert

in making the product unless you're also

an expert in the market of it and a lot

of companies what they do is they ship a

product it doesn't work and they say we

tried that it didn't work and if you say

you tried it didn't work my question is

was it a bad product a bad strategy or

bad execution maybe it was a really

well-made product but you had no

distribution plan you had no way to talk

about the product if you build a great

product and no one knows about it did

you even build a product so that is

essentially what we do we have a much

smaller function the people are much

more senior they have much more

responsibility the other thing though is

that they do not control or drive

designing or engineering we are a very

purely functional model they manage by

influence do not have

control now you might ask like how does

that work in a company where people can

only manage by influence here's the

amazing thing we built and designed a

company where you can manage by

influence and no one has to like you you

don't actually have to have to win

people over oh and last thing I want to

say is why did 5,000 designers Shear

when the people thought I removed the

product management function because I

want to say I I don't I don't know if I

can speak on behalf of all the designers

but having talked to live designers I

think designers and the valley are very

very frustrated with the product

development process not to say the

product managers but they're extremely

um frustrated and I think a lot of

designers feel like they're compromising

many designers I know heads of design

well-known heads of design I told them

they're not designers they're design

administrators they're running a design

service organization because Silicon

Valley often treats design as a service

organization you know like design is

catching things before it Go outs the

door it's not actually typically part of

the develop process and I think this is

not just bad for design I think it's bad

for product managers and Engineers

because we all want to build the best

products and one day you wake up and a

variety of phenomenon might have

happened and if people are watching this

from a large company here might be some

of the characteristics the first thing

you notice is that these different

groups might be running on slightly

different technical Stacks that's the

first problem and they may actually be

require accumulating technical debt the

next problem you'll see is that there's

a lot of dependencies so five teams are

going s different directions but they

all need a payment platform and so that

on it happens is that the teams that

everyone's dependent on get this backup

like a deli and people are going around

the block and then they are basically

like at some point they just kind of

give up so then the teams that are

dependent on other people say give me

the resources I'll build this group

myself so instead of five teams going to

marketing to get a campaign or to

leverage some service they start

building their own marketing departments

own groups so now they're really

becoming separate divisions and this is

where division comes from now once you

have a division your division is as

successful as you are a priority so now

you have to advocate for your division

so there's a lot of advocacy if you have

dependencies you've got to persuade

people by building relationships and so

the people that are like that build the

best relationships are the ones that get

the most resources and that creates what

we call politics it's so now politics

that brw in the company and

suddenly people get more subdivided more

subdivided subdivided and that creates

another problem which we call

bureaucracy and that bureaucracy means

it's hard to know who is doing what you

can't like people are going in different

directions and that creates a lack of

accountability when there's lack of

accountability then there's a sense that

what I do doesn't matter and that

creates complacency and then suddenly a

fast growing company becomes a big slow

moving bureaucracy this is a general Arc

winds up happening and then you end up

having this situation where company's

done like 10 marketing efforts but no

customers heard anything they have

thousands of Engineers they shipped all

these products but a customer can't tell

you a single thing you did and you know

marketing and Engineering like don't

talk to each other it's not even they

hate each other they're like in

different universes I've always said

that the health of an organization one

simple horis is how Coast's engineering

and marketing and marketing is a lot of

companies are like the waiters Engineers

are like the chefs and the chefs yell at

the waiters they go in the kitchen in

fact the waiters are the ones talking to

the customers all day and they also know

how to sell things so you really want

them being enjoined at the hip and you

want Engineers to be thinking about

maybe had to talk about the products

that they're building so this is the

problem that we had and I also the other

thing we were doing is as you know Lenny

we're spending a lot of money in

Performance Marketing I don't think

Performance Marketing is a bad thing I

think Performance Marketing a laser uh

actually my co-founder who obviously

know well Joe used to have this metaphor

of lasers flash bulbs and chandeliers if

you want to light up a room performance

marking is a laser it can light up a

corner of a room you don't want to use a

bunch of lasers to light up an entire

room you should use a chandelier and

that's what brand marketing is but if

you do need to laser in in Balance

supply and demand then Performance

Marketing is really good it literally

lasers in Performance Marketing though

doesn't create very good accumulating

advantages because it's not an

investment now if you want to build it

permanently like booking.com if you have

a really highi now you can have a

Performance Marketing Arbitrage business

but assuming you don't want a Arbitrage

business you actually need to be

investing and so we think of marketing

as education that we're educating people

on the unique benefits so a lot of

companies don't do product marketing

they do brand marketing which are ads

about the app or they do Performance

Marketing but they're never really

educating people about new things

they're making and shipping and because

no one's marketing new things they

shipping there's no purpose to ship new

things because you ship new things and

people don't know about them or use them

or they're not educated and so you try

these big new things people don't adopt

them immediately so then you get more

and more

incremental now what we do is we do we

have a rolling two-year road map we

don't even really do an annual plan I

mean we as you remember Lenny you're at

Airbnb we would have like three-month

planning Cycles now planning cycle is

just a budgeting cycle and it's like

most people only spend a week or two on

it some don't spell any time on it and

we have a rolling two-year product plan

the strategy product strategy road map

that gets updated every six months with

releases we release products um every

May and every November or October

obviously we did one today we can talk

about and the entire company works

together they Row in the same direction

and the product management also does the

product marketing so they're figuring

how people are going to learn about it

they're doing the demos they're

understanding the story the videos

they're you know figuring out all the

customer touch points making sure

everyone understands it our product

marketing works with Communications we

like work months ahead of time on all

the different assets and when we're

working at a launch one of the first

things we'll do is start figuring out

what the story is and the story will

often dictate the product because

ultimately you have to tell a story to

people but a story also is a really

helpful way to develop a cohesive

product right we wanted a company where

a thousand people could work but it'll

look like 10 people did it and so sorry

that was a bit of a brain dumb but that

is a little bit of a universal theory

for how we develop products now I I

could go into a lot more detail but I

probably will'll stop there that was

amazing you touched on all of the things

I want to talk about so I'm gonna oh

geez so we can go deeper and deeper

because the rabbit exactly exactly so

I'm going to pull on a couple threads

the first is this idea of a single road

map you talked about and what this

reminds me of is I was talking to

another very prominent CE of a public

company and he pointed out that there's

this cycle that he sees a lot of

Founders go through where they initially

run the show they're in charge they tell

people what to build and then over time

they're encouraged to delegate and to

empower and it leads to a bunch of

optimization work and small thinking

maybe and you talked about bureaucracy

in politics and then eventually you

realize I need to take the RS again and

drive the ship and kind of Take Back

Control of what's happening and it feels

like you went on that Journey that's

exactly how it went and that's how it

goes almost at every company I've heard

of by the way I think that like many

years ago I remember I think reading a

blog post by Ben Horowitz saying that a

lot of people tell product Le Founders

or engineering Le Founders to step away

and delegate their product to other

people but suddenly they delegated away

the thing they're best at the thing that

is hardest for them to replace so we

don't have a chief product officer title

but if we had one it would be me you

know they they I wouldn't have a chief

product officer I think the CEO should

be basically the chief product officer

of a product OR tech company and the CEO

is not the chief product officer then I

don't know if they're a product or

tech-led company maybe maybe that's okay

if they're an Ops company or if they're

a marketing company or if they're like

not a tech company at all but ultimately

I think the founder CEO should be that

person so when we were starting Airbnb

it was probably the three of us you know

as you know like I think Airbnb was a

unique situation where it was three of

us I don't think any of us was that

dominant I probably played the closest

thing to the role of the the people

listening like the closest thing to the

role of the product manager but again I

did marketing I did design I did like

Ops I did like kind of a little bit of

everything so I was basically everything

but engineering and then as we grew I

started getting more and more hands off

in the product and I always remember

Lenny when you this there was this

Paradox where the less involved I was in

a project I mean there was there they be

clear there were times I inserted myself

and dysfunction occurred that is

absolutely true and that was just a

learning experience for me but there's

this other scenario where the less

involved I was in the project the more

spin there was the less clear the goals

the less advocacy the team had the less

resources the fewer resources they had

and then therefore the slower they moved

and the slower they moved the more they

assumed was because I was too involved

right because people assume that that

our natural equilibriums to move fast

moving slow it's because of an over

involvement in leadership and therefore

I would get less involved I would give

teams more control I would give them

teams more empowerment and the more I

kept giving people what they asked for

initially they may have been happy but

the outcome of it was always it seemed

weirdly like they got less of what they

wanted they wanted to move faster so I'd

power them and they'd move slower and

again how that happened is what I

described that you you you end up in a

situation where you're delegating down

so I think that things were getting

worse and slower and slower and slower

2015 2016 2017 2018

2019 and by

2019 we were spending a billion dollars

on AdWords we weren't really like

investing in the brand we're doing a

huge amount of AB testing I think AB

testing is important in in times but

like let me actually let me let me let

me let me clarify you be testing we

don't test blue versus green we have a

control and a treatment like I think we

did with ere so we have a design we

might do a hold back occasionally to see

how the thing is working but if we do an

AB test there has to be a hypothesis if

we don't have a hypothesis and a is

better than b then we're stuck with b

and that's like a really really big

problem but never you can never change

it and imagine 10 teams doing AB testing

and like imagine if you designed

software the way designed a house or

designed house the way design software

and we AB test a sofa and we said like

well how does a sofa work and it seems

like with this sofa that we've AB tested

people spend more time in the living

room so therefore like people are going

like this room better but actually the

sofa has a relationship to the end

stands which have relationship to the

lamps which have relationship to the

carpet or the rug which have

relationship to the television which

have relationship to the house and

everything else so you have to think

about the whole cohesive system and I

started realizing that I remember

working with as I asked one person on

your team somebody you know well and I

asked him I said why is our I feel like

I open our app and the product hasn't

changed in like four years I remember

saying this like 2018 2019 and he this

person described that you know well as

just the way we were doing things the

initial way we were doing things to move

fast had made us move slow

so we end up doing is it was now late

2019 I don't know what to do I'm like

the product is slow the app seems not

change cost are rising I keep adding

more people there seems to be more like

politics by politics I mean advocating

for like individual interests rather the

whole of the company more bureaucracy

meaning like meetings about meetings

about meetings and a lot of dependencies

people were describing working 80 hours

and getting 20 hours of productive work

done which is like just like a crazy

ratio a week and I didn't really quite

know what to do and then right before

the pandemic I meet two people that

really affected how I thought about

things the first was heroki asai heroi

now works at Airbnb he's one of my

Executives and actually product design

product marketing design and marketing

repor to him and he was a creative

director for Apple so he worked for

Steve Jobs was like basically dotted

line to Steve for many many years came

from graphic design eventually ran all

of marketing Communications and apple

marketing Communications they actually

like they actually designed the app they

made the app they designed like all the

marketing touch points for the store

right so it wasn't just ads it was like

every brand touch point they were

responsible so everything flowed through

marketing and so marketing became the

governing factor that made everything

really organized I met another person or

I got reacquainted a person named Johnny

IV and Johnny I was the head of

industrial design then Chief design

offic or apple and they described this

way of running a company that was

totally different than the way that I

was running it it was basically the way

that Steve Jobs ran Apple from about

1998 till he died in 2011 Apple somewhat

runs it this way today but they are semi

like the services is turning into

Division and they are just so big that I

think it's you know not a oneto one

anymore but they are still technically

run this way and I had this image of not

being divisional because we were running

like we 10 divisions we had a flights

Division and you know we had a homes

division which was divided to proost and

core host and Lux and we had business

travel and we had like you know a

magazine and we had experiences and we

had.org and we had china we had like

these 10 different divisions all going

in 10 different directions and I created

this culture where everyone want to be a

business manager and or a know business

leader general manager which made them

want to create many general managers

right and so the company kept getting

subdivided subdivided subdivided and

that made it very very difficult turn

and this was all about me delegating

responsibility the problem is if you're

running a divisional company you're a

product Leed founder you're kind of what

are you doing like strategy Capital

allocation my job went from proactive to

very reactive I was reacting to a lot of

things I was in a lot of meetings try to

adjudicate different issues between

groups so then the pandemic occurs and I

had this image on mind it's like I have

this dream that I could run a company

much more like a startup I remember

going on a walk with Joe and Nate and

bolus it was October

2019 and I told them I had this dream

that I left the

company 10 years ago and you they just

asked me to come back and I said I was

horrified at what I

found and they said well what did you

find I said I found a company that on

the one hand had amazing culture and

people with a great Mission with a brand

people really

loved but the we lost our design

routes you know we weren't investing in

the long term we were obsessing over

hitting metrics we didn't actually have

any cohesive understanding of what we

were doing it was really hard to get

work done a lot of the great people were

leaving and cost was rising and both

growth are slowing and that was exactly

kind of what was happening and then the

pandemic occurred and we lost 80% of our

business in8 weeks and then suddenly

we're like oh my God like I remember

having basically staring into the abyss

and luckily I've never had a near-death

experience but the way it's been

described to me is it's like your flly

flashes before you your eyes and you

have Clarity and that's what happened to

our business we had a near-death

business experience and our business

flashed before our eyes and so suddenly

I basically got into action and I said

I'm going to run it this other way where

I'm going to get back and evolved in the

details and by the way Lenny here's the

funny thing before the crisis a lot of

people felt like I was too involved in

different areas once the crisis happened

guess what happened people are like what

do we do we need you more involved and

so I got more involved and when I got

involved I made the following changes

the first thing I did is I took like I

said everything we're doing has to be

written down and put into Google Google

like a Google sheet it turns out people

couldn't even write down everything they

were doing I remember one person told me

you you think we're doing too many

things for me to ever be able to

document I'm like what but anyways we

have eventually got everyone to write

everything down and I said okay we can

do about 20% of these things and so if

everyone says oh I might it be simple

I'm only doing three things yes but

you're one of like a thousand people so

actually we're doing 3,000 things so

instead of one team doing three things

three teams should do one thing so we

totally cut down the number of projects

we removed layers of management I wanted

to be as few layers as possible from the

leaders of the team we went to a

functional model we went back to a

startups so we said we're not going to

have divisional leaders we're going to

have design engineering product and

which turned to product marketing and

marketing and Communications and sales

and operations all the functions of a

startup I said we're goingon to have

fewer employees we're gonna have fewer

more senior people there's a great

saying that the best way to slow a

project down is to add more people to it

and so we felt like very few employees

we have fewer than 7,000 employees today

as a relative comparison I think Uber

has 30,000 and it's not to say they're

big it's just to say that's how small we

are and we've really benefited from

having not a lot of employees so we had

we made sure that every executive was an

expert in their functional domain so you

know how there's a lot of engineering

managers that aren't that technical or

maybe not a lot but they exist or

there's designers but there's design

leaders who who lead the people a design

leaders job should be managing the

design first the people second that's

Johnny did or like they're they're

interchangeable I I could never imagine

Johnny AV at Apple just being a manager

of people he was looking and designing

the work with the team how do you manage

the people without managing their work

how do you give them development if

you're not in the details with them on

the work so the same thing is true so

people had to be experts everyone had to

be an expert I stopped pushing

decision-making down I pulled it in I

created one shared Consciousness and I

said the top 30 40 people in the company

are going to have one continuous

conversation metrics are going to be

subordinate to the calendar so we're

going to have a road map it's going to

be a two-year road map well update the

road map literally every month people

may Wonder well like what if the world

changes yeah it changes every day so the

road map's something where the next

month hasn't changed but two years out

it changes it's a rolling road map and

by the way if Ukraine like gets invaded

and you want to like provide housing for

refugees you can still pivot people and

adapt very quickly we house 12 12,000

refugees so you still keep a reserve of

resources to be able to Pivot and do

things because there's always unexpected

events I created this new function

called product marketing we basically

describe what that is I made the group

much smaller I took a lot of product

managers I reassign as program managers

I had many of them trained an actual

program management because their roles

got much bigger um program management

airb is a high status job a lot of

companies it's like a coordination job

and me we said because we're going to do

launches it's high status we said we're

going to do two launches a year and you

can't ship something unless it's on the

road map so every single thing in the

company with the exception of some

infrastructure projects have have to be

on the road map and then I'm going to

review all the work and so we create the

CEO review schedule where I said I'm

getting back in the involved in the

project and I'm going to design I'm

going to review all the product and all

the marketing so every project I would

do review either every week every two

weeks every four weeks every eight weeks

or every 12 weeks there'd be a Cadence

and then I had a p program manager that

would score all the projects either

they're green yellow or red mean they're

on track or not on track to ship whether

we thought they were work we don't know

until after we ship it but I use the

reviews of the work every single week

and the reason there's not a lot of

bureaucracy and the reason you don't

need any influence at Airbnb is I'd

review the work and if something wasn't

happening then I would like stop the

meeting and say why isn't this happening

and like we would all get together and

so you couldn't have a situation where

like a team wouldn't collaborate and so

it would be like I could then feel the

work of an of an individual engineer cuz

imagine it's like we're a car company

and I I see the car prototype every week

and I notice there's a there's a there's

a something about the tires off now I I

can identify the individual person who

was blocked so every week I would see I

would try to see the equivalent of at

least a semi assembly of the entire new

product we were working on which allowed

me to identify with teams the different

bottlenecks happening in the company and

the reviews were the thing that allowed

us to dictate the pace and so because we

had unal we all these reviews I didn't

need to mandate people going back to an

office I didn't really care where they

worked because I could track how well

they were working because of the review

cycle I it's so these were these were

like some of the changes that we made we

also started really building out much

more of a marketing Communications and

creative function we built out our own

in-house creative agency so we use

production Partners but we don't use

widening kendi or Sher or any those

anymore we actually build our own

in-house agency so to speak which is a

creative group The Creative Group does a

lot of the the the not just the ads but

the creative on the product so we got

really really functional we got rid of a

function called ux writing and we

combined it with marketing writing we

said wait aren't the best writers like

why don't we just have the best writers

do everything why is ux writing a

separate function because actually the

emails the app the ads should all be one

voice now there may be people that come

from a different background like there

are people that come from ux but they

all roll up to one function of writing

and writing should not go to design

writing should go to a function called

writing unless you want your head of

writing to report to design then that

doesn't make sense so we we we really

make made a lot of those changes just to

round up the question that you asked I

think that like way too many Founders

apologize for how they want to run the

company I don't know why they do but I

think they apologize for how they want

run a company they basically find some

midpoint between how they want to run a

company and how the people they lead

want to run the company if you're a

Founder what I would tell you is the

problem with finding a negotiation

between how you want to run the company

the people you want is that's a good way

to make everyone miserable because what

everyone really wants is Clarity what

everyone really wants is to be able to

row in the same direction really quickly

and also if you try to appease employees

they may not even be there for the whole

time so we have entire project the

company where somebody advocated to do

it it was a big commitment and then they

left and now we're still doing the

project they advocated for so it really

has to be something that everyone wants

to sign up for not just the person who's

there because they might not always be

there and so you know I basically got

involved in every single detail and I

basically told leaders that leaders are

in the details and there's this negative

term called micromanagement and I think

I think there's a difference between

micromanagement which is like telling

people exactly what to do and being in

the details being the details is what

every responsible company's board does

to the CEO it doesn't mean the board is

telling them what to do but if you don't

know the details how do you know people

are doing a good job people think that

great leader job is to like hire people

and and just Empower them to do a good

job well how do you know they're doing a

good job if you're not the details and

so I made sure I was in the details and

we really drove the product

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Lenny you guys found such a unique way

of working I've never heard of a company

working in these ways and so many

contrarian ways I think it's going to be

a really interesting case study as

things progress essentially what you

done is shut down traditional growth

channels or at least limited them PID

growth and maybe SEO maybe referrals at

least for a while and you've kind of

shifted to let's just make an awesome

product and tell people about it and our

bet is that what's going to grow do you

feel like this can work for most other

products or is there is like a consumer

specific opportunity what advice would

you give to Founders that are thinking

about man we should try something like

this I think that this methodology can

work for everyone but I don't think you

have to be as ideal logical or have to

go all the way to 100 you I still think

growth channels matter to be clear we

still spend money on Performance

Marketing we still do measure conversion

and we will do some experiments think of

conversion and growth optimization as

like running a football down a field and

think of these big like leaps as passive

you should probably be doing 80% passes

20% running the ball down the field and

a lot of companies they do 80% running

down the ball down the field versus in

20% passes so I think that this

methodology will work for everyone I

mean here are the things I believe I'll

give you a checklist number one I think

that the CEO unless they're not a

product person should think of

themselves that this cheap product

officer and they should be involved in

the product number two if you're not

functional I would at least think about

everyone being really close together so

here's another way saying it Lenny every

product manager should be interconnected

and know what everyone else is doing

they shouldn't be independent siloed

unless they really are running like

separate companies or separate orgs and

they have no dependencies I think that

every leader should be an expert in what

they're leading there should be no

people managers in the entire company

and when I say people managers meaning

your only responsibility is people not

the work or not the domain because you

can't manage people the void of their

work you know imagine like a fire chief

they don't know anything about like

putting out fires like that's crazy like

you have to know the subject matter

people should aim to have as few people

as possible on their team I'm not saying

eliminate people I mean grow slowly and

do not be

Reckless five teams should do one thing

rather than one team do five things so

that's just a metaphor but people should

work together I think that people should

consider doing launches you can by the

way ship every hour of every day but

then package it and tell a story if you

want to hold the product back I think

that team should use data but they

should also use research and intuition

there's a designer called Charles em and

said you can't delegate understanding if

you're going to do ab experiments or

measure data you have to understand what

it means I think that you have to have

an intuition intuition comes not from

arbitrariness it comes from

understanding I would make sure that you

have engineering and design ideally

report to the founder product-led person

I would not have design under product

unless you have an extremely good reason

the product person kind of is a designer

I would TR to think about product

management expanding the

responsibility and including

distribution understanding the customer

and teaching people how to tell a story

I would try to make sure that the

product managers are a combination of

Art and Science I do not think you want

purely technical product managers doing

things if they're going to work with not

technical functions right if they're

only work technical functions that's

fine but they don't work at

non-technical functions I think that's a

problem I should make sure that

marketing and engineering are

interconnected I would make sure that

you have as few layers between a CEO and

other people if you're a CEO every

direct to your direct should be a

implicit DOA line to you so I treat

every direct to my direct as if they're

a direct report a DOA line I don't try

to conflict with the direction of my

team but I always want to know what

another layer below me is doing I think

you should think of each release as a

chapter of a story or like an episode of

TV series and you should think of your

company in a five or 10 year story you

may not know where you are in 10 years

but you're telling this ongoing story

and most of all I would say that

everyone should Row in the same

direction if there's only one thing I

said in this interview today which I'm

not sure what it would be but I I I

think a good candidate is try to get

everyone to row together in the same

direction otherwise why the hell are you

all in the same

company speaking of rowing in the same

direction you had a huge launch today I

know you wanted to talk about it your

winter release and it kind of is the

culmination of lot of the things you're

talking about I'd love to hear just some

of the stuff you're launching let me

just back up seleni so you know this

problem really like well one of the best

things of Airbnb is that we're this

marketplace where guest and host come

together and we have all this unique

inventory and people you know list on

Airbnb and every home is one of a kind

and we have seven million homes and

there's all this surprise and all this

delight the problem is that every home

is one of a kind and you often don't

know what you're going to get and so

a lot of guests have described checking

into Airbnb as a Moment of Truth where

when you open the door that you know the

home you find out if the home is exactly

the home that you booked and this turns

out to be a big problem for people

wanting to book an Airbnb and when we

survey guests or people who don't use

Airbnb the number one re the hotels are

not as special they're not as unique but

the advantage they have is you know what

you're going to get you know exactly

you're going to get and so what we found

is that reliability is airb be's

Achilles heel or at least it has been

that you know with hotels you know

you're going to get an Airbnb you don't

always know you're going to get and so

we asked ourselves what if we could

combine the uniqueness of Airbnb with

the reliability that you've come to

speca hotel and that's what we've done

with guest favorites guest favorites are

you know homes that guests in our

community love the most we took 370

million reviews on Airbnb plus millions

of customer service tickets plus all the

host cancellation data and we use all

the signal to create the top two million

homes that this collection of two

million homes that we call guest

favorites because the homes the guest

rate the highest we

think combine the uniqueness of Airbnb

with the reliability to come to expect

hotel and I can't imagine there's a lot

of use cases where you wouldn't want to

book a guest favorite we think that's

also part of this broader system of

readings and reviews you see as you know

Airbnb is built on a system system of

trust and we invented this new way for

people to trust one another you know at

least at scale you know through through

through living together certainly and we

felt like the rating and review system

could use a little bit of an upgrade so

we obviously made some upgrades to

ratings and reviews and the final thing

and this brings up another point I might

bring up is we've completely overhauled

the host tab so you know one of the most

important things when you get to an

Airbnb is the listing is accurate but

the problem is that a lot of host

listings don't have all the details up

to up to date so they might not like

describe perfectly their listing they

might not have filled up their amenities

they might not have a photo tour and the

reason why as we're doing research is

because they found it was hard to manage

their listing and it was hard to manage

their listing because was designed as

this hodg Podge Thing by different teams

over many years oh here's the other

thing Lenny when you were at Airbnb we

had a guest team and a host team we

don't have a guest team and host team we

have a design team we have a marketing

team we have an engine engineering team

the reason we don't break the app into

guest and host anymore is because

reviews affect guest and host it turns

out that almost everything involves

connecting the guest and host and you

have separate teams that tend to have

separate road maps that go in separate

directions they become incompatible so

we have product marketers that

responsible guest and host things but

there's the the designers are in the

engineers are fairly fungible and they

can move from Project to project and

then we keep some people especially the

product marketing people on a domain

area but we really want to make sure

that we have designers and Engineers

covering a much larger surface and so so

that's what we did we have this

incredible new tab called the listing

tab that we designed it's quite possibly

one of the nicest things we ever

designed if you go to my Twitter account

you'll see a little Sizzle reel from

some of the design we've done by the way

the design is a whole new aesthetic I'd

like to like make the announcement that

I think flat design is over or ending

you know I think if you remember the

2000s was dominated by skew morphism the

2010s have been dominated with the

launch of iOS 7 by flat design I think

we're going to move back into a world

with color texture dimensionality more

haptic feedback but I don't think it's

going to be schor fism where it pretends

to be like a wood drain to reference

like a dashboard or leather but I think

it's going to have a sense of Dimension

I think the reason why is we're spending

more and more time on screens and we

want the screens to replicate some of

what we see in the natural environment

light texture I think it's more

intuitive it's more playful I think AI

allows the development of more

sophisticated interfaces people in AI

are gravitating to image generating art

that has got more a dimension to it and

so I think that we've we've really

started to push this more

three-dimensional colorful aesthetic

that I think think I think it's going to

be where a lot of interface design is

going and we built this AI powered photo

tour where we created our own AI

computer visiting language that we

trained on a 100 million photos and it

can basically scan all your photos and

organize them by room so that's what we

did today maybe just to round it up what

I would say is that none of this would

have been possible in the old way of

working you know we could have

theoretically launch a lot of these

features but you know really getting

them to work together has been key and

guest favorites has required the guest

people you know you you have to work

with guests you have to work a host you

have to essentially you know you know

have you have to like figure out how to

communicate to the market so it's a much

more integrated approach the designs you

talked about they are incredibly cute

you tweeted a little video of a lot of

them like the couch with little textures

on it and uh uh it is really cool also

the listing tab I think people that

aren't hosts don't understand how

important the listing experience to a

host that's like I think how many host

are there 7 million something like

there's there's there's 7 million

listings yeah over 7 million listings

yeah and so that's like the home base

that's like the small business platform

for millions of people and so I I worked

on the host site so I have a special

place in my heart for host features and

I feel like Travelers don't really

appreciate the value of that part of the

product well yeah you you did some

amazing work there yeah I think that

like the big lesson Lenny the other

thing we learned is to create a great

guest experience you need

great host and to have great hosts they

need great tools and so if you want to

create a great experience for guests it

often starts with building great tools

for hosts to enable them to provy the

great experience for guests and so that

was one of the theories behind the

listing tab is we're going to build

great tools for hosts they're going to

love it and we also felt like if we put

te in the design of our app that hosts

are going to see that and that they're

going to actually but care into hosting

even more than they already do and they

they do put a lot of care in now

speaking of great products a defining

characteristic of briyan chesy in my

mind is how big you make people think

how you push people to think bigger

memories I have of you is in meetings we

present our goal and you're always

saying how do we tenx this what would it

take to 10x this idea and somehow we

often hit these crazy goals after you

10x them or sometimes just double them

what have you learned about just the

power of setting really ambitious goals

but also finding the balance with not

demoralizing people if they don't hit

these really ambitious goals as you know

there was a there was a saying inside of

Airbnb it was add a zero add a zero at

the end which is to make to imagine

something order man to bigger the

exercise isn't necessarily to say if

people say they want to hit a goal I say

okay I added to zero you have to hit

that goal it's more the exercise of what

would it take to be 10x bigger or do

something 10 times better

because what you find is when you push

people they will sometimes think about

the problem differently and one of the

best ways to get unstuck from a problem

is to imagine a 10x scale or 10x better

or 10x faster where you can't do the

current process to do it you have to

think differently about the problem and

to think differently about the problem

means you have to deeply understand the

problem and to deeply understand the

problem you have to break it into its

components and we might call this like

first principle thinking what are the

foundational elements

that comprise this problem and how can

you reconstruct them so the first thing

is I think by adding a zero at least

conceptually for teams to helps some

understand a problem the second is I

think one of the most important things

for a Founder leader to do is set the

pace to a team I think the pace of the

team is one of the most important things

you can do and that pace is sometimes

governed not by how hard people work but

how decisive they are if you want to

improve the speed of a company then make

faster decisions and that fast decisions

come from a bias of action if we're in a

meeting we don't just say like okay like

let's Circle back on this next week no

we'll have it done by next week let's

stay in this meeting till it's done what

are you doing have a bias for Action

who's responsible okay what are you

doing okay let's check in an hour I'll

call you in the morning okay how are we

do this and so you end up getting three

months of work done over that period of

time but the last thing I'll say about

adding a zero Lenny is I remember there

was a story about a great uh basketball

coach named John Wooden he was one of

the uh winningest basketball coaches I

think in college basketball history

perhaps the greatest and someone asked

him once I'm going to paraphrase what he

said like what is your secret to success

and he said that you know I just asked

my players to do their very best and I

remember thinking to myself that doesn't

sound like the secret to success asking

people to do their best but there was an

implicit thing that he didn't say which

is that he saw potential people that

they never saw on themselves and so the

role of a leader is to see potential in

people that they may not even see

themselves and when I tell somebody it's

not good enough either I'm saying you're

not good enough or I believe that you

have more potential than you're showing

me so in other words you can push a team

and they could feel demoralized because

they can feel like what they're doing is

not good enough if they have a fixed

mindset or you create a growth mindset

organization where the more I'm involved

the more I say you can do better it's

because the more I believe in you and I

know that you have more in you and the

way to know if a team could do better is

if they're life dependent I could they

do it and Indie Grove used to say that

there's competency and motivation and

motivation is if they're like not

literally dependent on it but like if it

was a crisis or if it was like a

defining moment in their lives I think

the job of a leader is not to make it

life and death that's too far but to be

able to motivate a team to see potential

in them that they don't see in

themselves and to really push them to

set a Tempo to break something down to

first principal thinking and if you do

that then I think that's going to be the

opposite of these slow movings kind of

soulc crushing

bureaucracies I've definitely been

through that where you set a crazy goal

and then we ended up hitting it and so

I've seen that

myself with some of the things you've

talked about of say do it now we're not

going to wait another week to Circle

back and the stuff you talked about of

taking on the CPO role not having a CPO

and also all these launchers it sounds

like a lot of work and aot of hours what

have you learned about avoiding burnout

and creating balance and also just

helping people on your team avoid

burnout and creating balance so first of

all um I want to give you a a a very

surprising learning I weirdly

now the more I get involved this is so

weird the more in the details I am the

more time I have in my hands that's a

paradox and I want to explain that

Paradox it doesn't make any sense but

when I explain this process to people

that I would be in the details we'd have

one- shared Consciousness I would review

everything we would do endless edits of

even the press release it would seem

like I would be working 800 hours a week

and that people would be disempowered

and that no one would want to do

anything and I got just the opposite

here's what I found if you decide to be

in the details and get very very

Hands-On like I did it might be a lot

more work for about one to two years and

so for one to two years it was way more

work than the old way but once we turned

the corner suddenly everyone started

rowing the same direction suddenly I

didn't have to be in meetings anymore

and people would do what I wanted to do

if I wasn't there and by the way that's

what the culture is they say the culture

is what happens when you're not in the

room and the brand is what people say

when you're not in the room and so that

became our culture that suddenly there

was fewer conflicts in the company there

was less turnover people were rowing in

the same direction that I wasn't

reacting before I would get 10 surprises

nine were bad now I get 10 surprises

nine are good and you don't really have

to do anything about good surprises only

bad surprises that I used to have to

intervene in projects I wasn't involved

in because they were going off into the

wrong direction and by the time I got

involved I was associated with

dysfunction but I only got involved

because it was dysfunctional it wasn't

actually going well and then it was

three times this work to fix something

because we weren't involved in the very

early eight stages so

I I was much more involved I had a lot

less time on my hands initially and now

I actually weirdly have a lot more time

on my hands but to answer question on

burnout I think is another very good

question I do not think I'm the poster

child at least historically of work life

balance I'm 42 years old I live with a

golden retriever I don't yet have a

family and if you asked me when I was in

college how I thought my life would be

right now I probably would have thought

the inverse that I have a family and I'd

one day run a company and I did things

in a slightly different order but one of

the things I've learned is that there's

this temptation to work more and more

and more hours and sometimes you need to

say an artist you have to step away from

the painting and you actually start

getting more derivatives slower and

slower and so I basically have tried to

break it a practice to step away from

the work and so here's some of things I

do every other weekend I like don't

really work at all and then you know

every other weekend

I work pretty intensely if I had a

family it would probably be more like a

day a day of the weekend I'd work more

intensely so you know I would you

wouldn't be a parent every the weekend

but I'm not so it's a little different I

usually make sure I exercise and I never

miss a workout so I usually like wake up

I'll do like 20 minutes of morning

cardio in a pelaton I'll go to the gym

three or four times a week and do

weights I I'll basically do cardio just

about every day I make sure that I eat

really healthy I have like a kind of

classic like bodybuilding diet of five

to six meals a day um so I think I try

to make sure I do that I try to make

sure I get a fairly good amount of sleep

and then I the other two things I try to

do is like have really healthy

relationships I think one of the most

important things that will govern like

how happy you're in your life is your

relationships I think the two govern I

think the three things your health your

relationships and your work those are

probably the three most important things

so as long as you're healthy and you

have meaningful work the last his

relationships and there was this Harvard

study it's the longest study on human

happiness I think it's 85 years old

and the question was what's the secret

of happiness and of course they weren't

expecting to have a single answer but

they got one and the answer was the

secret to happiness if there is one is

healthy relationships and I had found

Lenny that over the time of being an

entrepreneur I had gotten totally

isolated that it was almost as if I

didn't have friends I had friends but I

didn't keep in touch with them and every

time I reached out to a friend I had to

get them up to speed on my life and if

to get people up the speed you're not

really keeping as much in touch with

them and so I started making a practice

a couple years ago to make sure that I

have a group of friends that I'm

constant in touch with including old

friends so I have a group of high school

friends we have a group chat we take one

to two trips together Tri together year

I have a group of college friends we

have a group chat we take probably a

couple trips together a Year by the way

doing airbnbs are great we all get in a

house together and it's like you your

opportunity to have a shared experience

and if you don't travel your old friends

you have only old stories to talk about

and then you kind of say the same old

stories over and over so you want to be

able to have new shared experiences when

I stay here in New York City I'm in New

York right now that's why you don't see

my typical background I stay in my

sister's apartment so she's got a

two-bedroom and I stay in her house

because I like to see her and I just

make sure I spend a lot of time with

friends and of course we travel I mean

traveling is what I kind of do with a

lot of my friends and then I like to

draw and read so I try to make sure it's

Health work and relationships and I try

to make sure I Bal of each and you might

call family relationships you know I'm

just I'm single but you know that would

be another version of it I heard you say

along the same lines on a different

podcast about how when you were really

busy you didn't have time to reach out

to anyone and they never thought they

could reach out to you because they

thought you were so busy in the old

world I was reacting so everyone thought

I was busy so the people I really cared

about a lot of them said well he's busy

so he reach out to me when he's not busy

but here's a problem I was so busy that

all I was doing all day was responding

to people and so if people I cared about

didn't reach out to me I was just I was

dealing with incoming I could barely

deal the incoming now that was a mistake

but I was reacting and so by the way

here's another lesson for Founders a lot

of Founders spend their time based on

reacting so people will email them and

they'll wake up and they'll repond to

emails and suddenly their email sets the

agenda people ask for meetings and

suddenly the meetings they take are

based on the people who email them

versus like here's my strategy and then

over the next year what are the

relationships I need to have and the

meetings I need to take to be able to

execute this strategy if my life were to

end in a year or in 10 years or some

time Horizon that's shorter than I

expected who are the people I would have

wanted to make sure I spent time with

and if you imagine that your life is

finite because it is and you imagine

you're not going to be her as long as

you thought you would be because it's

possible it would completely change how

you prioritize your time and think

suddenly you would start to say no to

things and you'd say yes to other things

I now try to say no to what I call fake

work which is things that feel like work

but they don't actually move the ball

down the field and I really try to say

yes to work that's very meaningful and

people that are very meaningful to me so

yeah it's a really really good insight

and by the way that metaphor Lenny it's

true of companies too you can sometimes

be like you don't want to only spend

your time reacting or or spending your

time with the employees reaching out to

you I mean you do want to do some of it

but then you're rewarding you know only

one type of behavior and the introverts

or the people that aren't reaching out

to you aren't get to get any attention

just one more question and then I have a

quick fun question at the end I know you

have to run if I were to ask people who

are the most inspiring leaders in Tech

and in business in general I think you'd

be near the top of that list you've been

through a lot of ups and downs you've

learned a lot of lessons on the along

the way what have you found has been

most helpful to helping you continue to

grow and keep up with the business the

way the business is growing the scale

and just to take on this leadership role

is it like coaching is it reading is it

other mentors something along those

lines you asked really good questions

and by way thank you I um so I'll I'll

share a few thoughts I was I was with

Sam mman probably a few weeks ago at

dinner

and I told him I still feel like I have

a lot to prove I haven't made it yet and

he was like really surprised he's like

whatat are you talking

about and I didn't even realize that he

thought that was an absurd notion but I

said no I haven't made it yet it's not

to say I'm not grateful or I feel like I

need to get somewhere so that therefore

I'll feel like worthy but I have this

still this kind of beginner's

mindset that the bigger I get

the more a beginner I tend to feel it's

like a weird feeling I think like when

you when I first took off I think I

thought I like maybe like I knew

everything or I knew more than I

certainly did but then you get past some

Peak when you go into this prop where

you realize oh my God the moment you get

to some Frontier of knowledge you start

to become a beginner again and

everything is new and so I think the

first thing I try to do is to be a

beginner you know Pablo Picasso had a

was saying he said it took me four years

to learn to paint like Raphael but a

lifetime to learn to paint like a child

and so I've tried to always see the the

World Through The Eyes of a child and I

think one of the key characteristics of

a child is curiosity to see everything

with fresh eyes to not have too many

judgments like when I was trying to

figure out how to run a company I

studied the history of division

organizations and I studied Steve Jobs

but also studied like what Bill Gates

did and I studied like Alfred Sloan at

General ERS that mit's MIT Sloan is

named after and actually the founding of

divisional companies which I believe was

Dupont they were making powder for

Gunpowder the war ends what do we do

with powder turns out powder can be used

for paint but the way you sell gunpowder

and paint our different sales channels

so they created what we now know as the

divisional structure so I try to like

understand the sources of things I try

to learn I try to be Shameless about

reaching out to help I think that a lot

of people are afraid to reach out to

help because they think other people are

busy the biggest honor most people get

in their lives or one of the biggest

honor is when other people ask them for

help because we all just want to feel

useful so don't feel ashamed to reach

out to something for help it actually

like it gives a lot of them great honor

and I think you don't need to reach out

to people 10 years ahead of you they can

just be people a year ahead of you in

fact an entrepreneur getting started I

might be less youthful then than

somebody two years ahead of them that

knows like the latest distribution

channels that I like kind of have

forgotten so I think that that is the

key it's learning it's growing it's

curiosity it's constantly having that

hunger and that fire to always want to

be better to remember to feel like I

haven't made it yet because the reason I

say I haven't made it yet is because if

I've made it then I'm done and I want to

feel feel like an artist you know Bob

Dylan used to say an artist has to be in

a constant place of becoming and so long

as they don't become something then

they're going to be okay and so you you

have to always be evolving learning

growing and the canvas keeps getting

bigger the mountain toop keeps getting

higher and I feel like I'm just getting

started and I hope that you know I I

don't know how long you intend to do the

podcast but I intend to do this for a

long time and if you do or or whatever

we'll definitely want to have talks and

I hope years from now Lenny I hope 70%

of what I said I still believe but if

100% of what I say I still believe then

I probably haven't learned very much and

so if 90% I say I don't believe anymore

then I'm like you know kind of

delusional and wrong but if but but I

sincerely hope that I retract or change

or modify a few things I said today in a

few years because that will mean that

I've gained more wisdom and so how do I

do that by being curious that is

beautiful it reminds me you mentioned

Sam Alman I'm there's a tweet that he

put out a couple weeks ago that I'll

read real quick many people have reached

out to offer help and advice over the

past year no one has gotten close to

Brian chesky in terms of delivering he

will take a midnight call at any time

put in hours of work on any topic answer

difficult questions correctly with

Clarity make any intro

Etc how's that feel to have seen that it

was I I had no who was going to do that

and I just want to say like I think Sam

is obviously like a once in a generation

founder I think what he's done with open

ey is extraordinary and when he launched

chat gbt I had known him for a really

long period of time and I kind of knew a

sense of the journey he was about to go

on and I think that he was very deep

into the technical part and then

research Orient part of open AI but it

turned out there was a product a design

a marketing a leadership a sales there

were all these other functional

responsibilities and so being able to

just play a small part in you know

giving some advice when necessary and he

would take what he wanted to disc

discard others but I think Lenny maybe

this goes to another thing which is all

I tried to do with Sam is what other

people did for me when I started before

y commentator there's a person named

Michael cyel he's in y commentator and

he used to meet with me and give me

advice and he wasn't an official adviser

he wasn't an investor I didn't hire him

or anything like that he wasn't board

and I asked him I said how do I repay

you and he said well I want you to pass

this on to other Founders and I would

meet with a lot of people in the valley

and there was just this like incredible

culture of

generosity that that we all were going

to win you know if the ecosystem was

healthy and the ecos would be healthy if

we all helped one another and you kind

of pay it forward and so you know I um

you know I think that it's just one

continuation of the valley of people

helping one another learning from one

another and I also feel like I learn by

teaching as

well final question when someone joins

Airbnb there is a very long-standing

tradition of sharing a fun fact about

yourself who might be the longest

standing tradition uh it's always tough

on the spot but I'm curious Brian if

there's a fun fact that you want to

share about yourself that maybe people

don't already know yeah so a fun fact

about me is that I actually spent most

of my life as an artist

you know when I was 5 years old I

remember my parents like take me to the

Norman Rock Museum and I would sit in

front of you know his beautiful

illustrations they're really paintings I

should say I shouldn't even call them

illustrations and I would try to

reproduce them and I got obsessive with

art I remember when I was maybe in

elementary school I asked Santa for

poorly designed Christmas toys so I

could redesign them when I got soly

older one of my friends I went to his

house I'm gonna say I was like eight or

nine years old and his dad was basically

like redoing his deck but his dad

decided to design it himself I think

maybe's an architect so he had this

giant dining room table and he had like

this velum paper and he had a t-square

and a drawing triangle and a protractor

and I just the cool they were really

cool looking tools and they were

basically floor plans and Architectural

drawings so I got into architectural and

landscape design when was like eight or

nine and that led to my interest in

architecture I went to RPI was a

freshman of co uh of high school to do

like a pre-ol program then I got into

like more and more drawing and figure

drawing then I got to film and animation

then I got involved in in environmental

design I realized that if you buy stock

in a company you could get these cool

glossy annual reports this is kind of

when the internet was kind of like Nason

and people still mailed annual reports

and so I got my dad to buy a few shares

at some Disney stock and I got these

renderings and the had report of theme

parks and I started like drawing like

and designing like theme parks in

communities

and I was at this private school for

actually for hockey because I had it

parallel life where I was playing ice

hockey and I I thought I was going to

play college hockey my dad was really

into it I was really into it and I had

an art teacher in high school at this

military school that's another fun fact

I basically went to a military High

School wow did not know that and at this

military Sports Academy kind of oriented

high school I had the same art teacher

from 8th grade to 11th grade and that's

not a good thing by the way I saying

this a good thing because I I was not

diversifying my skills and so I leave

this high school because I wanted to

pursue different interests than hockey

and I transferred to my public high

school late my junior year and imagine

like transferring to a new public high

school late junior year and I meet my

art teacher who changes my life her name

is Miss

Williams and she sees my artwork and by

the way my mom was

nervous about me becoming an artist she

used to sell me I chose a job for the

love and I paid no I got paid no money

she used to choose a job that pays you a

lot of money and I said to my mom one

day I'm going to be an artist she said

oh my God you chose the only job where

you're going to pay less than a social

worker so I think my parents you know

they were support of me going to Art but

they were very nervous and then Miss

Williams told my mom she said don't

worry he's going to be a famous artist

one day I wasn't to become a famous

artist but what that did is I think it

gave everyone the confidence for me to

pursue art I ended up being one of the a

winner there were multiple winners of a

national art competition and I had my

artwork displayed in the retunda gallery

that then led to me getting a

scholarship at the r School design where

I end up going to Ry it's like you know

it's kind of like it's kind of like MIT

for design or whatever it's like a it's

a it's prestigious Art and Design School

but I got to risti and I realized I was

born a 100 years too late for what I

wanted to do which is you know draw and

paint and I felt like at that point

photography and now ai generated art but

certainly even back then photography was

replacing a lot of the skills that like

that I need that that I had and that's

when I was in my fresh beer of college

and I learned about a funk field called

industrial design they IND they said

industrial design is the design of

everything from a toothbrush to a space

ship and everything in between and

really Lenny maybe just to rande the

story because I know was a fun fact but

I'm kind of just this is the pre

founding story that I never tell I don't

think I could have ever done what I did

if I wasn't an industrial designer I

think industrial designer is different

than a graphic designer because an

industrial designer you have to actually

you know you have to work with

Engineering in your in your training you

have to like I worked with mechanical

engineers electric Engineers you have to

understand manufacturing industrial

design very accountable to sales if you

design a building an architect and you

design office building office building

doesn't get leased the architect is

usually not on the hook for it but if

you're industrial designer you design a

product doesn't sell you're like kind of

on the hook for it at least people

assume you didn't design a good product

so you to understand marketing and

strategy and so that became this Gateway

but I didn't really want to make items

and objects my whole life but at Ry the

biggest value I got in addition to

learning industrial design was I met my

co-founder Joe gbia and the day of

graduation Joe looks to me he says Brian

I think we're going to start a company

together one day and I had no idea what

he was referring to so I moved to Los

Angeles where I work as an industrial

deser for two years when one day I got a

package in the mail that changed my life

I opened this package and it's a SE

cushion with a handle on it and it's a

letter from Joe my my friend from Ry he

said I started a

company in everyone in San Francisco I

live in San Francisco and all these

people are starting cupies you should

come here and this is in 2007 YouTube

had just come out I had like seen all

these Steve Jobs Keynotes finally on

YouTube I didn't know who he was I never

heard his voice before before YouTube

and apple had this Renaissance and

Google was on fire and Facebook was

taking off and it felt like the gears of

the world that were turning were in San

Francisco and so one day I go into to

work and I quit my job my boss is

dumbfounded and I pack everything the

old uh old uh backseat of old Honda

Civic I get to San Francisco and Joe

tells me the rent is

$1,150 I don't have enough money to pay

our rent this design conference come to

San Francisco all the hotels are sold

out we said what if we turned our house

into a bed and breakfast for design

conference I didn't have any beds but Jo

had through our beds we called the airb

and breakfast so my fun fact was I was

an artist and designer before Airbnb

really an artist at least how I thought

about it and I think that's maybe one of

the things that makes irban be different

because there's not a lot of designers

or artists running Fortune 500 or SCP

500 companies and I think that intuition

imagination design curiosity I think we

need more of that by the way I think the

people listening I think everyone on

this what listen you has these qualities

but I think that a lot of companies it's

like we're a body and the companies are

cut off at the head they're disembodied

from their heart and they're often

really biased towards one side of their

head and I think some of the greatest

scientists played musical instruments

like Einstein I mean I think that like

being a whole well-rounded way of

thinking about the world is good so

anyways that's my final thought I love

that fun fact because it almost explains

everything you've been talking about

which is rethinking the way companies

can run doing things super differently

so I really appreciate you sharing that

I also love that it transitioned into

the creation Story of airb B which

happens a lot at airb B people hear that

story over and over because it's h so

interesting and so important Brian I

know you have to run thank you so much

for being here and being generous with

your time thank you Lenny and

congratulations everything you're doing

thanks Brian bye

everyone thank you so much for listening

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