--- title: Brian Chesky & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks | TIME description: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on strategically adapting to challenges. Interviewed by MSNBC Anchor and NBC News Senior Business Correspondent, Stephanie Ruhle. canonical: https://time.com/video/efuatOm2/ og:title: Brian Chesky & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks og:description: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on strategically adapting to challenges. Interviewed by MSNBC Anchor and NBC News Senior Business Correspondent, Stephanie Ruhle. og:url: https://time.com/video/efuatOm2/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/efuatOm2/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Brian Chesky & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks twitter:description: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on strategically adapting to challenges. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Brian Chesky & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks [Watch (HLS stream): Brian Chesky & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/efuatOm2.m3u8) (18:18)  _Published 2021-04-30. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on strategically adapting to challenges. Interviewed by MSNBC Anchor and NBC News Senior Business Correspondent, Stephanie Ruhle._ --- Jul 28, 2023 4:03 AM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Satya Nadella & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks](/video/7NGSXUjI/) ### Satya Nadella & Stephanie Ruhle | TIME100 Talks [Digitizing Wellness : James Park \(Interviewed by Stephanie Ruhle\)](/video/G7dundIE/) ### Digitizing Wellness : James Park (Interviewed by Stephanie Ruhle) [Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on the Power of Asking for Help](/video/fy92SP8r/) ### Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on the Power of Asking for Help --- ## Transcript Hi. I'm Stephanie ruhle senior business correspondent with NBC News and MSNBC anchor. I'm here to today. Time on hundred to interview a business icon and a friend of mine. Brian chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. Brian, I have to start with excellent shot you nailed it on ran for Airbnb. So Bravo to your like it's like you're doing an Airbnb at exactly how to make sure everything match them with symmetrical. The wildest to 2020, you are on top of the list from the beginning of the year, the pandemic hitting and demand for your business. Being decimated to ending the year with a truly extraordinary, IPO both for investors and end for you personally, talked us through, I guess start with Used to describe 2020 in a word. What would it be? Wow. I would allow that's a hard one. I would say defining, it was the most defining your, my life, probably, and I in in a year and in a journey of Airbnb, Unit, 13 years, I never thought in 2020 will be came back, preparing it for IPO that it would be such a defining year and with Sol test, every part of this company, you know, we lost 80% of our business in 8 weeks and most businesses that lose 80% of his to sneak peek. Don't even live to tell about it, and if you do at least indelible marks will never forget and I think that's kind of what happened for us. Were you momentarily paralyzed with pandemic first hit? Because I mean your risk management all the time and almost no business. Leader was assessing is pandemic but the way it hit your business, how did it feel to you in the beginning? I'd say the business Flash before our eyes. I'd luckily never had a near-death experience in my life. Those who described in your death experience though, describe having Clarity, you know, your life flashing before your eyes and having Clarity. We had almost a business person of that, you know, there was a lot of concern. And at that moment, I actually saw a lot of clarity and it I felt incredibly present not paralyzed. I felt very, very present. I member when the crisis first broke out actually, one of my board members Ken Chenault said, this is your defining moment as a leader and that that kind of was in my head. And I started thinking to myself every decision that we're about to make will be decisions that years from now. If even lifts as hell about it, people are going to like you know we're going to really know that if we live to tell about it cuz the decision was made and there's nothing like when people need you do you feel a sense of responsibility you know a good time you don't really feel the same responsibilities and bad time. In a crisis. Everyone needs you. And that's the moment. You feel the sense of responsibility and that was the moment where instead of being paralyzed, I think we jumped into action. We saw that just needed a billion dollars, refunds, we jumped into refund that but now hosts have short falter and lose your money. We took $259 sent it to them, but now investors are really concerned about the investment and it was plummeting. We had a reason Versi funny. See you kind of just have to be in triage one step at a time. And as a child, I remember my dad. My dad was an entrepreneur, my parents both social workers, but my dad growing up, you say to me. Brian Things Are Never As Good as they seem and they're never as bad as they seem. And I had to remind the company that every single week. I said they never were as good, as you thought they were, and that means, they're not as bad as they are now and bring to get through everything one week at a time. But at the same time, you were hiring a new members of your management. Game because you were preparing yourself even though the time it probably felt a million miles away. You were preparing yourself to go public. So, how are you doing those two things? It will not only take care of a bunch of stakeholders in a crisis. When I get to take care of your gas, your host, your employees, your shareholders, and the Community Serve, we had to downsizing extract contracted company. While imagining it's almost like driving a car, get the slow into the turn to then speed up after and you can only Retreat, I knew that we only cut, we couldn't cut our way to success. We had initially cut, we took ten divisions of the company, we reducing the one, our core business. But in that moment, we were always trying to plan what was next and what was next with? We noticed people aren't traveling for business, they're not Crossing Borders, but they are doing something to give me in the car and they're going without a tank of gas away too small towns in real. They're trying to hang have a meaningful experience with her friends and family. We saw that is an opportunity and I guess the bigger lesson that I learned, unfortunately been through more than one crisis, is every crisis has a choice for you to say, why is this happening to me? What what's a choice to say? This is an opportunity, I'm not going to be missed it, but this is an opportunity for us to do something. And I think even in the darkest of our days, we did see an opportunity, we saw a huge moment to ride this new wave and that's really what happened. The moment when you suddenly stop, oh my gosh, people are leaving cities. You know, we have the solution at that point, you laid off a lot of people Couples Tower to rebuild know, we laid a 1900 Floyd's plus a thousand contractors, so, almost 3,000 people. And then of course we had some people resigned after that cuz not never knew if there was any future Airbnb. So much of my job with, I had to I had to be optimistic, I had to make the company opportunistic, but this is a very detail-oriented group. I couldn't just sell blind optimism. So, I had to continue to sell one week at a time, we're going to get through this, and it's worth staying here, and the moment we laid ever went off, we started noticing and taking a piss, so we don't remove too much of customer support people. Suddenly we get hit with a huge amount of demand. We had to be higher thousands of people especially in call centers around the world. So yeah, it really wasn't the kind of thing where you had to make so many decisions in turn the organization. And so the company I can do that. What I really needed was a lot of trust, because I wasn't able to debate every decision. I Member One time, I had a decision. We were having a long debate and I said, except if we have to do this for a thousand decisions when I can make it through it. And so at that moment, we said we're going to have to make really fast decisions and I think the company really, they trusted me. And you know, I think hopefully return that we were able to move very, very quickly added board meetings, every Sunday, not a reporter cuz I watch all the boys. I want to make a 3-month decisions every week. So I'll tell you about it. Every Sunday, I met with the executive team every week and every week I also look in the camera and talk to all of our employees and that stores are going to get through every step of the way. And I think what I saw you do you know I always liked you learn a lot about people in a crisis. You learn who your friends are you learn, who is not your friend. What I learned is the vast majority of people exceeded my Patience. And I learned a lot about myself in a crisis to I learned that you know we can handle a lot of pain and and and we really am passionate about what we're doing. And sometimes I think it's easy to let braces and data drown out your own inner instance in a crisis. You really only have I am to just lean on. We already know on 20/20, what's this pandemic? You know, your business is worst nightmare, but as a result, the way travel pivoted, has it become the Silver Lining. I mean, I think about the traditional Hotel business. What's the bread-and-butter for hotel business travel? This is travel is gone, and it has a very nice. It is much more limited going forward for you. How much of a long-term when is this, especially now that so many of us were looking for long-term places to stay? In the travel industry were predicting that Airbnb would be worse off in. The reason why is after September 11th in 2008. The first travel to recover was business, travel and Leisure, Travel has more Leisure shop, it's a lot of people predicting. We're going to go out of business. Hilton Americas are going to come back. And what ended up happening is because of a world of Zoom. We started realizing, we don't have to shop for business, but the more people work from home, the more they want to go on a vacation with people. They care about. So what I think has happened Stephanie is really were living in. Another inflection point of travel, probably his biggest world war world war with the Advent of modern Aviation and cars. That created a huge amount of travel and 1950. 25 million people. Cross the border travel one and a half billion people crossword travel in Just 19 Action Point as big as World War II for travel. In the reason why is because traveling and living are starting to blur together. That's what I think is starting to happen. People are traveling. Staying longer. The longer your trip is the more you want to be in a home. People aren't just going to Honolulu in Vegas. They're going to small towns and communities that don't have hotels. And so this has been the great equalizer. Much of this is connected to remote work. We didn't you able to work remotely and now so many of us want to stay doing that. Have you change that? How you see when I work with thought of like remote work as like it was a distinct much? I thought of it like working from home as a way that people are being really productive and I felt like you would be really disconnected if you work remotely. I think that's one of the things. We've now all realized is, we're all. I think, like, we surprised how much work can get done from home, especially in this world of Zim at so I don't think we're ever going back to the way things, as we're even CEOs, or saying they're going to bring people back to the office. My prediction is 2 years from now, many of them are going to realize, they're going to be even more flexible than they're saying. We're all about to play an experiment out. I think the companies with the offer more flexibility to get the best talent. People do want to still be together and I do think we're going to want to be together, just not five. We can office, I think people want freedom, they want to be able to travel, they want to go to have experience with their family. They want to get a live places other than San Francisco new ark. They want to live anywhere, but I think this idea that you can work anywhere, you can live anywhere there for you, can travel anywhere. This is a huge Liberation for travel. Ave Airbnb. How, you know people, who, who do my job for a living, spend a lot of time talking about how I did the country is how we don't trust each other. We don't trust business neighbors. We don't speak to our family. When I think about you, the most extraordinary business success stories. In the last 10 years is Airbnb and Uber. Your business is based on this idea of sharing and Trust. So, how do you see society and culture right now? I'm guessing very different I don't think the world is nearly as divided as we think it is. I think that, you know, if you if you read the news or you argue with people on on social media, you're going to convince yourself that we have irreconcilable differences. There's also it's a really unfortunate polls about people on one side of put of a mile for leaving the other people shouldn't, they're not even full human beings me. There's really people are really getting so divisive. And the interesting thing is this every night on Airbnb, people from completely different political aisles live together and the best way to change since someone's mine is not with data generally, the best way to change his mind is not with a coherent argument. For most people, the best way to change your mind about. Somebody else is to happen. Walk in their shoes, there's nothing quite like walking in someone else's shoes and whether it's people in your car, San Francisco going to a classic red State and living in their home. You know, people on their best behavior when they're traveling. House. Feels like, no matter who that person is. I have to, you know, I have to really take care of this people cuz they're vulnerable. And so, I think every single night, you'll have more than a million people from different cultures, different political background living together. And I think the thing that I've learned starting Airbnb and having you know, around 800 million, yes to Rivals later is that your people are family good. Despite what you read every single day in the News That's the very small percentage. Amber 99% the same even though we like to spend all of our time debating at 1% and make us all different and we try to make those 1%. Difference is Teaneck reconcilable. We have the date of the show otherwise we have the data, people weren't good, we'd be out of business if they had irreconcilable differences, they wouldn't live It's a very tricky time to be a business leader with so many demands on you. We've been let down by our government leaders and we seen CEOs and Founders step in and it's really complicated. I'm guessing very complicated for someone like, you who has any normous, stakeholder based from your guests, to your shareholders, across the world. How complicated is this been? Because we saw you step in in a big way I raised you were I am in Washington DC cancelling reservations around. Yeah I mean after the interaction before the inauguration be cancelled, thousands the reservation what I would say Stephanie is this we're not going to try to make everyone happy and I think any CEO that tries to Aquis every state going to make them, happy is kind of on a losing game. Any CEO that therefore says, why bother is also going to lose? I think the very best thing we can do is stick to work principles. Define, stakeholders are guests or host, our employees are shareholders to Kimmy's, you serve, we kind of wrote out, like, how we want to serve each of them. And we try to really measure our impact, you know, I went to, I'm not a business person by training. I went to the Rhode Island School of Design. I was designer and I kind of come from a world where things aren't zero-sum. I come from a world of design where you try to design a win-win-win for everyone. And I'm not such a state and naive that. You always can do that. But I think we sometimes think of things does trade-offs as a first Resort and I think you're kind of a last resort. Do I do think there's a better way to serve and I think that, you know, I think that the new generation of leaders are acknowledging that we have responsibility of shareholders. But the best thing for shareholders is that Society wants us to exist. I mean, that's the best thing for shareholders that societies rooting for you and decided to only in route for you in a trust, you going to trust you. They feel like you're authentic, you're telling the truth and you lead with principles and Yukata. You kind of like put yourself on the line. You can do things that cost you something and if people never see you do something that cost you something and there I think it's a very common to be skeptical. Why are you doing that? How are you benefiting? And so, I think that is the new social contract theory for this pent-up travel demand. I mean, from people who are vaccinated, I mean, we are ready to go for. Now we do but, you know, I want to, I want it. I do intend to prepare for the high-class problem that we have more demand than we ever imagined, you know, just take it. For example. We've been looking at cohorts of users, the fastest Rancor in Airbnb, are people over 60. Why is that? Because they're vaccinated while they're part of yours, too, but they're also vaccinated. And so, if that's a leading indicator, we think this will be a Bible rebound, unlike anything the world seen in the last hundred years. And so if that's the case where I need to go a lot more hoes then, have you ever Airbnb drone house? Oh yeah. Yeah, we were the first host. I hosted hundreds of people not in this house. Now I know you got it, like it's a little bit harder now because like, you know, the whole world to come into my living room, that's not going to make sure that, you know, I don't want the competitors thing in my living room and going through my notebooks. But other than that, I'm pretty open. So, yeah, I just don't like people Well, not in this house but I do I do hope to host people again soon. So and I've done some, I've done a lot of Hosting I probably I don't know why I posted I used to host a lot of people in my three bedroom apartment that I lived in before I got a house. You still have that apartment. It's, it's, it's this apartment 19 Rausch Street in San Francisco and now the company owns it. So, if you need help ask for it, and if you can give help, give it. And it really seems to be sort of the ethos of how you built Airbnb. And I know I'm excited to see what you do next Brian. Thank you so much for your time translation. 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