Brian Chesky

If you wanted to just find a home in Croatia, you don't even need a website. You can just get a friend. You can get a house. The part that makes Airbnb hard – is 4 million people a night from nearly every country in the world, more countries than Coca-Cola operates, living together. That's the part that makes it hard, the scale.

If you wanted to just find a home in Croatia, you don't even need a website. You can just get a friend. You can get a house. The part that makes Airbnb hard – is 4 million people a night from nearly every country in the world, more countries than Coca-Cola operates, living together. That's the part that makes it hard, the scale.

If you wanted to just find a home in Croatia, you don't even need a website. You can just get a friend. You can get a house. The part that makes Airbnb hard – is 4 million people a night from nearly every country in the world, more countries than Coca-Cola operates, living together. That's the part that makes it hard, the scale.

And the scale is the only way you can actually do this profitably or very, very profitably as well. So that's the part that makes it really difficult. In other words, I remember we had, I think it was Doug Leone from Sequoia Capital. This is like 10 years ago. He comes to my office and he said, you have the hardest business ever. of any of the Sequoia portfolio companies to run.

And the scale is the only way you can actually do this profitably or very, very profitably as well. So that's the part that makes it really difficult. In other words, I remember we had, I think it was Doug Leone from Sequoia Capital. This is like 10 years ago. He comes to my office and he said, you have the hardest business ever. of any of the Sequoia portfolio companies to run.

And the scale is the only way you can actually do this profitably or very, very profitably as well. So that's the part that makes it really difficult. In other words, I remember we had, I think it was Doug Leone from Sequoia Capital. This is like 10 years ago. He comes to my office and he said, you have the hardest business ever. of any of the Sequoia portfolio companies to run.

And he said, first of all, you have to have a mobile app, but you need a website. This is when Uber only had a mobile app. So you need to be on every platform. You need to be in every country in the world. But you need supply and demand, and they're not in the same city. Uber could go one city at a time. They can get riders and drivers in one city. We had to get...

And he said, first of all, you have to have a mobile app, but you need a website. This is when Uber only had a mobile app. So you need to be on every platform. You need to be in every country in the world. But you need supply and demand, and they're not in the same city. Uber could go one city at a time. They can get riders and drivers in one city. We had to get...

And he said, first of all, you have to have a mobile app, but you need a website. This is when Uber only had a mobile app. So you need to be on every platform. You need to be in every country in the world. But you need supply and demand, and they're not in the same city. Uber could go one city at a time. They can get riders and drivers in one city. We had to get...

like supply everywhere and demand everywhere and perfectly match the corridors. It is highly regulated, as regulated as Uber, probably even more regulated in many ways. And the hotel commissions and the hotel trade councils are significantly more powerful than the taxi union. So there is a very, very difficult business.

like supply everywhere and demand everywhere and perfectly match the corridors. It is highly regulated, as regulated as Uber, probably even more regulated in many ways. And the hotel commissions and the hotel trade councils are significantly more powerful than the taxi union. So there is a very, very difficult business.

like supply everywhere and demand everywhere and perfectly match the corridors. It is highly regulated, as regulated as Uber, probably even more regulated in many ways. And the hotel commissions and the hotel trade councils are significantly more powerful than the taxi union. So there is a very, very difficult business.

We're handling a lot of money through the platform, over $90 billion a year, which is the GDP of Croatia. We have to deal with physical safety and more types of physical safety than even ride sharing because of all the myriad things. Obviously, there's a lot of accidental issues that can occur. You have to deal with some of the hardest customer service challenges you can imagine.

We're handling a lot of money through the platform, over $90 billion a year, which is the GDP of Croatia. We have to deal with physical safety and more types of physical safety than even ride sharing because of all the myriad things. Obviously, there's a lot of accidental issues that can occur. You have to deal with some of the hardest customer service challenges you can imagine.

We're handling a lot of money through the platform, over $90 billion a year, which is the GDP of Croatia. We have to deal with physical safety and more types of physical safety than even ride sharing because of all the myriad things. Obviously, there's a lot of accidental issues that can occur. You have to deal with some of the hardest customer service challenges you can imagine.

Somebody checks in at 11 p.m. in Paris. They're from Tokyo. They don't speak French, and the host isn't responsive, and they have to call customer service. Yeah. You start to really think about – you have to manage the quality of supply that you don't actually own or control. But you have to influence the quality, and you're competing with an alternative supply that has a front desk.

Somebody checks in at 11 p.m. in Paris. They're from Tokyo. They don't speak French, and the host isn't responsive, and they have to call customer service. Yeah. You start to really think about – you have to manage the quality of supply that you don't actually own or control. But you have to influence the quality, and you're competing with an alternative supply that has a front desk.

Somebody checks in at 11 p.m. in Paris. They're from Tokyo. They don't speak French, and the host isn't responsive, and they have to call customer service. Yeah. You start to really think about – you have to manage the quality of supply that you don't actually own or control. But you have to influence the quality, and you're competing with an alternative supply that has a front desk.

And by the way, I could keep going on and on and on or search problem. People think that like Google's got one of the hardest search problems. Airbnb's got a more pedestrian search problem. And I'm not saying we have any type of search technology like Google, but here's the difference. When you type something in Google, when's the last time you needed to ever look at the third page of Google?

And by the way, I could keep going on and on and on or search problem. People think that like Google's got one of the hardest search problems. Airbnb's got a more pedestrian search problem. And I'm not saying we have any type of search technology like Google, but here's the difference. When you type something in Google, when's the last time you needed to ever look at the third page of Google?