Brian Chesky

It's kind of like don't renovate the whole house, pick one room and make it perfect and then go room to room.

So I really told teams like, hey, I actually didn't replace the team.

I took the team that was already working.

I handpicked some people on the team, but I really just taught them the pace and I would review work very regularly.

So I'd sometimes review the work weekly or even daily.

to just teach them a level of intensity, a level of perfection, and it was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and I will tell you that not everyone liked it, and some people didn't stick around the company because they didn't like that way of working, but those who stuck around, and the vast majority did, they realized, wow, actually, when the CEO is involved, it's actually easier, there's less bureaucracy, I try to make the work better,

And I try to clear all obstacles.

And so I basically did that group by group.

And the great thing is like, I was in massive number of details, reviewing everything for years, but eventually it's like muscle memory.

It's like, I don't know, an instructor or a coach

You have to teach them, but once they learn and they have the muscle memory, like a golf swing, you can step back and now it's muscle memory.

So now I don't have to be in all these details, all these teams, but I would just say a couple things to people listening.

Great leadership is presence, not absence.

I think a generation of management consulting or management school, management teaching, taught us that CEOs

should trust their people and get out of the way, and I don't think trust and getting out of the way are the same thing.

Again, I think leadership is presence, and you should actually be partnering with your people.

You should be on the field with them.

If you're a cavalry general, you should be on a horse.

You should be on the battlefield.

You're not overseas somewhere else just writing out blueprints.