A Conversation with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky

Are you seeing signs of people making trade offs? Ten days turns into seven days, A hundred dollars a night turns into seventy five. You know, it's funny. And we we are not seeing um any like any like measurable slowdown. What we said in our Q one outlook as we're expecting pretty steady growth. Now we are expecting a little bit more accelerated growth in short and stays, but that's that's more of a recovery. We're seeing more recovery short

term stays. We're seeing more people go to cities, and we're seeing more people cross borders between urban and cross border. That was around eight percent of our Night's book before the pandemic. So it's really more a matter of a recovery of the old ways of traveling and a real sustainability of the new ways, like including people staying longer and traveling to more to places. Dave Stevenson, your CFO, said yesterday on the call, this is growth mode now,

not necessarily profit maximization mode. What is growth mode actually look like? Well, you know what, there's something kind of interesting that I've learned in Silken Valley. I think there's this really like simple way of thinking. You're either in growth mode or profitability mode. And what I've learned since the pandemic is as we've gotten more profitable, we also got more efficient. And as we got more efficient, we got more focused we were able to grow faster. So

we're going to continue to do both. But we are focused on three priorities this year. Number one, we want to affect the core service. We want people to love Airbnb, and that means loving every detail about it. So we basically did the storyboard of the end end experience for a guest and host, and we are listening out all the different things that people want to be better a VnB and we're trying to systematically fix them one at

a time. Once we do that, then we need when to make sure we have enough host If people are watching on TV, they probably have traveled their MNB or know someone who has. I want people to say the same thing about hosting. They know somebody who is a host because it's so mainstream and so popular. And along the way, we're actually laying the foundation for us to extend beyond our core business, and we're thinking about pretty

expansive the big ideas. So that's what we mean by growth mode, that we are perfecting the core, making hosting mainstream, and we're thinking about big ideas beyond beyond the core business. But the cool thing is that we can stay really lean, really disciplined, because I don't think growth and profitably have to be a major trade off. And I hope that's what the lesson of Airbnb is that you can do. So what are the big ideas beyond the core business?

Because you know, obviously you made some hard chill voices during the pandemic to pull back on some of those, Well, I'll just share a couple of small things. But I mean, I I gotta, I gotta, I gotta have a hook to get you to get me back on this show. So so I'm gonna I'm gonna hold something back. But um so, let me just say that twice a year, around May and November, we do these releases the summer in winter release. We've got a pretty big idea for May.

But I'm gonna hold that back. I gotta have you back, have me back on the show. But we are thinking about, you know, investing a little bit more in experiences, you know, and I'm really really excited for that opportunity. You know, Longer term stays we think is a really continual opportunity

for us. So we think those are really interesting. We also think that there's some really great services for guests in hosts that we think they're going to really like, and there might even be some things people want to pay for. So these are some of the initial ideas we have. But you know, a lot of the big exciting things I'm gonna have to come back on to tell you about, all right, t v D. So long term stays you mentioned of Gross Night's book, has that plateau?

Do you think that's max at this point? I honestly, Um, well, let's let's think about from a first principal standpoint, why does that business even exist In the first place. That business exists because there's a gap between people traveling in a short term basis and people signing one year leases. And that gap has increased as more people have gotten flexible. You know, not everyone works remotely as flexible work of policies,

but a lot more people than before the pandemic. We're seeing a lot more people want to travel for summer. We're seeing a lot more people relocating. We're seeing a lot more people that are kind of living different places month to month. I think this is a very long term trend. I think there was an initial like adoption that was unique in his vertical nature during the pandemic. I think it is normalizing, but over the course of ten years, that's going to keep going up because people

are gonna continue to get more flexible. Still, you've got inflation layoffs happening almost everywhere but airbnb, and I wonder if this catches up, Like, what are you worried about when you see a tough few years ahead for the global economy. Well, I certainly worry about um, you know our host I mean a lot of them live at or below meeting income and aravon B is an incredibly important way from them to make money. And I think the air VYB can be a way for more people

to become a host. As far as our employees, though, you know, we did make some hard choices, but here's a stat we have five percent fewer employees than before the pandemic and we have more revenue. So we're extremely disciplined, very focused, were very lean, and I think we're pretty insulated from um A reduction four standpoint, and we are really lean. We're really focused, and you know, we basically made a lot of hard decisions and then we never

left that discipline. And it was partly because we didn't We knew we were living in a time and certainty. But it's also because we knew that as we got more disciplined in Lean, it actually became a better experience to work here. It was easier to get work done, it was easier to innovate. So I think that you know, we're ready for whatever storms ahead. Let's talk about the storm. We've got fourteen billion dollars in cash a mass. How are you thinking about what to do with that? Is

that just a massive rainy Day recession. Fund Well, I hope it's more than that. You know, we are. We are absolutely going to be looking at growth opportunities to invest in. But one of the lessons I learned from before the pandemic is I remember I had a teacher said, Brian, you can do everything you want in your life, just not at the same time. And so I want us to be incredibly rigorous, thinking one step in front of the other. But we are absolutely looking at expanding our market,

going to some new opportunities. So where there's a good opportunity, we will invest. Where We're going to continue to be extremely disciplined, and you know, expect us to generate a lot more free cash flow this year as well. All Right, we're gonna have to have you back to talk about new opportunities and big ideas. You've got me curious. Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO. Thank you so much for taking the time. Guys, I'll send it back to thank you very much. Elling