Brian Chesky Live on TBPN

People overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. I think that's true of AI. People are wildly overestimating

AI. People are wildly overestimating what AI will do to society in the next 2 3 4 years. And they're probably wildly underestimating the impact of society in 10 or 15 years. Every tech company is

going to be an AI company or they're going to cease to exist at some point.

>> Congratulations on all the progress.

We've been uh hoping to get you on the stream this year. We're really excited to sync up. We have to kick it off with the most important question. This is

what >> literally thousands of people ask people to ask you this question. We have

>> We want to know your one rep max.

>> What's your bench press?

>> Oh, for for bench press.

>> Yes.

All three plates.

>> Three plates. Three.

>> All time best 315. Um I was better at deadlift. I deadlifted uh I think 595.

deadlift. I deadlifted uh I think 595.

So which I think is six plates.

>> Six plates. And then I now I do like squats. I Thank you very much. I do uh

squats. I Thank you very much. I do uh 315 for sets of 10 or 12.

>> There you go.

>> Fantastic. Um yeah, uh we we we were reviewing um uh some of the the the the more recent shifts in your strategy at Airbnb. I would love for you to give us

Airbnb. I would love for you to give us just an update on this idea of Airbnb as a community, Airbnb as a platform. Uh we

were actually debating this earlier. I

met my co-founders in my first company on Airbnb. Like that's like that's how I

on Airbnb. Like that's like that's how I needed a place to stay. They were doing YC. I said, "This will be a perfect fit.

YC. I said, "This will be a perfect fit.

I want to build a company. We wound up putting the companies together. Um, and

I thought uh that Airbnb was actually a community on day one. And so when you say you want Airbnb to be community, is that a return or is that an evolution?

Is that an act two or is that a return to act one? How are you thinking about community building?

>> Yeah, it's a it's a great question. It's

kind of both. I mean, I think Airbnb started very much as a community because people lived with each other. It was

mostly bedrooms. Yeah. And so in that sense it was implicitly a community and everyone left reviews for one another.

Now as we've grown more and more people have travel with families and groups and they've rented entire homes and there's still a community. I mean a lot of people two out of three people who book an Airbnb leave a review. That's not

true of most platforms. So people contribute >> but I think that we can go so much further. So I think it's a little bit of

further. So I think it's a little bit of returning to our roots but then taking those roots and then taking a giant step forward. And so I'll give you a couple

forward. And so I'll give you a couple examples. You know, we launched earlier

examples. You know, we launched earlier this year experiences and one of the things we noticed was one of the biggest things we want to do with experiences is meet other people. So, we basically allow you now to opt in. You can publish

on a guest book. So, when people book an experience, they can see who else is going. You can then stay in touch with

going. You can then stay in touch with people after. You can message them.

people after. You can message them.

Because a lot of people were like staying in touch, but they would have to exchange WhatsApp numbers. It's really

laborious. You can't communicate with everyone. So, these are just small

everyone. So, these are just small things, but we're going to be doing so much more. I mean ultimately, you know,

much more. I mean ultimately, you know, Airbnb is mostly a marketplace right now and I would love it to be first and foremost a community and it means that the atomic unit of Airbnb goes from a

listing a home to a person. In other

words, the most important asset we have are all the people, not all the not all the inventory. That is a really really

the inventory. That is a really really big shift. And we've made a lot of

big shift. And we've made a lot of investments in our community. For

example, we have 200 million verified identities. There's only 100 million uh

identities. There's only 100 million uh 180 million passports in circulation, US passports. So we've done a lot around

passports. So we've done a lot around profile having more of an ironclad identity system building out there really no social networks anymore.

There's no profiles on the internet maybe other than like LinkedIn. And so

we think there's a real opportunity to build something like a social network in the real world where you can travel and live anywhere and you can get a home, you can get a service, you can get

experiences, you can meet people, you can discover interesting communities and it could go even beyond travel because we're starting to see people using Airbnb in their own cities especially for service experiences. And why are we

doing this? Because I like to ask

doing this? Because I like to ask entrepreneurs like why do you deserve to exist? And the best generic answer I

exist? And the best generic answer I have ever been answered is because if I don't do it, no one else will.

>> And I kind of think the thing that we're working on that I'm not saying no one else will, but the thing that's unique to us >> is the idea that we have a community.

And I think it's a superpower, but we could do a lot more with it.

>> Um, because we're built on trust and people do one of the most intimate things they can do, share their home with one another. So I feel like if we build the system of trust, we can do a lot more with it. I I was reading an article about run clubs and they've

become really popular and they were kind of branding at least in the thing that I was reading as like a modern dating service or something and I'm wondering like how quickly does community building

turn in does Airbnb become a dating app at some point? Like am I crazy for thinking that people will meet each other on this app?

>> I think they will. I think it'll be more like a college party vibe. So less of a onetoone matchmaking and more like a co What's a co What's makes a college party unique? you kind of trust everyone

unique? you kind of trust everyone because they went to the same college.

It's not like a bar. So, there's a filter and so people's guards are a little down. At a bar, people are a

little down. At a bar, people are a little bit guards are up. So, or like a dinner party. And at a dinner party,

dinner party. And at a dinner party, it's you don't go to a college party necessarily just to meet people and hook up, just like you don't go to a dinner party to hook up. You go to make friends, but sometimes you will meet someone that you can start dating. And

so, it's more like we're going to create a trusted environment for people to meet. There's no subtext of dating or

meet. There's no subtext of dating or anything like that, but of course that happens. And um and so that's kind of

happens. And um and so that's kind of how we think of it. We're not going to do like a matchmaking service.

>> Yeah. But it makes sense. If you go to a city and you want to do an activity and you go with a bunch of other people, you're going to make friends, you're going to make business partners, but you're also maybe going to, you know, become romantically interested in someone. Yeah. All the above. That's the

someone. Yeah. All the above. That's the

nature of these things. Jordy,

>> uh, what's it like transitioning, uh, and I'm sure you you consult with founders that are maybe five, 10 years, you know, uh, behind in the journey, but what's it like transitioning from the

venture world in terms of like, uh, this sort of very mile, it's very milestone based. You're going from series A to B

based. You're going from series A to B to C. It's very clear to IPO and then

to C. It's very clear to IPO and then you're public and you're just out in the ocean, right? And it's just sort of this

ocean, right? And it's just sort of this endless sea of opportunity and >> and paths and journeys. But I'm curious

like what what mental shift was required to uh move into the public markets especially now that you're you know 5 years in.

>> Yeah. I mean this is this might be surprising to say but I felt like it was harder to be a late private company than a public company. Um because a late stage private company, you have all the

disadvantages of being public. Like your

financials are like well audited. Um

there's beat reporters covering you.

When you're of large scale, we found a lot of things leaking to the public market. So you know, we're marked to

market. So you know, we're marked to market. So we kind of have a lot of the

market. So we kind of have a lot of the disadvantage of being public, but there's always a sense when you're a private company, you get really big like you're hiding something or there's more to the story. And so there's this insatiable desire when you're a private company for people to quote get to the

truth, get to the bottom of it. And once

you go public, everything is disclosed through the S1, the document you have to file with the SEC. And then I think people just assume like like there's so much more transparency. I think it's

harder and easier. It's a little less milestone based. I mean, you literally

milestone based. I mean, you literally like I used to pay a really close attention to our valuation every round we did. And you're ow everything you do

we did. And you're ow everything you do as a private company, it's often to get to the next fundraising. And that can be helpful, but you can also make a lot of trade-offs. Like I think we made just to

trade-offs. Like I think we made just to our prior test topic. I think we made some trade-offs around human connection in community probably appears time in the name of growth and I think most

companies you live and die by that next round and that round being an up round not a down round and making sure you have enough money and we were one of the most profitable companies in tech. We

raised not a lot of money relative to our valuation. By the time we went

our valuation. By the time we went public, we had cumulatively burned, I think, zero dollars of cash or very little, very little free cash flow. And

yet, we were still pretty beholden to it. Now, once you're public,

it. Now, once you're public, >> it's almost like it's so there it's so omniresent that you almost just it becomes part of the background. Your

your your valuation changes every second of every day of every business hour. And

once you're a public, you realize this is you're going to have a stock price the rest of your life. Yeah.

>> Even if you're not CEO anymore, you're going to live and die by it. So somehow

I was able to just put it out of my mind a little bit more. The quarterly

earnings is kind of like instead of every year you have to explain yourself, you explain yourself every three months.

Yeah. Um but you know I think you have to develop like thick skin. And I think the public markets teach you that you cannot like your valuation isn't your value. Do you know what I mean by that?

value. Do you know what I mean by that?

Like if you associate your value to your valuation then your self-esteem and the morale of the company's going to go up and down. And I think, you know, Jeff

and down. And I think, you know, Jeff Bezos told me really early on, this was more of a press thing, but he said, and this is when Airbnb was on magazine covers when they had magazines and, you know, 10 years ago and we were gone

covers and he said, "Beware, today's poster boy is tomorrow's piñata." And

things are never as good as they seem.

They're never as bad as they seem. And I

think you have to have that. Like, don't

get too high when your stock price is up. You know, when we went public, we

up. You know, when we went public, we popped from like we were marked at $18 billion. Five months, six months later,

billion. Five months, six months later, we went a hundred billion. And I'm like, we weren't as good bad as when we were 18 billion. We're probably not as good

18 billion. We're probably not as good as a hundred billion. And today, our stock price has been pretty flat. We're

probably a lot better than people giving us credit for. So, you just got to like like not focus on that. And easier said than done, but the more you can like drown that out, the more you can focus on what really really matters, which is

creating a great product. And

eventually, you'll be rewarded for it.

>> Yeah. A lot of times when we talk to public company CEOs, they'll tell us that one of the benefits is that you have a public currency for M&A. Uh how

are you thinking about M&A? Airbnb

doesn't feel like a, you know, Salesforce type company where you're just going to buy up a bunch of B2B SAS companies every every couple weeks. Um

how are you thinking about uh other additions to the Airbnb ecosystem? What

have you done? What have you looked at?

What's your philosophy to that? Our

philosophy is to be extremely discerning around public uh M&A.

>> The reason why is we've taken an approach to run Airbnb that's kind of similar to um Apple in this early days where we are one app, one brand and we're a functional organization and we

have one customer, right? So that that means that it's hard to take a really large company and bolt it on because we have a functional organization. For

those watching, I assume you know what a functional organization mean, but there's like an engineering department, a marketing department. We don't have a division. That was um we don't have

division. That was um we don't have division. So, it doesn't preclude us

division. So, it doesn't preclude us from doing M&A if it's a really great opportunity, but for us to buy a big business, it just has to be extraordinarily compelling. Now, we're

extraordinarily compelling. Now, we're still looking at acquisitions. And I do think, you know, we do billions of dollars of stock buybacks. We generate a lot of free cash flow. We generate four to five billion free cash flow every

year. I think, you know, we're a good

year. I think, you know, we're a good stock to own. I thank you.

>> Congratulations.

>> I like to think that, you know, this is a good stock to own and that there's a huge amount of upside. um given our our multiple right now um which is not super high. So, we're very much looking at it.

high. So, we're very much looking at it.

Um we're also especially interested in smaller companies because they integrate much more easily with Airbnb. And of

course, we're definitely looking at like talent acquisitions as well, especially companies related to AI. That'd be

really interesting to us.

>> Yeah.

on uh running on a on a quarterly cadence. There's uh been some talk this

cadence. There's uh been some talk this year or and maybe interest from uh the admin to move to a sort of bianual uh reporting requirements as a public

company CEO. What what do you think the

company CEO. What what do you think the uh impacts would be to your business and and what what are some of the sort of more broad impacts that you would expect out of a move like that? because it's

easy for the podcast class or people on X to talk about why it would be good or why it would be bad, but I'm curious from your view.

>> Yeah, it's a great great question. Um,

I think it would probably be from the company perspective marginally better. I

don't think it would be a complete life change or game change. Like we don't spend we spend we spend a decent amount of time preparing for earnings. um you

know, you want to show respect to the investors and be prepared. At the same time, if I was an investor, I'd want to know that Airbnb management was mostly focused on growing the company and making the company more valuable. So,

you know, I tried to spend a decent amount of time on earnings. And I do think some CEOs spend a lot of time on earnings and in so far they spend a lot of time on earnings, it's probably best for shareholders in the long run, even

though they want more information more frequently. I think there's probably

frequently. I think there's probably just more upside in management being a little less distracted and being more heads down and not much changes over the course of three months. I mean, that's the other thing I've noticed is so

little changes every 3 months that you end up getting asked questions around like foreign exchange like currency like like the t the more frequent the meetings the more tactical the

conversations often are. And I I I wonder if a positive outcome would be less management distraction, but also the topics would be bigger, more strategic, and actually more

fundamental. I mean, we get asked a lot

fundamental. I mean, we get asked a lot of really good questions, but we get asked a lot of things because they're trying to predict what's going to happen next three months. Sure. And so, the more frequent you have to report, the

more tactical the tradies are. And so,

the smaller the topics are.

>> Yeah. a great a great CEO you're thinking how how can we be a more valuable company a year from now 5 years from now how how do we there's a slight misalignment in timelines between the

frequency of the reporting the questions that get asked and how I think about the business like I'm not thinking about like the impacts that much of tariffs or

like whether the currency exchange between Europe and the US dollar like these are not things that you can optimize that well anyway way and I don't think these are things that should

determine whether you should buy our stock and hold it or sell it. Um I think it's much bigger more fundamental things and so I think that would be I think on balance probably good. I can imagine

people that um trade on information want it more frequently but I do think there's a cost to it and so probably on net balance it's probably good to go to every six months but make no mistake

it's not a huge problem for me like if it's every three months we're fine. H uh

how do you think about the long-term opportunity in categories that previously struggled with disintermediation? Uh Airbnb hasn't had

disintermediation? Uh Airbnb hasn't had that problem, but as I think about new products, whether I mean and we actually went through this whole era of like Airbnb for dog walkers, Airbnb for house

cleaners. And the problem with those

cleaners. And the problem with those product those platforms was that there's a lot of disintermediation. Yeah. You

meet someone on the platform and then you say, "Hey, I'll pay you cash the next time you come by." Um, do you see any long-term solution to those with, you know, just building a better

payments platform, review platform, or do you want to stay out of markets that are uh that have a risk of disintermediation?

>> Um, that's a really really good question. And because historically we're

question. And because historically we're a travel business, yeah, >> supply and demand are different cities and there's not a lot of repeat business. So there's a very low risk of

business. So there's a very low risk of disintermediation. And because the

disintermediation. And because the transaction is fairly high risk to both parties, like you know, you don't want to get scammed and you want to have recourse, you want to have customer service. Every reservation has $3

service. Every reservation has $3 million of damage protection that is voided if you go outside the reservation. So in our case,

reservation. So in our case, historically, because we're a global network effect, it's a high high consideration purchase with a lot of protections. We haven't had this

protections. We haven't had this problem. But we are now facing this

problem. But we are now facing this because we just launched services.

>> Yeah. Now, travel services like we have, you can get a chef for your Airbnb. You

got a big kitchen, why not have a chef come over? We're starting to now see

come over? We're starting to now see people booking chefs in their own city.

>> And so, if you get a chef and you love them, you might order them again. Y

>> So, we are now entering this and >> it's really local recurring services where there's a risk of dismediation.

and the more it's local reoccurring services that are commodity where the differentiation is not big like a chef you might want the same chef but you might want a different cuisine and so you might go to a different chef and so

you know you might not use the regular um my view on this is we should do what's best for the customer not what's best for our business model in the end and if it means that we need to have a lower commission for repeat business or

it means we have a different business model I think that's okay you know we are absolutely looking at loyalty programs things like that that could create incentives. But I do think that,

create incentives. But I do think that, you know, you got to align your incentives. We never want to have a

incentives. We never want to have a commission structure where you have an incentive to go off the platform. So if

it's a recurring business, we should not do taking 15%. Maybe we don't take anything. Maybe we take a really low

anything. Maybe we take a really low percentage point uh a low take rate, but maybe you also acrew some loyalty points, something like that.

>> Yeah. You turn you start building, you know, business in a box, right? Or or

start.

>> The other way you can do it is membership, right? you can pay have a

membership, right? you can pay have a paid subscription service >> where you just get access and then within that closed garden and you know you can do whatever transactions you want. So I think it's just a matter of

want. So I think it's just a matter of start with a customer work backwards to business model and I think there's a number of different business models here but I do not think a 15% take rate on recurring business model a recurring

service work. So the margins would

service work. So the margins would probably be lower because you're not providing as much value unless you're providing a lot of other protections.

>> Yeah. Uh,

>> where do you think uh AI is overhyped and where do you think it's underhyped?

>> That's a great question. Um,

>> try to try to answer this without without uh, you know, pissing off any friends.

>> I might piss some people off right now.

I don't think I will. Okay, here's

here's my instinct. Chachu launched

three years ago. more than three this time three years ago people were not talking about AI right October 2022 people were talking about Elon Musk buying Twitter like that was what people were talking about a little earlier

people were talking about crypto >> and people were not talking about AI and people that were were like this is five or 10 years away and then chat launched late November 2022 and in the last three years that's all anyone's talking about

there's an old saying people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what can do in 10 years I think that's true of AI I think that people are wildly overestimating what AI will do to society in the next

two, three, four years and they're probably wildly underestimating the impact of society in 10 or 15 years. I

think it's going to be slow and then all of a sudden and so 3 years later after the launch of ChatBT daily life is not that much different for the average person. Yeah,

person. Yeah, >> the top three apps in the app store are AI apps. ChatBT, Gemini, and Sora. Apps

AI apps. ChatBT, Gemini, and Sora. Apps

four through 50, including ours, or most of them are not AI native apps. Most of

us have some AI in it. We have an AI customer service agent. We think it's really great, but we're not an AI app yet.

>> And so, I think the real question is when does AI change daily life for the average person? And the answer to that

average person? And the answer to that question is when do the top 50 apps when do all those consumer apps become essentially AI apps, AI of apps. Think

of AI intelligence as like a gold rush.

And in this case, the gold is intelligence. And so you have companies

intelligence. And so you have companies that are mining gold. Those would be like the large language model companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google. And then

you got a whole bunch of companies that are basically creating picks and shovels. Enterprise. There are very few

shovels. Enterprise. There are very few companies using AI in the consumer space at scale. In fact, I'm on the board of Y

at scale. In fact, I'm on the board of Y Cominator. Almost all the startups we

Cominator. Almost all the startups we are seeing are enterprise. There not a lot of companies doing consumer. There's

a couple reasons why. Number one, I think some people are nervous about Chachi killing their startup. I think

they're too worried. I think companies are too worried. I keep telling people, and I told this to Sam Alman, one of my best friends, that no one company can run the entire economy. First of all, governments won't allow that. But second

of all, it's just too much bureaucracy in a company to do that. And there's a reason that when Apple created that the iPhone, they didn't make every app in the app store because can you imagine how big of a bureaucracy that would have

had to be for Apple to build Airbnb and Uber and Instacart and Instagram and blah blah blah blah blah. So there's

going to be a whole series of companies, but they're going to take time. My

prediction is that in the next three to five years, not in the next year, you're going to see a huge boom in the consumer space of AI. And to me, the entire

economy is going to be built around the consumer adoption. You know, enterprise

consumer adoption. You know, enterprise supports consumer. And I do think

supports consumer. And I do think enterprise is being adopted quickly.

Tools are becoming more efficient. Um,

but I do think the big question is when does it reach the consumer's day-to-day life? And looking at our timeline of

life? And looking at our timeline of development, >> I'm gonna assume we're a little bit faster than the average company because we're really focused on this and we're still like it's going to take a few more

years for us to really transform the company to become an AI company and eventually we want to be every bit an AI company as the truly AI native companies because I think every tech company is going to be an AI company or they're

going to cease to exist at some point.

So the question is how long does this shift take? It's not a year. It's longer

shift take? It's not a year. It's longer

than that.

>> Wait. So, uh, you asked, you told Sam Alman he can't control the entire economy. Did he say, "I'm going to try

economy. Did he say, "I'm going to try anyway?"

anyway?" >> No, he acknowledged that. In fact, this was, you know, how this topic came up?

It came up with the um the the the dev day where they had essentially those SDKs. Yeah.

SDKs. Yeah.

>> And we were debating like >> Yeah. the GBTs. And we're debating like,

>> Yeah. the GBTs. And we're debating like, well, what would that be? And my very strong opinion was he said like, what's the role of apps in the world of chat GBT? And I said, I don't know how much

GBT? And I said, I don't know how much different it is than the app store. It

might be a little bit different, but I don't think that every app is just a mere data layer. And by the way, I think what you need to do, unless you want to build everything yourself, and again, I think you have a whole different set of

problems. You try to build them yourself, is you need a really robust SDK.

>> You really robust SDK.

>> The thing they launched was a first version, but it wasn't a very robust SDK. We have, you know, an we have a

SDK. We have, you know, an we have a community. You have to have an account.

community. You have to have an account.

you have to be a member of the community. There's a lot of things that

community. There's a lot of things that precluded us from being able to have a really good integration with the current SDK as it is. But I think Chach could be an incredible platform.

>> Yeah.

>> If there's a really robust SDK um just like I think you know like we can still have our app on the on the app store.

>> Yeah.

>> What kind of what kind of conversations do you think uh management teams are having around integrating with LLM?

You've seen uh OpenAI announce partnerships with Etsy, you know, Marketplace Walmart >> uh notably not uh Amazon yet or eBay.

I'm sure those conversations are happening.

>> But from your view running, you know, scaled marketplace business, what kind of what kind of conversations and kind of concerns or questions do you think these other players have starting to integrate uh

>> around Agentic Commerce >> around Yeah. Agentic Commerce and specifically integrating with OpenAI when OpenAI's ambitions are obviously >> incredibly bold and and they do want to own as much of the user experience I

think as they can.

>> Yeah, I totally understand why a company want to do that. Um I think that I think most of these companies are thinking of this as an experiment at this stage. Um

I don't think that most of these companies think that the amount of traffic or the business they're going to get is meaningful yet. So this is really about learning and deciding whether you want to participate or not. I think a lot of companies going to have to ask

themselves, do you want to be a destination or are you going to be or are you going to allow Chachet to be the destination or a large language model to be the destination? And I have a I guess

I have a unique view on this. I'm not an AI maximalist in so far that I feel like a few companies are going to own the entire internet. Here's why. Number one,

entire internet. Here's why. Number one,

the models that chatbt has that are uh that are in chatbt are available to everyone via an API. And if you don't use your model, you can use open source models that are three or six months

behind. And the and for most things, a

behind. And the and for most things, a consumer cannot discern the difference between a frontier model and a model 3 to six months behind it. Like if you need to have a travel concier plan your

trip I think a model like 3 4 months behind I don't think you'll notice a difference for the average person because the queries aren't complex enough. So imagine as a thought

enough. So imagine as a thought experiment we replaced the name I know this is not a perfect analogy it's a little bit flawed in some ways but imagine you replace an uh AI with

electricity and it was like a 100 years ago and three companies had electricity and no other company had electricity suddenly these electric companies would have a huge advantage but we have this mental model as if these companies are

the only ones with electricity >> every company's going to have the access to all the same models >> y >> unless companies start um limiting their

models only to their applications.

>> But then other competing models would then get more widely adopted because they will have an a API. So you have to make a choice. Do you want to limit your model or do you want to be like AWS

>> and AWS, Amazon.com does not get much of an advantage that they're part of the same company as AWS. They make a point about this by the way. And so I think you're going to see a huge change where

on the one hand we all have to decide how to participate with platforms like chatbt and I think if they build a really great SDK and we can still own the customer relationship there's

probably not a huge problem. It has to just be integrated correctly. At the

same time, you have to remember we're also going to have nearly as good a AI, right? Via the fact that even if we don't produce our own

models, there will be an entire economy that will allow those models to be accessible via APIs. There may be some advantages to the companies that build apps within. And so I think we then it

apps within. And so I think we then it goes to the mental model. Do you want to go to one destination that then is like a macro agent that connects to all other agents or do you use different apps and those become different agents? So now

we're starting to debate these mental models and there's a trade-off. The

trade-off is the advantage of going just to chatbt is now one agent can kind of cross-pollinate and organize everything.

>> But then if the SDK is limited, it will be not as powerful as going direct to the app that is an AI app that can go really really deep and do your job really well. And so this is the balance.

really well. And so this is the balance.

And where do I think this lands? Where I

think it goes is I think CHBT has to build an SDK that's really robust and it will be just a channel.

>> That's my guess, but we'll see. And I

might be wrong and um >> but >> just remember that like all these companies are going to eventually have access to AI and we're and so we're going through this whole electrifi

electrification so to speak period over the next three years of putting the latest models into our apps. And for us to do that, we have to basically rebuild the apps from the ground up.

>> Yeah. To go back to Airbnb a little bit, I'd love your take on uh where culture is going in the era of like online and offline content. There's this weird

offline content. There's this weird tension where everyone's brain rotted on TikTok watching 5-second videos. But the

Taylor Swift era's tour is the biggest concert and everyone's talking about it or the sphere in Las Vegas is this place where people go to visit. Run clubs are really popular.

>> Yeah. The other thing there's it's some quote I don't know who to attribute it to but like when when an American has like a free week they want to immediately go on vacation and

experience somewhere new and that feels really enduring >> and so I feel like you're in a unique position to kind of comment on like the runaway brain brain rotification of

American culture versus like touching grass basically. Yeah, I think it's a

grass basically. Yeah, I think it's a great question. And when I came to

great question. And when I came to Silicon Valley, there was this thing called social networking. And social

networking was literally, as you can recall, 20 years ago, a way to connect with your friends.

>> Basically, people I cared about shared stuff they cared about.

>> And social networking may be the most popular product of all time that was invented and then uninvented. It was

literally uninvented. Oh, yeah.

>> Because around 2012, it became social media. And the moment it became social

media. And the moment it became social media, your friends became your followers. You stopped connecting. You

followers. You stopped connecting. You

started performing. And social media is now becoming not social because pretty soon the feed became algorithmic, not your followers. And now with Sora, the

your followers. And now with Sora, the content is going to be continually become AI.

>> And so pretty soon the name social media is not even the appropriate name. I

wouldn't I'm not sure I'd call Sora social media. I don't know how social it

social media. I don't know how social it is right now. It's really AI media if it's anything. And I think AI media is

it's anything. And I think AI media is going to be where this goes. And I think the problem with it, well, maybe it's a problem, maybe it's not, but the name artificial intelligence, AI,

the key word I think is the first word, not the second word. Artificial.

>> And I think what's going to happen is more and more what's on a screen will be artificial. Not to say it's bad, but it

artificial. Not to say it's bad, but it will be like a fantasy land.

>> Yeah.

>> And increasingly, I like to say you want to ride a trend or ride the opposite trend. And so if we're basically

trend. And so if we're basically creating this fantasy digital realm that is highly artificial, I think in reaction to that, people want what's real. And the way you're noticing this,

real. And the way you're noticing this, if you look at Jen's Gen Alpha, you know, really young people, they're actually some of them adopting social media less. They're starting to see some

media less. They're starting to see some of the adoption of social media go down.

And they are there's an enamoration with the 80s. Kids born after the 80s are

the 80s. Kids born after the 80s are obsessed with the 80s now. A bygone era that they weren't a part of before technology took over people's lives, right? There's like this nostalgia and

right? There's like this nostalgia and we see it cuz we do these like like popup experiences that's based on nostalgic and it like young people are obsessed with them especially eras

before them and and concerts are more popular than ever. People now Americans go to Europe on vacation more than ever.

Like how many of your friends do you know that go to Europe for vacation and 10 20 years ago they weren't doing that.

So people are looking to get away and have experiences and so when AI automates everything or more and more things I don't think AI is going to change how we go on vacation the

physical aspect of it that much. It

might change how we book it, how we connect, but we want to be one of the companies that are getting people off their phone. If this was 20 years ago

their phone. If this was 20 years ago and you were like time traveling to today, you would remark how the world looks almost identical than 20 years ago physically, except now people are

looking at these pieces of glass all day long. What is in this piece of glass and

long. What is in this piece of glass and they're just in this vortex and I think increasingly I think you're going to see a little bit of a reaction against that.

This is not an anti-phone like rant.

This is not an anti- AI thing. It's just

about the fact that we need to have a balance. Do you ever notice that devices

balance. Do you ever notice that devices and screens aren't usually in your dreams? There's something about the

dreams? There's something about the digital realm that doesn't quite stick in your memory the way physical experiences do.

>> And I think increasingly if AI frees up more of more of our time, hopefully that time can be spent in the real world having meaningful experiences with people we care about. And to me, that's what life is really going to be about.

And I want to be a part of that. I want

to be a part of getting people off their phones into the real world, meeting people, making the world feel smaller, having cool services, having cool experiences. And most these jobs that

experiences. And most these jobs that we're going to produce or like workforce is not going to be automated by AI anytime soon. I don't think you want a

anytime soon. I don't think you want a robot massaging you or pouring you wine.

And so I I just think there's AI is going to lead to this acceleration of really AI media which I think is going to push a lot of people also into the physical world just as you're saying.

>> I think people will slowly wake up that uh that that Airbnb is an AI bet but not because you guys are going to use all the different forms of digital intelligence but people are people are

going to increasingly just want to log off. Uh last question if we have time.

off. Uh last question if we have time.

How do you see the uh the role of the designer evolving with various genai tools? It feels in my personal

tools? It feels in my personal experience the value of great designers is actually just going up. Like I want I want more of I want more of their time.

I think they're commanding even higher and higher premiums. But I'm curious what your view is.

>> I would I think I would agree with you.

You know, it's funny. Um just a quick story. Um, when I started in Silicon

story. Um, when I started in Silicon Valley, I remember I pitched an investor and one of the investors I give him credit for being brutally honest because the end of presentation he said, "I like everything but you and your idea."

That's what he said. And I was I wanted I I went I I didn't think that was an insult. So, I got home and I thought,

insult. So, I got home and I thought, "Well, what else is there?" But he basically said he was basically implying two things that didn't seem like they seem reasonable. Um, strangers won't

seem reasonable. Um, strangers won't live in other each other's homes. Okay,

that that seemed like a reasonable conclusion. and designers don't start

conclusion. and designers don't start tech companies. And it seemed plausible

tech companies. And it seemed plausible and there weren't really a lot of role models. The closest thing to a role

models. The closest thing to a role model I had was Steve Jobs. I don't know if people thought of him as designer. I

kind of did. But then, you know, when he passed, there weren't really a lot of other iconic founders that came from that kind of world. And

>> I view design as a huge differentiator.

And in a world where um you know you know software software programming is a language and AI is really good at language and English to Spanish, English to a software language. Um I think the

role of designer is going to be really important and also I think everyone's going to be a designer whether they want to call themselves designers or not.

Engineers um marketers other people are essentially making design decisions. So

then the question is well what is design? I don't think design is how

design? I don't think design is how something looks. It's fundamentally how

something looks. It's fundamentally how something works. Design is an assembly.

something works. Design is an assembly.

And I think the role of a designer is similar to the role of an architect of a building. An engineer is the ones

building. An engineer is the ones building the building. But I think the architect is going to be one of the most important roles. And by the way, an

important roles. And by the way, an engineer can design. I'm not saying they're only designers doing this. In

fact, I think the AI tools will allow more people to be designers because you won't need to be a crafts person. You

just need taste. And I think more people can learn taste than can get through the craft. And this allows engineers,

craft. And this allows engineers, designers and everyone to be designer.

Now some people will be better designers and there really is going to be an expertise around design. But it's going to be about taste. It's going to be about intuition and intuition is not

this like like just gut feel thing like a vibe. I think intuition is based on

a vibe. I think intuition is based on your expertise. You know one of the

your expertise. You know one of the things I learned about great design is great design is simple and simple isn't about removing something. Simple is

about distilling, understanding something so deeply you can distill it to its essence. And so I think great design is about making the complex simple about caring about every detail

about having taste. Taste means having a sense of culture and history and where the world's going and it's really about systemsoriented thinking. This sounds a

systemsoriented thinking. This sounds a lot like the skill sets you need in the age of AI. And so if we believe that then I yes I do believe that like suddenly more people can be designers

because it's going to be much build easier to build things in the age of AI.

So I'm very very bullish and I I I I thought when Apple rose that would lead to the creation of all these designers as founders and designers being elevated in Silicon Valley. It it kind of did for

a moment and then it kind of subsided. I

am very optimistic that generative AI is going to like you know really lift design in the world and make it one day equal to engineering. I think that I don't think that's a crazy thing one day.

>> Last question for me. We started with a bodybuilding question. What was it like

bodybuilding question. What was it like being a bodybuilder at Risy? Were you a fish out of water? It feels like you know bodybuilder I expect like you know SEC school or something. But was that a weird experience or was that just like

normal?

>> It was weird. And I was a weirdo at college. I'll be honest with you. Um, my

college. I'll be honest with you. Um, my

the way I got into bodybuilding was I I I was an ice hockey player growing up, but I was very skinny. I was 100 pounds freshman year of high school, and I went to a sports academy, like a prep school for ice hockey, and I was way too small.

>> And my junior, my senior high school, I was 125 pounds, and I broke my leg >> playing ice hockey. I had to do physical therapy. And I was kind of like an

therapy. And I was kind of like an overachiever. And I decided I was going

overachiever. And I decided I was going to start bodybuilding. And I got really, really into it, kind of obsessively into it. And I remember my friends were

it. And I remember my friends were teasing me about how skinny I was and I said I'm going to be one of the most muscular teenagers in the country and I got into bodybuilding. Um, and I loved it. And the reason I loved it and I

it. And the reason I loved it and I ended up competing nationally as a bodybuilder and um, I loved bodybuilding and it was before anyone in tech was like working out or anything like that.

It was kind of weird back then. Now a

lot of tech founders have trainers and are really into longevity.

>> Creatine what?

>> Yeah, exactly. Like no one knew what that was back then. People thought

creatine were steroids. like they

couldn't discern the difference between the two. And I learned a couple lessons

the two. And I learned a couple lessons from bodybuilding, too, that I bring to Airbnb. The first lesson I learned is if

Airbnb. The first lesson I learned is if you can change your body, you can change your life. And I was a kid, my parents

your life. And I was a kid, my parents are social workers, and I didn't grow up in an environment where you thought you could change your life. I kind of grew up in an environment where a lot of kids didn't leave their hometown. And so to

be a tech founder, to kind of design the life you want to live, that didn't seem like anything that someone told me growing up. I think we take it for

growing up. I think we take it for granted, but a lot of kids watching probably come from hometowns where that doesn't seem possible. If you can change your body, you can change your life. And

and it's almost the most tangible thing to change is your body.

>> Yeah.

>> The second thing I learned from bodybuilding is you can't get in shape in one day. Like there's no one workout I think that gets you into shape. It's

consistency over time. It's true of tech. Maybe you can have a flash of an

tech. Maybe you can have a flash of an idea, but you're not going to build a company in a in a day. And it's better to just be consistent even if you have some bad days. And so you build your

body one repetition at a time and you build your company one day at a time. So

these are some of the things I learned.

But at Risy I was totally a fish out of water because, you know, you have to eat a lot of protein. So I would walk around campus with like half a dozen hard-boiled eggs, chicken breast. I'd

pull them out at very weird times. I

would keep uh sometimes um like a steak in a Ziploc bag in my pocket and I whip it out in the middle design class.

People thought it was pretty weird. But

that dedication, I just didn't really care. And it was it was and I I'm glad I

care. And it was it was and I I'm glad I did it now that I'm 44 cuz it it's it keeps you keeps you feeling young.

>> You'll you'll appreciate my my uh I I got quite into weightlifting in college.

My hack was I would go to the school cafeteria all you can eat and they would let you bring like sandwiches out. That

was the one thing they allowed. And so I would take a sandwich and I'd make a hamburger puck of peanut butter and I would bring two between breakfast and lunch I'd have two ham uh peanut butter

sandwiches that were just like a full puck and I and then do the same thing between lunch and dinner. And then for dinner I'd have two more. And so I'd be >> bulking. It's bulking. I know all those

>> bulking. It's bulking. I know all those stories. Waking up in the middle of

stories. Waking up in the middle of night to chug egg whites, all those kind of things. Um, in my cafeteria, you had

of things. Um, in my cafeteria, you had this meal card and if you if you don't use your meal card credit, you lose it.

And a lot of the women wouldn't eat as much and they would basically have all this meal credit. They would lose the end of the year. And so I made friends with them and they would give me their meal credit and I would that was how I got all my protein.

>> That's amazing. Do you follow the sport today? Are you a Sam Sulk fan, a Chris

today? Are you a Sam Sulk fan, a Chris Bumstead fan, or are you too busy with Airbnb?

>> I'm pretty busy. I follow it a little bit. Um I I like the classic

bit. Um I I like the classic >> bodybuilding more than the open class.

It's just gotten kind of out of control in my opinion. Um I got the honor to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger and train with him at Gold Gym Venice. That was

kind of like a dream of mine and that was really cool. But I don't follow the sport too much anymore, but my trainer was a former Mr. Olympia competitor, so very cool. Well, thank you so much for

very cool. Well, thank you so much for hopping on the stream. This is a lot of fun. Lessons on body building, company

fun. Lessons on body building, company building life.

>> Yeah, we covered everything. We'll talk

to you soon. Have a great rest of your day. Right hanging.

day. Right hanging.

[Music]