Brian Chesky

Brian Chesky

Chesky in December 2011
Born Brian Joseph Chesky
August 29, 1981
Niskayuna, New York
Nationality USA
Alma mater Rhode Island School of Design (Bachelor's degree)
Occupation CEO and Co-founder of Airbnb
Net worth Increase US $1.5 billion (April 2014)[1]

Brian Joseph Chesky (born August 29, 1981) is an American internet entrepreneur who is best known for being the founder and CEO of Airbnb, a hospitality exchange service.

Personal life

Chesky grew up in Niskayuna, New York and attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he met Joe Gebbia who would later go on to be co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Airbnb.

While at RISD, where Chesky earned a B.F.A in Industrial Design,[2] he and his two friends ran the NADS Hockey Team. They were interested in turning the team into a brand as it was on the verge of cancellation. Through re-branding, the team came up with the notorious RISD mascot, Scrotie as the logo for the NADS Hockey Team. Chesky says that it "was [his] greatest creation yet."[3] He also credits the Scrotie project as one of his forays into entrepreneurship.

Chesky believes the best way to improve his service is to use a "eating your own dog food" method, which means using Airbnb himself. Since 2010, Chesky has not owned a home.[4]

Airbnb

Chesky and Joe Gebbia became roommates in 2008 when they both moved to San Francisco. While both unemployed and in need for money, there was an Industrial Design conference coming up, held by the Industrial Design Society of America, and many hotels were overbooked. The pair believed they could make some money by renting their place out.[5] They purchased three airbeds and marketed this idea by creating a website called "Air Bed and Breakfast." This was the foundation of Airbnb.[6] Harvard graduate and technical architect Nathan Blecharczyk became the third co-founder on February 2008.[7]

In 2008 when Airbnb launched it only had two customers and one of those was Chesky. The company had a difficult time starting up because the idea behind the company was not really appealing. In order to fund this declining company, they created “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCains” based on Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Chesky describes this as his low point. Y Combinator saw these boxes and were impressed, so they accepted Airbnb into its seed funding program.[8] After two startups, the company finally picked up and started to become the company that it is today. At SXSW 2013 Chesky said that his company has grown a lot since each SXSW. Two years ago at SXSW there were 1,000 people in Austin, Texas using Airbnb and for the 2013 SXSW 8,000 people were using Airbnb. On average, each day there are about 50,000 to 60,000 people using Airbnb.[9] The company was incubated at Y Combinator. In its first year the company began internationalizing and opened several new offices in Europe.[10]

Controversies

Chesky apologized for his handling of "EJ," a San Francisco resident whose Airbnb rental was left in poor condition by a tenant she met on Airbnb. EJ waited fourteen hours to get her call to the company's "urgent" phone line returned, and allegedly received a return courtesy call only after a friend at Airbnb intervened. After EJ blogged about the incident, it emerged that other Airbnb clients had also had their rentals pillaged. Chesky later recanted his apology, saying "I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn't reflect my true feelings."[11]

Airbnb employees were caught disguising themselves as ordinary Craigslist users, then email people listing their vacation apartments on Craigslist and urge them to list on Airbnb instead. News website Gawker surmised that the scam might have violated the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Chesky later blamed the incident on rogue contractors who had been hired to sell person to person.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Three Young Men Are About To Become Billionaires". Business Insider.
  2. ↑ https://www.airbnb.com/about/founders
  3. ↑ Ayres, Carly. "Why We Make". Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  4. ↑ Fairweather, Alistair. "Mail & Guardian NEWS OPINION BUSINESS ARTS & CULTURE EDUCATION MULTIMEDIA SPECIAL REPORTS IN THE PAPER ZAPIRO PARTNERS NEWS NATIONAL AFRICA WORLD ENVIRONMENT SPORT SCI - TECH HEALTH AMABHUNGANE Sci tech Brian Chesky: The homeless entrepreneur". Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  5. ↑ Chloe, Jeannie. "Airbnb for Connecting '07". Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  6. ↑ Brown Ekiel, Erika. "The Entrepreneur QuestionnaireL Brian Chesky, Co-Founderv and CEO of Airbnb". Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  7. ↑ "Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs". Bloomberg Business Week.
  8. ↑ Fairweather, Alistair. "Mail & Guardian NEWS OPINION BUSINESS ARTS & CULTURE EDUCATION MULTIMEDIA SPECIAL REPORTS IN THE PAPER ZAPIRO PARTNERS NEWS NATIONAL AFRICA WORLD ENVIRONMENT SPORT SCI - TECH HEALTH AMABHUNGANE Sci tech Brian Chesky: The homeless entrepreneur". Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  9. ↑ "Airbnb's Brian Chesky Talks with Fortune - SXSW Interactive 2013". Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  10. ↑ Bradshaw, Tim. "Airbnb Moves "Aggressively" into Europe". Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  11. ↑ "Sleazy Airbnb Is 'Very Sorry' For Wrecking Your Apartment". Gawker Magazine. Retrieved 18 July 2014.
  12. ↑ Rosoff, Matt (31 May 2011). "Airbnb Farmed Craigslist To Grow Its Listings, Says Competitor". Business Insider. Retrieved 13 December 2012.

External links