Yet within weeks, the unexpected started to happen: people ventured out of their homes and started travelling again. In May 2020, Chesky tearfully laid off thousands of staff over Zoom and borrowed billions in an attempt to hibernate through Covid. “I never thought we were near death, but I did stare into the abyss.” No one had really ever lost that much business and lived to tell about it,” says Chesky, who talks at the rapid clip of someone who has more to say than time in which to say it. “We were doing $40 billion and we lost 80 per cent of it overnight. Airbnb was forced to refund millions of tourists, enraging its millions of hosts who were left with empty houses, while the company’s own revenues collapsed. In the early days of the pandemic, travel slumped to an almost-total standstill. More has changed in the last two years than in the preceding decade, however. Airbnb, as it became known, became relentlessly popular, but clashed along the way with hotel groups, city governments and critics who accused it of hollowing out communities and pushing up housing prices. The founders were encouraged to “blitzscale” their way to world domination. They charged guests $80 a night (around £90 today) one of the meeting rooms in the firm’s San Francisco headquarters is modelled on the apartment that launched the business.Ĭhesky and Gebbia, along with former roommate Nathan Blecharczyk, decided to turn the idea into a company, and attracted Silicon Valley investors when they raised money by selling limited edition breakfast cereal boxes (‘Obama Os’ and ‘Cap'n McCains’) during the 2008 presidential election. The pair bought three air mattresses and rented out space in their apartment to visitors in the city for a conference, marketing the idea as “Airbed and Breakfast”. And last week, the company unveiled an overhaul of its app designed to send travellers to areas outside of major tourist hubs.Ĭhesky founded Airbnb in 2007 when, as a young graduate working as an industrial designer in San Francisco, he and his roommate Joe Gebbia couldn't afford their rent one month. Last month, Chesky announced that Airbnb’s 6,000 staff would be able to work from anywhere - a vow that comes amid a heated debate about the future of the office. “It's possible - and if I can do it, a lot of people can do it.” “You can run a nearly $100bn (£82bn) company from a laptop in other people's homes,” he says. However, Chesky’s commitment to personal travel is also a test of his idea that his employees and millions of other workers will be able to do their jobs from anywhere in the world. The only places one cannot rent an Airbnb today are Iran, Syria, Crimea and North Korea, and - currently - Russia and Belarus. Today, 4 million hosts rent out rooms or properties in over 220 countries and regions. In the first three months of 2022, 102 million nights were booked on the website.

Airbnb was thrown into crisis in the early months of coronavirus, before enjoying record sales during the first quarter of this year. The decision to adopt this nomadic lifestyle is partly a celebration of travel opening up after two years of subdued tourism. His latest Big Apple haunt is the closest to home: Chesky hails from upstate New York, although San Francisco has been his stomping ground, at least when he had one. His stints have included a mansion in North Carolina, a striking Frank Lloyd Wright getaway in Michigan, and - uniquely - a fairytale princess cottage in Los Angeles (Chesky admits to having skimmed the listing before booking, and missing the “princess”). In January, in a committed act of “dogfooding” - Silicon Valley slang for using your own product - Chesky announced that he planned to live permanently in Airbnb properties, switching locations every few weeks. The 40-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb has been staying in New York for the last few days with Sophie, his golden retriever puppy, in tow in the latest leg of an international tour he started earlier this year. Right now, however, Chesky is looking refreshed and relaxed as he unwinds on a sofa in a Manhattan apartment - rented on Airbnb, naturally. And when I got back, I couldn’t sleep for three weeks.” “I went to Europe last year for a week, and I couldn’t sleep.

“If I have a kryptonite, it’s jet lag,” Brian Chesky admits. Airbnb may have redefined how we travel around the world, but its founder still tries to avoid long flights.

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