Brian Chesky is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Airbnb and sets the vision and strategy for the company. In 2007, Brian and Joe Gebbia became Airbnb’s first hosts. Since then, Brian has overseen Airbnb’s growth to become a community of over 4 million hosts who have welcomed more than 1.5 billion guests across 220+ countries and regions.
Quotes by
Brian Chesky
On designers starting and running companies
“I would encourage designers to have nerve. I would encourage them to know that you can design the world that you want to live in. I want to encourage as many people as possible—whether it is not asking permission for how you want to run your company or how you want to do your job—[to] speak up about what you believe in. If you’re running a design department, try to make sure that the entire company is embracing your philosophy, or at least have a conversation. Also know that designers can run companies, they can build things, they can ship things. Ultimately, you know, when I joined Y Combinator, Paul Graham said, ‘Make something people want.’ Well who knows what people want as well as designers? Not many other people. That is a core value that we can offer to the world, and more designers should rise up and start companies. (from Figma)
On building for a single person
“How do you make something for a million people? I don’t know where to start. But if you pick one person, study them, and take their journey, you can actually build something really personal. You can design something and keep iterating until they love it. Don’t stop improving it until that person loves it, and you’re not allowed to move to the second person until the first person loves it. Then you get the second person and keep iterating until they love it. And so on.” (from Stanford)
On founder mode
“Great leadership is presence, not absence. It’s in the details. What a lot of founders do is they let go of the product, and they abdicate responsibility.” (from The Verge)