>>> All right.
The economy feels shaky, right,
especially silicon valley.
One company is benefiting of
that, that is airbnb.
Now Brian chesky is doing it
again, renting out a room in his
house.
>> I'm taking photos of this
house because I'm going to take
it on airbnb.
If you come to San Francisco and
you need a place to stay, I'd
love to host you.
>> He's with us now, Brian
chesky, co-founder and CEO of
airbnb.
Why are you renting out a room
in your house?
Why? You're announcing some big
changes to the platform.
>> Why am I renting a home in my
house?
I was the first house.
My roommate Joe and I couldn't
afford to pay rent.
A design conference came to San
Francisco, I said let's have a
bed and breakfast.
I didn't have any beds, we
pulled out three air beds and we
called it the air bed and
breakfast.
Back then in 2008, many people
were looking to make extra money
and
and to show people, if I can
host, you can host too.
So we're trying to make it much
easier than ever for people to
put their home on airbnb.
We're going to make it really
easy to set up your airbnb.
How are we going to do that?
Some of the best ways to learn
something new is learning from
somebody who has done it before.
We have all of these super hosts
around the world, so what if we
create something like a genius
bar where we match you to other
super hosts who can walk you
through the process.
A lot of people are nervous
about having people in their
home. When I told my mom I'm doing it
again, she's like, are you
crazy? She found actually yesterday on
television.
But, the good news is, we are
now verifying the identity of
every single person on airbnb in
the top 35 countries and by next
spring it will be 100%.
>> By the way, you used to live
with your mom, this happened
during the pandemic, which is a
whole different story.
>> Poppy, why are you outing
him? >> I'm not outing him.
He outed himself.
On a more serious note, there
have been so many layoffs in
silicon valley right now.
And it seems uniquely centered
right now on you guys, on
silicon valley.
Is airbnb preparing to lay
anyone off?
And if not, are you hiring?
>> We're hiring.
Yeah, no, we're not -- two and a
half years ago, we lost 80% of
our business in eight weeks.
People were predicting we're
going to go out of business.
We did a layoff back then.
>> You had to layoff 25%.
And when you do a layoff, a lot
of people leave after the
layoff, because they figure,
maybe there's opportunities
elsewhere.
This was in a much better
economy where people had other
options. People thought, a travel company
is not the place to be during a
pandemic.
So a lot of people left.
And we just hunkered down.
It was like a thousand of us got
in a fox hole, rebuilt the
company from the ground up and
stayed really lean.
And because we stayed lean, we
generate a lot of free cash
flow, so we're stepping on the
gas, not putting on the brakes.
>> If you look at what Elon Musk
is doing, he's telling people,
that they must return to the
office, they have to work these
extremely hard-core, long hours
at high intensity.
Your approach is the opposite.
And you're not cutting, you
said. You're growing.
>> We're growing, we're not
cutting, we're not making people
go in office.
And doing really well.
>> But, is Elon Musk the wrong
approach?
>> Well, why you --
>> Let me tell you why we're not
making people go back to a
office.
I think the future is
flexibility.
I think after compensation, the
most important benefit for
people with a laptop job will be
flexibility.
The reason why, I think this is
going to be employee and
market-driven market, not an
employer-driven market.
Maybe a recession it is.
And we companies want to have
the very best people.
And the best people are in San
Francisco, the best people are
in New York.
The best people are everywhere.
They're distributed.
I now have to believe that I
have a greater competitive
advantage by limiting people to
a community radius outside of my
office, which means I have not
as much talent, but get enough
benefit of them being in an
office.
Most companies we found that
were just as productive on zoom,
if not more productive.
But we can hire from everyone,
increase diversity.
And I think the way to predict
the future is to look at what
young people and young companies
are doing, and they are voting
with flexibility.
That's where I think the future
is going.
But every CEO has a prerogative
to run their company
differently.
He's chose one path with
flexibility, we've chosen
another.
>> So you're permanently remote?
>> We're permanently pretty
flexible remote.
But I think pure zoom has some
downsides.
This is one of the loneliest
times in human history.
And the office is now zoom, the
theater is now Netflix.
The mall is now Amazon.
So we also don't want to live in
this dystopia where people never
leave their house.
That's why we're still trying to
gather employees, at least one
week a quarter.
And we try to do a lot of
gathering.
But we've not chosen this whole
five-day-a-week or
three-day-a-week hybrid.
>> There's been a lot written
about the big tech billionaire
bros.
You told me once when we talked
about a year ago, a lot of
people don't think big tech has
their interest in mind.
Meta right now, Facebook, what's
happening at Twitter, ftx and
the crypto crash, is this a
paradigm moment for big tech?
Is this a moment of reckoning?
>> I think it's like we're all
in a nightclub and the lights
just came on.
So I think that suddenly, I
think there's this exuberance,
this euphoria, and now we all
have to like take hard looks at
things.
And I think there's been the
ultimate reality check.
And I think you could say that
about a lot of different
sectors, a lot of different
industries.
My concern with crypto wasn't
the underlying technology.
My concern with crypto, for
example, has always been the
frenetic, like, get in before
it's gone, and I just think that
was not a responsible like
approach.
And I think silicon valley has
done so many amazing things for
the world.
But we have to be careful having
a fetishization of new
technology, as if the new
technology will solve all the
problems that the last
technology created.
We need to marry technology with
the humanities.
We need more diversity in
silicon valley, but that
diversity should not just be
demographic diversity.
We need artists, humanists in
this industry.
We don't just want to "A," "B"
test our way towards the next
great experiment.
I think that will be very
dangerous, because human beings
are on these platforms.
>> People don't want to go into
the office --
>> No, I think people do want to
go to the office.
I disagree with that.
>> You think people want to go
to the office?
>> I think some people do, some
don't.
A lot of young people want to go
to the office, older people with
families less so.
People don't want to go into the
office five days a week.
>> Is that sustainable?
>> Which part?
>> Is it sustainable for people
not to go into work or have this
hybrid situation that --
>> I don't think pure remote is
sustainable and I don't think
that three days a week or maybe
three days a week is
sustainable.
I think we end up with something
in between.
And everyone is kind of
negotiating and diverging
towards this in between.
And we're all going to design it
together.
We've chosen more of an
immersion where you have
flexibility.
You want to go away from the
summer, you can go away for the
summer.
But we'll gather together for
really big bursts of time.
And when you do gather together,
I don't think -- I don't know if
the purpose is to go to office
and just sit at a desk and be in
a conference room.
If you're going to be together,
be together to do --
>> With intention.
>> The person who designed the
apple office, the apple campus,
I met him once and he said, the
office of the future must do
what your home cannot do.
What zoom cannot do.
And so if the office didn't