Katie Couric Interviews Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky
In the new digital series World 3.0, Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric introduces you to ideas that are changing the world and the people behind them. Leaders in technology, health, philanthropy, and business share the secrets of their success and the innovations that are improving, and in some cases disrupting, their industries.
These are the two magic words that have led to some of the most profound and game-changing innovation in history: “What if?” And with my new digital series “World 3.0,” I’ll speak with some of the men and women who have asked that question in tech, science, medicine, business, and philanthropy and have found answers that improved — and in some cases disrupted — their industries.
Brian Chesky is one of those people.
He was, by his own description, broke and unemployed, struggling to pay the rent on his San Francisco apartment with his roommate Joe Gebbia. Then it hit them. What if they could rent some of their apartment space to a few people in town for an event, such as an international design conference?
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That was in 2007, and it was the beginning of a boom of what is called the sharing economy. Bikes, cars, and even dogs (if you can believe that) can be rented on a temporary basis. So why not a bed, an apartment, or even a castle in Ireland?
Today, the company that Chesky founded in 2007 with Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb, is valued at $10 billion and has rental listings in 192 countries. Now Chesky says he asks the question, “What if we’d never taken the chance?” His personal stake in the company will make him, at 32 (33 in August, as one employee pointed out), one of the world’s youngest billionaires.
Read the full story and watch the entire Katie Couric World 3.0 interview here.
