you lose 80% of your business in 8 weeks

and I knew there were questions is this

the end of Airbnb will Airbnb exist

Brian tesy founder and CEO of the100

billion company Airbnb one of the most

successful and most disruptive companies

in the world airb and breakfast was just

a way to keep paying rent before we came

up with the big idea we did not think

airb and breakfast would be a company

where 4 million people a night would use

don't focus on the mountain top focus on

the first step a lot of breakthrough

ideas don't seem breakthrough at the

time they seem crazy people tend to

overestimate what they can do in a year

and underestimate what they can do in 10

years 10 years is a profoundly long

period of time if you're disciplined and

focused and you can have a small idea a

small dream and you can build something

vast Airbnb is going to IPO and then

disha to strikes in the Corona virus

emergency stay at home stay at home you

lose 80% of your business in 8 weeks and

I knew

there were questions is this the end of

Airbnb will Airbnb exist we had to make

some incredibly difficult decisions so I

write this letter to the entire

company here's what I

said it's a hard for you to read that

yeah yeah no now I get a little

emotional reading

that

why

[Music]

Brian I'm a fan believer

that our external world can change and

evolve and look different but it tends

to be the case that our internal world

is much more stubborn which is who we

are at our core and I also believe that

who we are at our core is of in shaped

by our earliest experiences that's been

supported by a lot of the psychologists

I've sat here with to understand you the

way you think and who you are I think

it's best to First understand that early

experience and how it shaped the

internal

Brian that remains regardless of how

everything else in your life has changed

well yeah thank you for having me on I

um I came from a pretty normal

non-descript background but in parallel

to sports and all the regular things

kids had I had this other interest and

it was a thing that most defined me and

that was that I was an artist

I would be drawing and drawing and I

have these pads of paper and I go

hundreds and hundreds of pages almost

compulsively drawing um both trying to

learn how to mimic an environment and

reproduce it in reality and when I was

you know 10 I could probably draw like

an adult and by the time I was in high

school I could you know draw like you

know probably akin to a professional

artist I love design worlds I wanted to

design and escape and at the age of 17 I

I decide I'm going to design design

school so I've already taken like a

hundred opportunities in life and now

I'm like okay I'm going to do this I'm

not going to be like a politician a

doctor a lawyer a astronaut I'm going to

be some an artist or designer halfway

through freshman year they have to they

tell you to declare a major what kind of

artist and designer I'm like I'm still

17 and I got to tell you what type of

artist and designer this guy comes in

and he pitches an apartment called

industrial design it just sounded cool

industrial design and I was like what is

industrial design and I remember him

saying something like industrial design

is the design of everything from a

toothbrush to a spaceship and everything

in between to design a physical object

you have to understand three dimensions

you can't just design an object you have

to understand how to make the object if

you were a graph designer you didn't

really have to know how to make anything

guess you have to know how to print it

but you had to know manufacturing what

kind of materials is it are the

materials sustainable where do you

manufacture it well how much is it going

to cost because like how much is going

to cost like has implications on how you

design it well how much it's going to

cost depends on who is the audience how

are you going to Market it you see when

an architect designs the building no one

like blames the architect if the office

building doesn't get leased out but in

industrial design you can't design a

product it not sell and you say it was a

good design I would have never imagined

that would have come to you

to run a tech company it turns out

industrial design was one of the best

educations to run a tech company but I

had no idea I was going to do that I'm G

to walk back through that because

there's couple of words you said across

the way that really stuck out to me the

first word you said when you were

talking about wanting to design design

your own worlds is I was trying to

design a world that I could escape to

yes the use of the word Escape is quite

a intentional but quite a um strong word

what were you trying to

escape a great

question I think I was a very sensitive

child I think I was a very idealistic

child

and I think I was trying

to escape what might one might describe

as

the the numerous challenges of childhood

I think childhood is really hard for

people and I think for me especially

like I was young small undersized I had

trouble fitting in at school I remember

just having a really intense

environment and I remember when I was a

kid I would watch like the uh like the

ABC where like they were like a dis

Disney you know they had this thing

called The Wonderful World of Disney and

I would see these old videos of Walt

Disney on television from the ' 80s but

it was from him in the 60s and he

described these like magical worlds I

was just so obsessed with designing a

world that was different and better than

the one I was in I just think I had a

lot of kind of

anxiousness as a

kid and I never

really I I didn't really feel like I was

at home you know I felt like I was I was

searching for home and I I there's this

great Bob Dylan quote he said it took me

a long time to find my way home and I

think it did for me as well I feel like

I never found my way home until I was

surrounded at school with other

creatives but other before that I was

just it's kind of an outsider and things

were very challenging and

painful so am I right in thinking that

your desire to design a new world was

also a desire to design a home where you

might fit 100% if you if you design the

world as well you get to control the

world and you get

to

I I think I want to design a world that

I could live in that I could fit into

because I probably didn't think I fit

quite into the world that I grew up in

absolutely that's 100% the case you you

said in some of your interviews that you

are a hyperactive child hyperactive

impulsive um difficulty concentrating I

was never diagnosed with

ADHD maybe today if I was growing up

somebody might have may may have said

that but I don't know but I had an

intense energy I was I was always trying

to do things differently I remember like

in junior like Middle School I would try

to like redesign the school curriculum

or something like just kind of

interesting frankly kind of bizarre

things I was was a bit of a performer I

wasn't into acting or anything but I did

a lot of like public speaking and I

would do a lot of creative writing but I

remember I always was like I was always

different and different wasn't good

growing up that was maybe the core thing

I think the core thing is I was

different I was different in almost

every

way and different wasn't good I sat here

with a therapist and she said to me

there's two things at a very human level

she's I mean her clients are royalty and

CEOs at the top of the world and

athletes and gold medalists she says all

my clients come to me with two one of

two things and it's usually both either

they don't believe they're enough or

they feel like they're different and

those two things really haunt people in

a world you know we we're tribal animals

as you know from I've watched airbnb's

IPO video and this idea of connection

really coming through strongly we want

to belong we want to be in our tribes

and feeling like you're different I was

thinking about this through the lens of

a tribe means that I don't belong in the

tribe feeling like I'm not enough means

I'm not valuable to the tribe 100% and

those and that and I would think though

both of those identified I felt like my

entire

life many people have like turned to

addiction and if I turned to one was

work and luckily my addiction was very

productive and so no one ever called it

that like no one says that somebody's

working all day and night especially if

they're doing something creative if

you're an access to entrepreneur and it

was mostly I mostly

was made me happy but the challenge is

that if you are doing something hoping

to become something hoping you become

something and then therefore you're

going to feel certain way because people

are going to treat you certain way it

turned out that what I wanted was love

and what I was actually retracting with

agulation and so the problem is we try

to seek conditional love we do something

great we get noticed and then people

show us love and admiration but it's

probably not love admiration is probably

agulation and agulation I think is like

a cup with a hole at the bottom and the

problem is you fill up the cup but then

something leaks out the bottom and so it

kind of comes down and down and down you

have to keep filling it and keep filling

it and keep filling it and the problem

is that like anything you can't just do

keep doing the same actx you must do

even bigger axe you have to go bigger to

get the feeling you had before I think

this is

incredibly typical of people like I know

Tech entrepreneurs where a lot of them

were had Challen with authority didn't

fit in wanted to be loved and were

really good at something and it's not to

take away any of that but just to know

where it comes from now that I know what

it where it comes from I've been able to

have a much healthier relationship with

it I still love what I do but I now it's

really interesting my motivations have

gone more internal more intrinsic

instead of wanting to be super

successful to feel a certain way part of

me says why I not felt that way I

probably never will and I you know if I

no amount of additional status or money

or anything is going to make me feel

good better because this amount hasn't

actually changed how I feel it turns out

that like when you're when you go on a

rocket ship you initially the success

and the status and everything makes you

initially probably happier because it's

new there's a novelty and it's

distracting and at some point you adapt

to it and the moment of adaptation is

the moment you probably go back to

reverting to the way you felt before all

of it you're not worse but you're

presumably not better life is so much

more than just climbing a ladder and

getting to the top and realizing you're

not much higher than you ever were

before that the world is you you had

everything inside of yourself mostly to

be happy before the journey started and

probably what you needed most is purpose

you have that health and relationships

and I think that you know a lot of

people take the last one for granted

those relationships and that's that's

kind of that's kind of probably been my

journey the cost of your addiction to

work in hindsight you can maybe point at

the cost and say this was something I

sacrificed at the expense of happiness

because of that addiction to my work

what are those things let me first say

that like it it was mostly worth it yeah

and so I want to be clear about that

that I wouldn't have done it

dramatically different I am let me just

say I

am it it's like the the Journey of

Airbnb of being able to build Airbnb has

been unbelievable it's been the great

joy of my lifetime and if people could

experience what I had experien I would

say to them it would be the most

unbelievable ride of a lifetime and I

wouldn't want to change a ton because

it's been amazing but if they're about

somebody's listening and they're about

to go on this journey I would forar them

about some things that no one told me

and no no one told me when I started

this journey is two things the first

thing is how lonely it would be and it

doesn't have to be but it's almost like

by default you see when I started ARB I

started with my friends to my friends

then we hired people and those people

there were employees but they were also

kind of our friends and this notion that

I was the boss there was a power and

balance well we're all like broke at a

three bedroom apartment so what does it

mean that I'm CEO like that's kind of

just a title and so I felt really

connected we weren't a family but we

were more like a family than a business

if if it was one of the other and then

as we got successful then it became more

of a corporation there was a chain of

command there were more boundaries you

know like you you started hiring people

that had families and people families

don't hang out with you on nights and

weekends and then like you know you know

it's just like it becomes more formal

and that's the moment that your

employees become your employees and less

your friends and that gets more and more

isolating and then people start looking

at you a little bit differently and it's

it feels really good but you can just

find yourself working more and more to

live up to the responsibility and you

feel like you're never working enough

and you're working 60 hours a week then

80 hours a week and 100 hours a week and

you just almost feel guilty any second

you're alive and you're not working and

I again I'm huge proporn it and pouring

your life into something but I think

that what thought was every incremental

hour would make me more productive but

it what turns out that like we need to

step away from work we need to be happy

we need to have some healthy

relationships to probably make good

decisions I don't lonely leaders are

probably not the best leaders and when

you're lonely you're probably less

empathetic your sense of vigilance is up

um you don't necessarily see problems

really clearly you don't have people to

bounce ideas off of when there's a

challenge it can feel like you're alone

you don't have as much resilience

and so I remember going from being

incredibly happy to feeling incredibly

isolated not having been prepared now I

was prepared for all the business

challenges people told me what it's like

to scale a team hire Executives but we

weren't really well prepared for the

psychological and emotional Journey that

we would go on that turned out to be

some incredibly intense Journey so that

was the first thing the first thing that

I didn't know no one forewarned me about

and that I've now learned is about the

lonely Journey can be and I would just

tell people it doesn't have to be lonely

keep in touch with your friends meet

other entrepreneurs like you've got to

almost fight the world as you go on this

journey is going to isolate you into a

bubble that's going to completely detach

you from reality and if you're not

careful you can lose a sense of yourself

and you have to fight every single day

like a person in the ocean without a

without a the life jacket just staying

above water and that staying above water

is fighting the temptation of isolation

so that you can remain connected and if

you're connected you're going to be okay

but it's not going to just happen most

people don't like you don't have to

think about breathing you just breathe

you have to think about staying

connected the other thing is you can't

try to be successful to think it's going

to solve something inside of you being

successful other than maybe a sense of

purpose it turns out having a purpose

and serving others and being focused in

something that's generally good for you

beyond that no amount of status and

power is going to fill something inside

of you whatever is inside of you that

you're missing you need to probably fill

you know through introspection like we

might call it Solitude connection to

self or maybe you know like many of us

growing up we kind of lonely and so we

wanted to be loved so we decided to

pursue these things so that people would

be connected to us but then by working

we're just loner more and more isolated

in fact maybe the thing we had to to do

the entire time was reach out and bring

people in maybe that was the thing we

were missing and that was probably what

happened with me if I could speak in if

you could talk to Brian Zer in October

2007 when you were 26 years old and you

arrived in San Francisco and you could

say Brian listen here are some practical

things I'm going to do here's how I'm

going to change your schedule for the

next 10 15 years I'm going to add one

extra hour of something

to your schedule every week what would

that one hour

be it's completely obvious to me that I

would make time for the people I love

who who is that I would start my family

especially my

sister I'm now really close to her but

through a bunch of the airb journey we

would go weeks without

talking for no other reason I was just

busy and like well like and and and

there's this Paradox that when you go on

this crazy Journey like I do a lot of

people don't reach out to you because

they're afraid to reach out you because

they think they're bothering you but

you're so busy that you're dealing with

inbound from the business that if no one

like you're just reacting all the time

so if your friends don't re reach out to

you you're not going to reach out to

them because you're just reacting to

everything and they're like well they're

so busy if they want to talk to me they

reach out to me and you see how you end

up in this like drift and drift and

drift I would have stayed connected to

my high school friends I would have kept

I I have high school friends I now do an

annual trip with some of them I didn't

talked to for almost 20 years I graduate

I didn't keep in touch with them it's

one of the great regrets I have I had

College friends that I lived with after

Ry but every year as I went on my airb

journey we talked less and less and less

and I drifted more and more away and I

could go down the list I actually I had

this thing I've said I talked about it

once

before but I would it was

20021 it was like May or

June and

I I had developed a at this point long

relationship with President Obama he had

left office and he became a bit of a

mentor to me and he mentored me un like

leadership and business at one point he

took a personal interest to me and I

remember I was single got out of a

relationship and I kind of felt lonely

and I remember telling him I think need

to be in another relationship and he

said I don't think you yet need to be in

a relationship I think what you need are

friends and I thought to myself but I

have friends what do you mean but then I

then he explained that like he had these

like 15 people in his life many of them

before you know mostly before he was

president and he like they were totally

connected and I realized I had all these

people in my life but if I call them

first they go what's going on like

what's new with you and I have to get

them all up to spe in my life and if you

have someone in your life where if you

were to call them or text them you have

to get them up to speed then you're not

connected people you're connected to are

already up to speed and I actually think

that most of us being alone or being

lonely is an illusion or maybe the

illusion is that like people don't love

us and the fact is we have all these

people but we're not reaching out to

them and they're also not reaching out

to us and everyone's waiting for someone

else to take some initiative and it

seems crazy cuz we're just a text

message away way from our entire life

and yet what do we do we open the phone

and instead of texting people or

FaceTiming them or like seeing them we

what do we do open social media so

opening social media is like going to a

dinner party except you don't go inside

you're looking in the window and you

know like and like it's great if it's a

Way Station to meet people but if you're

look just look in the window and that's

your social life then that's you're

going to feel really sad so knock on the

door and walk in and start talking to

people start hanging out so this is that

that would be the thing I would do I

wouldn't have been totally isolated I

would have REM con stayed connected to

my family my close friends and really

the only other thing I'd say is I I'm

now friends with a bunch of other

entrepreneurs including you said you had

Daniel L on the show and I would call

him a friend and I spend time with him

and others so in other words I would

have old I would keep my old friends and

I would be friends of people my

situation M So Daniel doesn't know the

Brian before Airbnb so maybe he doesn't

know the real me that that me but he

does know a different real me that my

childhood friends can't know because my

high school and college friends can't

possibly know what it's like for me to

go through I'm going through and I can

tell it to them and they can have

compassion but they can't possibly know

what I'm talking about but Daniel can

and Daniel can know what it's look like

when an executive leaves you where

everyone's kind of the walls are caving

in and you feel like you're not scaling

and you're like drowning in this you

know there's all these things I can

describe we have a shared experience so

I think those two groups are really

important your roots and your friends

from the past and your friends from your

present day shared experiences and there

was a period of time where I didn't have

either of those

really as you saying that it reminded me

of a phrase I heard many years ago in a

book I read that said the things that

are easy to do are also easy not to to

do and as you're talking about the um

the just sending the text is so easy to

do which is also why it's so easy not to

do it because we're always just one text

away so what's the point sending it but

also it reminded me of why I have that

sandtimer on the W on the Shelf over

there because it's funny I think I've

lived so much of my life believing that

I could do life later like I could pick

up the relationship with my family later

and then that's it's almost like we're

living through the frame of that we're

going to live forever like when you look

at our decision- making you think think

[ __ ] you're giving like three decades of

your prime years to building this thing

like and we we're assuming that we can

pick up the rest later it'll all be

there and that's what I learned I tried

to pick it up later and there was

nothing there I think that metaphor of

The Hourglass with the sand slowly

dripping every day of your life is a

window and every day that window gets a

little narrower and a little narrower

and a little narrower should I tell you

the difference though just with the

sound timer tell me is you you know it's

dripping but you can't see how much you

have left oh that's a really good point

so it's and that's why you should almost

cover it up because we can you know with

the sand timer we can see how much sand

we have left but in life I could I could

live for another six

minutes and so could you or it could be

six months or 60 years and yes that's a

profound thought

and you're right we don't really live

our

lives imagining if we had a limited time

left how would we live I like to I I an

exercise I've done is imagining you know

at a young age I had 10 years left

because if I had one year left I might

be so dramatically different that I

might not do something sustainable I

might like not work and just only spend

time and that's not sustainable but I

think we always go about life thinking

we have many decades and I think that

creates a sense of procrastination and

if you say to yourself you have this

decade What would you want to do it

gives you enough urgency but also it

long enough to have routine to build

towards something and I think that like

the one of the most important things

people can do i i two thoughts come to

my mind the first thought is that you

probably heard this saying you can

people tend to overestimate what they

can do in a year and underestimate what

they can do in 10 years that 10 years is

a profoundly long period of time in some

ways if you're disciplined and focused

and you can have a small idea a small

dream a small goal and you can build

something vast and I've only done Airbnb

for 15 years so you think about what 10

years is I you wouldn't have hired me as

your intern 15 years ago the other thing

about 10 years though is think

about the Amazing Life Experiences you

can have with other people and I think

life is about experiences but the best

experiences are the ones you share with

other people like on Airbnb 80% of our

trips are with other Travelers like 80%

of people Trav with other people and I

think as I think about my memories

growing up you know I rolled the school

bus like 180 days a year or more than 10

years that's thousands of days and all

those memories blend together I don't

really remember those but I remember

basically every vacation I've ever took

taken I remember the first time I went

to this city the first time I went to

that City and they're burned in my mind

and I think that when I look back on my

life I'm going to remember all the

experiences I went

all the places I

saw the friendships and the and and the

people I loved and who loved me and what

I poured my heart and soul into and I

think that like that is an important way

that I've thought about my life and I

made time for some of it but I think the

pressure of being successful made me so

focused on trying to climb a mountain

that maybe I didn't focus enough on who

I was climbing with and who is along the

way way with me Bron we interviewed Pala

of patients on their last days on Earth

so she interviewed people on their

deathbed and asked them what their

biggest regret

was hypothetically if you had six

minutes left and I was interviewing you

to find out what your biggest regret

might

be now you had six minutes left what

might you say to

me I think my biggest regret would

be the time I didn't spend with people I

love

maybe making sure those people knew how

I felt about

them and then I'm

42 I've created many great things the

one thing I haven't created that I've

always wanted was probably a family I

just couldn't even explain exactly

rationally why but it's just you know

like we all I think humans have an many

many people have an urge to to create a

family maybe they feel like they've

created something and they can leave

something behind I've I will have left a

company behind but maybe I could leave

more than that behind so those would be

the things that I would regret

but importantly I'd also like to

say I feel like in other ways I've lived

multiple lifetimes and I would be filled

with so much love and gratitude for what

I've been able to experience

because I never thought in my lifetime I

would be able to experience what I've

experienced right now up to this point

the amount of people I get to meet the

amount of work I get to do

I get to work come to work every day to

obsess with some of the most creative

people in the world and you know most

people they don't get to be surrounded

with the people they choose when you're

a CEO you get to pick the people you're

surrounded with there's something really

special and I've gotten to select some

of the most creative kind compassionate

intensely driven people in the

world making some things that I'm so

proud of that have affect millions of

people's lives so but I tend to think we

regret the things we didn't do not the

things we did do and I think we tend to

regret you know the people we didn't

spend time with the people we loveed

that we didn't tell or the people we you

know could have met and didn't I think

this is fascinating I looked at the back

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sacrifice involved in everyone's Journey

especially when it's a great journey and

you're talking about being I think 25

years old when Walt Disney inspired you

yeah

Neil gabar I've read this book

twice yes I've read this book twice this

book okay so this book had a big effect

on me

and there's two chapters that really

affected me so this is the Neo gabler

book it's the definitive biography and

it's pretty extensive it's like over 600

pages so you can see it the W Walt

Disney's bi biography yes the biography

about the man Walt Disney and there's

two entrepreneurs that I've always

looked up to more than any others and

those are Walt Disney and Steve Jobs

partly because they built companies that

have lived Beyond them but more

importantly they were creative people

that were basically running tech

companies I mean Apple was clearly a

techan Disney was at the time very much

a like a technological Marvel the first

chapter that really affected me was this

chapter I think it's go-getter it

describes the period of time where he

moves from Kansas City to Los Angeles

and he his early 20s he moves to Los

Angeles he convinces his brother Roy

Disney Roy uh Roy Disney who I think has

like uh I can't remember what ailment he

has but he has like this horrible

ailment and they don't think he's even

going to live and Walt says come to

California it's going to be good for you

and Roy they were like BR they were

literally brothers and I always

thoughted of Joe my co-founder as like

brothers if we were like like non-blood

related Brothers but you know when

you're a co-founder you're almost like

brothers and him going to LA in the 20 I

think it was the 20s was like me going

to San Francisco in 2007 the gears of

the world felt like they were turning

there in some really important way so

this book I read right before I started

Airbnb I'm living in Los Angeles I read

this biography and I thought to myself I

don't have to work for someone like Walt

Disney I can try to become something

like that even if I don't get to that

level of scale of success that's okay I

can do something much smaller but I can

do something like this and then there

was another chapter um four years into

Airbnb called

Folly Folly Folly is the title of the

chapter about Snow White and they called

it Folly because they named it Disney's

Folly and the reason he named it

Disney's Folly is because he bet the

entire company on this featurelength

animated film and everyone thought there

was this terrible the company was going

to out of business and I thought I was

reading that chapter and that's when a

light bulb went off I he basically

invented the storyboard for that movie

because the movie was so long right no

one had done a feature like anime film

they had to storyboard out the scenes

and I remember thinking to myself once I

read that chapter I said what if we

created a storyboard of the perfect

vacation on Airbnb from the time you

book to the time you check in and what

if we literally designed the end to-end

Journey you might call this service

design and this became a Guiding Light

to how we design our service we didn't

just design the screen the apps the

emails we designed the experience the

endtoend experience kind of like when I

was in industrial design school and we

were like designing a ventilator or some

product and you're trying to put

yourself in the shoes of the user so

this book became very influential for me

and maybe the final thing I'll just say

is like somebody once said numbers are

the language of business and I remember

thinking to myself no language is the

language of business numbers is just the

only way we have to measure them but

that you ever notice there's 500

companies in a fort 500 how many of them

are creative people I don't know how

many but like I I might be one of the

only ones that went to design school

they have Boards of directors let's say

there's 12 PE or 10 people per board so

that's like 5,000 board members how many

of them are creative people or designers

or people from the humanities not many

how many EX CEOs have creative people

reporting to them not many and so we

have this world now where we many people

are dissatisfied with the way the world

is we are often given two bad options we

tend to be fighting Zero Sum when we

could imagine something better but we

don't have a lot of people in positions

of power that can take creative leaps of

the imagination and really understand

how to design something better that

we're in right now and I think

creativity is kind of being

systematically squashed from Maybe

Corporate America you know paabo Picasso

said it took me four years to learn the

paint like Raphael but a lifetime to

learn to paint like a child I think that

childhood curiosity is something that

creative people are able to typically I

think hold hold on to and and I think

that's being a little bit lost and what

I loved about Walt Disney and I also

liked about Steve Jobs was since they

were truly creative people that had

truly creative companies they empowered

them and they had an intuition they

didn't just paint the company by number

and that's the kind of company I've

always tried to do I've had this dream

of creating one of the most creative

places on Earth like Disney or apple we

may not get there but at least we'll

have the ideal I want to talk about that

moment where creativity won out over

what a CFO or the numbers might say but

taking a step back to that what

something else you said there which is

um kind of alluded to this idea of

creating for creating for yourself being

the path forward to creating for others

and I saw that it's actually one of the

big things as an entrepreneur taken away

from the Airbnb story that you don't

have to sit there and think about what a

million people want in a product you

just have to solve a problem for like

you and your best friend and you can

build an an amazing business out of that

and that's really like the Genesis of

Airbnb if you go right back to that's

almost every company in the world by the

way almost every company in the world

maybe Enterprise companies are not that

people have this thing people

forget take any giant company in the

world nothing large started large they

always started small it started with a

few people one or a few people and many

times they were making something that

looked like a toy it looked like a hobby

I remember one of my First Investors

said Brian don't worry about people

stealing your idea because if it's any

good everyone will dismiss it everyone

will dismiss it everyone will dismiss it

it turns out that a lot of breakthrough

ideas don't seem breakthrough at the

time they seem crazy or they seem

unserious or they seem like Hobbies they

seem something small

Airbnb we did not design a way for a

millions of people to stay in homes

Airbnb started one weekend it was

October 2007 a design conference was

coming to San Francisco all the hotels

are sold out and we had this idea we

said what if we just turned our house

into a bed and breakfast for the design

conference we can make enough rent I

think I actually have that email oh yeah

you have the email that Joe sent me yeah

yeah you have the email that Joe sent

sent me and so that's I thought of a way

to make a few bucks turning her place

into a designer's bed and breakfast

offering young designers who come into

town a place to crash during the 4day

weekend this is September 22nd 2007 we

thought we were just creating a way to

create a bed and breakfast for the

conference unfortunately we didn't have

any beds but Joe had air beds we pulled

the air beds out of the closet and we

called it airbed and breakfast.com now I

can assure you we did not think airbed

and breakfast would be a company where 3

four million people a night would use to

sleep in we did not think I'd be doing

podcasts and I'd be a giant public

company we thought it was going to be a

way for three people one weekend to stay

in our apartment sleep on some airbeds

pay us money we'd have a cool weekend

adventure and we go about our lives and

the funny thing is we thought it would

pay the rent while Joe Nate and I or Joe

and I at the time thought of the big

idea we kept talking about the big idea

an airb and breakfast was just a way to

keep solving our own problem paying her

rent before we came up with the big idea

but when I joined yator it's a very

well-known startup incubator of sorts

the founder Paul Graham used to have a

saying and it's the most important

advice they ever got and it's what you

were saying and it's counterintuitive he

said it's better to have a hundred

people love you than a million people

that just sort of like you if you have a

100 people that love your service they

when they love something they'll tell

everyone they know I remember talking to

somebody she loved airing be I'm like

how many people you've told a be she

goes I probably told 10 or 20 and her

friend standing next to her go no she's

told like one or 200 people and I

started realizing people who love

something become your marketing

department and they'll tell other people

and if they tell other people that grows

by what we call word of mouth so how do

you get somebody to love something I

don't know how you get a million people

to like something at the same time when

you're starting from nothing but I do

know how you could get one or two people

to like something you could meet with

them you can understand what their needs

are and you could design something so

perfectly spoke just for them and you

could literally think of them as

recruiting one person at a time if you

have a business idea you don't need to

get to a million you before you get to a

million you need to get to 100,000

before you get to 100,000 you get to

10,000 and before 10,000 you get to a

th000 and before 10,000 you get to 100

so all you have to do and all roads lead

to 100 don't Focus focus on the mountain

top focus on the first step Don't focus

in a million Focus just in 100 and as

you do that you make the problem small

and manageable because a million has to

build systems and just you start

developing complexities you can't deal

with so all you got to do is get to 100

once you get to 100 now you get to a th

and what you do is when you get thousand

you just keep going in orders of

magnitude and the job changes but people

get paralyzed because they think they

have to make something big and they're

like well Apple wasn't like this or

Google wasn't like this well actually

Apple started by selling black these

blue boxes in the back of like a trunk

of a car Google was this like research

project they were going to sell for like

low millions of dollars and they didn't

really know what they had these things

all start as unres toys that seem hacked

together and they're only made for you

and your friends that's almost always

how it starts and that question there

about creativity

beating rationality from like a

corporate Amer America standpoint the

Airbnb story story is riddled with

moments where you chose creativity and

customer experience over scalability and

profits but that wins out over a long

period of time in the story it always

does doesn't it I think it's in our soul

to be creative I think most

entrepreneurs are creative it's funny

almost every business is conceived

intuitively maybe sometimes people have

a business plan and they have some like

statistical insights and data but most

people start a company they have no data

like they have no customers and you no

customers you probably have no data and

so everything is started with intuition

with insights and understanding and then

the problem is as you get more

successful you get more data and as you

get more data you get more reliant on

the data and as you get more reliant on

the data you get more derivative you get

more iterative and data is good it's

what we might call necessary but not

sufficient but why if something made you

successful would you AB abandon it if

you follow your intuition if you follow

your heart if you had ideas why would

you seize to have them the bigger you

get you don't just have to found a

company you have to continue to refound

it to rebuild it continue to have new

ideas and I think the difference between

Airbnb and a lot of other large

multinational corporations if you think

of a company like a body most companies

it's like they're cut off at the head

they're disconnected from their heart

and they're kind of cut off and they're

focused on the one more analytical side

of their brain I think what most

companies need is more creativity and

maybe a little more heart and soul most

people at companies are loving

well-meaning people they just don't act

that way you know like the HR and legal

departments are mostly really good

people but the the Departments sometimes

work where the groups overly defer to

these groups they're very risk averse

they round the edges off it they sees to

take risk not realizing the biggest risk

is we don't change in a world that we

know will change but no one wants to be

the one to make a change to take a risk

the organization starts focusing on

itself rather than why it exists to

serve other people so all these things

start happening and you start appointing

more and more analytical people and then

pretty soon you wake up and the only

people on your board are only analytical

people and they only value what can be

measured and the only things you are

measuring are on are measured on a

short-term Horizon so the quality of

your product the brand how happy people

are

the vision whether you're moving in the

right direction are you about to be

disrupted in latest technology these

things are all hard to measure there's

an old Sig by a a Nobel Prize winner

named lonus Pauling says not everything

that counts can be counted not

everything that can be counted counts so

we tend to have a bias towards

short-term Financial measurements it

doesn't mean they're unimportant but if

you only optimize for them then you are

going to be imperiled and it's a pretty

damn good guarantee that you're going to

be Irrelevant in the future so I feel

like there needs to be more heart in

business more creativity in business and

not for the sake of the creative people

for the sake of the businesses for the

sake of the world we live in don't we

want to live in a world that's more

interesting than more exciting we need

to bring the creativity that artist and

scientists come together to bring and

it's that marriage of artists and

scientists and operators all coming

together that I think can design a

significantly better world than the we

loan we have in now we have all the

technology we need to design a a Better

World We believe it or not have all the

money we need we can say we need more

money but actually we can be more

efficient and more productive with the

resources we have this is going to

require creativity though we've got an

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very beginning

I saw this

email which I think is really important

because maybe it's the most important

thing because there are going to be

people uh starting companies now that

are getting a lot of emails like that

this is from August 1st 2008 we were by

the way so let me give the context of

this email so Jo Joe and I were trying

to raise money for everyone trying to

raise money I want you to know that

Airbnb was trying to raise

$150,000 at a $1.5 million I think post

money valuation I'll give you that right

now exactly and and here's one of many

rejection letters hi Brian apologies for

the delayed response we've had a chance

to discuss internally and unfortunately

don't think that it's right for

fill-in-the blank investment firm from

an investment perspective the potential

Market opportunity did not seem large

enough for a required

model now I want you to just put in this

perspective Airbnb handles nearly as

much money as the entire GDP of the

country of Croatia today one in about

every $1,500 spent in the world about $1

spent on Airbnb that's a pretty large

market and our business is pretty much

the same idea as the idea that we

proposed that person who said our Market

opportunity wasn't large enough so

there's probably a myriad of lessons in

that aren't there and I think

that it's a reminder that the world

doesn't just change or at least it

doesn't just transform toward WS our

dreams ideals and Ambitions that require

certain types of people we might call

them entrepreneurs inventors all sorts

of people in different domains that

believe the world could be a little

different than the one that they live in

that have the audacity to believe that

they can do it and they have the ability

to convince other people to go on that

Journey with them but along that Journey

everything's going to be different

you're going to get lost you're going to

be cold you're going to you're going to

have like obstacles things are going to

attack you you're going to fall down

pits and the question is when people are

cold and they're shivering and they're

not sure what to do and you're running

out of resources and rations can you

find your way up that mountain do you

know why you're going can you invent all

these different apparatus like there's a

stream you can't figure out you can

build a bridge to cross the stream with

the limited resources you have can you

recruit people along the way and can you

beat the drum and when people are tired

and they say I want to sleep you say yes

we're going to rest but we got to go

just 500 more steps I know it's it's

right over the edge I think we can do a

little bit better and can you push

people outside their comfort zone not

enough to hate you but enough to feel

like like a trainer you're like three

more reps and you don't want to do it

and then that very moment they're not

your friend but the end of the workout

you're like thank you for pushing me

that hard this is that kind of person

and can you take Divergent ideas that no

one's ever seen before and just continue

to reformulate them could you store

these ideas in your head a thousand

competing ideas and just reformulate

them in your mind that turns out the

stuff is difficult but you can work your

way up there most people watching this

have the skill set to be an entrepreneur

not everyone has a skill set or the

desire to run a giant company I don't

think everyone needs to do that but a

lot of people have the skill set to do

something to start something this is

what you need to get up the mountain and

the problem is imagine we got up the

mountain and then somebody was dropped

from a helicopter having never walked up

the mountain and you tell them okay now

you lead this group up the next Mountain

can you imagine how hard it would be for

that person to drop from the sky or

maybe they joined a third of the way up

the mountain but they weren't there at

the very beginning you see a Founder

brings three things that a professional

manager doesn't have the first thing a

Founder has is they're the biological

par

so you can love something but when

you're the biological parent of

something like it came from you it is

you there's a deep passion in love the

second thing a Founder has is they have

the permission right like I can't tell

another child what to do but if they

were my child I probably could I have

the permission and so you have a

permission I could rename the I could

Rebrand the company and a professional

manager would probably come and say I

can't do that but I know how we named it

I know how we branded it so so you know

what you can change and the third thing

that a Founder brings is you built it so

you know how to rebuild it you know the

freezing temperature of a company you

know at what temperature it melts you

know like what this looked like before

it was tooled where it came from the

Alloys where they where they were

sourced from you're not just managing it

you're building it and the problem is

professional managers typically don't

have any of those three at least not in

the abundance of Founders but the

problem with Founders there's two

problems the first is most them cannot

scale to run a giant company and even if

they do the last problem is they don't

live forever and companies Great

companies usually want to live longer

than humans do and so therefore you end

up with the inevitable challenge that

Disney and Steve Jobs had which is

succession planning and actually both of

them died prematurely and didn't maybe

Steve prepared more than than Walt did

and that's the last step of the journey

but I think there's something really

special about Founders and founder-led

companies and I think that if you want

the World to Change we need more

entrepreneurs we need more Founders if

you want to empower more women you

should make more women entrepreneurs if

you want to lift up more economies

around the world you should lift up

entrepreneurs in those economies it's

one of the greatest ways to create

wealth to change the world and to just

change the directory of society so

powerful Brian it made me think about

what Steve Jobs did leave behind and

that's maybe where the word culture

comes in because I would have bet

against Apple surviving and flourishing

in the wake of Steve Jobs's um passing

because Steve was so so special but he

clearly left a set of enduring

principles behind culture you know I

spoke to Daniel as you said as a friend

of yours um he said to me 20 years old

didn't care about culture 30 years old

didn't know what it was at 40 years old

I think company culture and team culture

is the most important thing when you

think about culture how important is

that what is it how does one go about

creating it it's funny you ask this

question because last week I sent a

email to the entire company to all 6,000

people and my email was about culture

and why it's important and what it is

can I read you a portion of it what a

privilege so the context of email is I

hired a a head of people in culture like

a different name for

HR Jon and I have always believed that

you must design the culture you want

otherwise you'll be designed for you and

you might not like what emerges the

people and the culture they create at

the heart of

Airbnb simply put culture is what

creates the foundation for all future

innovation in the long

run the culture is the most important

thing you will ever design because it's

the engine that designs everything

else all good designs start with a

vision and I want working at Airbnb to

feel like working at the world's largest

startup I believe we can grow into one

of the largest companies in the world

without feeling large a company that's

still like run like a startup with the

best people in every discipline

collaborating at high speeds with

intense Focus all well maintaining

mental bureaucracy and communication

layers and to make this happen we're

going to reimagine HR function because

too many companies have lost sight of

what HR was originally designed to do

reducing it to merely an administrative

function yet as core HR is about people

and culture and it's one of the most

strategic functions within a company

that's why we don't call it HR because

it should be about bringing out the very

best in people most of all I want us to

feel like we're building one of the most

creative places on Earth a company that

brings together some of the best people

of Our Generation to dream up new

products and services that capture the

world's imagination a place where years

from now people would say if I was alive

during that time that's where I would

have wanted to work I literally wrote

that email last week about

culture it's it's so incredible so

incredible because yeah the the greatest

leaders that I've met all arrive at the

same conclusion about culture even if it

takes them 10 years or 20 years or what

they arrive there um the question though

because so many CEOs could send that

email yes right everyone could just you

know they just heard Brian say it so

they copy and paste and send it to their

team the question is how do you actually

create that it's so great so big huge

Insight here

okay I used to think you talk about the

culture and you talk about how important

it is and you write out a list of well

what is your culture well our culture

are a bunch of principles or values we

live by so what what makes us most

unique let's do a session let's write

out a list of our values now let's tell

everyone the values let's print them on

the walls let's have people repeat them

let's keep telling people culture is

important and that stuff can help a

little bit but it's not how you build

culture so let me give you a few

thoughts your

culture is the shared way you do things

and often they're based on lessons

you've learned and the lessons you tend

to remember the most are the ones that

are seared in you they come from trials

and tribulations from your most

difficult times it's the way you rise

the occasion in the face of adversity

your culture is the behaviors of the

leaders that get mimicked all the way

down every single person your culture is

every time you choose to hire someone

every time you choose to fire someone

every time you choose to promote

somebody it's the way everyone does

everything and the way a leader designs

the culture is not by writing out a list

of values it's by basically leading by

example every single day and taking a

survey of every single thing happening

and constantly shaping it pruning it

like a gardener you know you you you

don't just allow the culture to happen

you design the culture you have an idea

of what you want to do and you're just

constantly getting this group together

you know you might have a culture of

excellence and a culture of Excellence

means I review all the work and I say

not good enough not good enough not good

enough and eventually I could not join

the meeting but people know what I'd say

they'd say it's not good enough this is

our standard and the moment I cannot be

in the room and the same action happens

as if I was in the room that's the

moment it goes from management

to culture so it's like a golf swing to

teach a golf swing you got to like

probably I don't play golf be the

instructor has to watch the person and

at some point the person learns how to

swing a golf swing without the

instructor there that's the difference

between management and culture and

culture is something that people learn

they develop these shared instincts and

it's so important because is it's your

ultimate intellectual property not your

technology not your recipe s not your

exclusive contract vendor

relationships the way you know how to do

something it that is the most important

thing a company has because all a

company is is a bunch of people a bunch

of money and a direction that th people

are using those resources to go towards

people resources strategy and the

culture is a thing that bonds those

things together you're the smartest

person I'm going to get to throw this

idea of culture at so I wanted to throw

it at you because I've just again a week

ago I started thinking about it when I

was asked the question on stage people

because of in a post-pandemic world are

now trying to figure out if they're

remote or in office or whatever else

trying to figure out their company

culture and I came to the conclusion

that you shouldn't um you shouldn't try

and create your company culture it is

already there if you look closely and

try and figure it out and here's what I

kind of concluded that if Trump someone

trying to figure out what their company

culture is think about the problem

you're trying to solve in the world then

from there reverse engineer the

behaviors you need to solve the problem

then from there reverse Engineers the

philosophies and values you need to

create those behaviors then from there

implement the [ __ ] things hire the

people so through the lens of this

podcast how do we become the best in the

world or what we do best podcast in the

world the behavior we need because we're

dealing with algorithms that changed all

the time is this experimental mindset we

need to constantly be leaning in every

time something changes that's the

behavior we want so one of our values is

what we call 1% which means that we

obsess over the smallest details and

then how do we Implement that into the

business well we had a head head of

experimentation in this podcast

full-time we have a full-time data

scientist if you said about the vibe in

the room and I said the scent the AI

thing glued under the table recording

the conversation with the trackpad so

that's like our company culture it was

the behaviors we needed the philosophies

that created and then the systems

processes and people we then hide

through to make sure that we achieved

that does that roughly you're the first

person I've ever said that too that

roughly makes

sense and please interrogate it for

Flaws because I need to improve my

thinking I think it's essentially

correct and I think the one thing I

would add is when we say behaviors

because I agree with the word behaviors

but I want to like round out behaviors

because for just a

second I used to think behaviors as the

things in addition we used to say the

what and the how this is something I

always got wrong there's what you did

and how you did it and people tend to

think of the what as competency how well

you did your job and culture is how how

you went about doing it and like so were

you a jerk were you nice did you make

people around you better and I don't

think that's accurate that's what I used

to think there's the what and the

how it turns

out the how you do something creates the

what in other words you can't break the

core values and succeed at making

something but like trample on people

along the way your values your culture

is how you do something so for example

let me take our example like one of our

one of our we don't we don't even really

have codified core values we have old

codified core values but like our

culture is at its strongest when it's

just like one shared Consciousness so

the best cultures is on shared

Consciousness where everything in your

head everything you care about is pered

throughout the people and they can

finish your sentences and people would

do in a room without you what they would

do if you were there and that's when you

create this Collective consciousness so

my thing is the culture starts with the

intersection of what your vision is and

what your personal values are and how

you want to lead and to use this I just

want to give one very concrete example

of where I left this out I'm a

perfectionist I am if people I who work

for me will watch they' actually laugh

because that's kind of like a classic

understatement I want every part of the

product to be perfect I want our product

to be perfectly designed I want it to

look like one person designed it

completely cohesive I obsess over

Simplicity I want to make sure that it's

about reducing something to its Essence

I want there to be the sense of heart

and Imagination and the problem was the

way we were running the company I was

running it the way I thought everyone

else wanted to work and they wanted to

work in autonomous separate groups and

divisions they wanted to do lots of

experimentation and for me I like to be

creative and experimental but I not want

to do micro experimental optimizations

for software because with that meant let

me use an analogy let's say we're making

a car one team is experimenting on the

tires and then another team's

experimenting on the wheels but it turns

out those two things don't fit together

and they fit together they invent this

new wheel now it's got to fit on a

bigger car body so now they got to go to

the car body team and change the shape

of the car but that makes the car I

don't know maybe heavier they need a

different battery so now they go to the

battery team the battery team says we

need to manufacture new battery but now

they need to actually capitalize that so

they go to the finance team and the

finance team goes we have to go to the

IR invest your relations to say we need

to explain we need more money it's just

a metaphor the metaphor is that you're

all in one team rowing together and I

realized that we need to be totally

integrated so I did some things that no

one else did I said there's no more

divisions we're going to be run like a

startup we have a design Department a

marketing department a engineering

department a sales and this is how every

little companies run and almost no large

companies in the entire world are

running run this way people say you

can't run a a a giant company like a

startup but I I wanted to do that and I

know Steve Jobs had done it that way

it's like I'm going to try to do the

same thing the next thing is people tend

to do measurement when you get really

big and you do small tactical micro

optimizations but then you tend to bias

towards Performance Marketing towards

AdWords towards small optimizations and

you don't take big creative leaps

because big creative leaps require the

entire company to organize work together

you don't obsess over things you can't

measure and you it's hard to measure

quality if this pixels off if that

doesn't feel quite right if this thing's

complicated it may be hard to measure so

maybe that doesn't matter I said no that

matters that's our culture and somebody

once said but we can't measure the

impact I said that's exactly why it's

our values because our culture and our

values are we do something when nobody

notices and we can't even measure it and

we don't even know if it works the

reason we do it because that's what we

believe it's like you know like this

this table we want it to be a certain

Sheen but I can't prove to you that more

people want to sit in this room but I

want it that way it matters to me I

always joke to people the most important

customer is yourself you have to love it

because real artists want to sign their

name to work and you have to be willing

to sign your name in the bottom right

quarter of that thing to make it perfect

so this is just a metaphor so it starts

at you your values and then the last

thing is your behaviors those are those

behaviors aren't just how you act and

behave

it's your capabilities it's how you make

something and maybe like your values are

we're constantly trying new things and

that has to be rigorously detailed and

documented and I think you want to show

by example and I tend to skip level work

with a team and and watch them and keep

meeting them I meet every team in the

company that works on projects that I I

see I meet them either every week every

two weeks or every four weeks and I have

them show work it's like go it's like

watching a golf swing I'm the chief

editor or the Orchestra conductor I

don't push decision- making down I pull

it in by push and making decisioning

down I'm pushing the company to be

fragmented by pulling decision making in

it's like a solar system the planets are

coming closer to Sun and at some point

we're all one Collective Consciousness

we're totally integrated we can Row in

the same direction and we all have the

same values every single thing you care

about in your head as a leader your

culture is as strong as everyone else

caring as much as you do about every one

of those things they may never be a

carbon copy individuality is good but

the further away from you usually it's

like carbon copy of a carbon copy of a

carbon copy and so I think your job as a

leader is to flatten the organization to

make people feel as close as possible to

you by feeling close to you they're

going to be close to the values because

you as a leader you are the values and

then disaster strikes and then disaster

strikes

and then you know what when disaster

strikes whatever you do in your darkest

hour that becomes your culture because

your culture people think is the perks

the yoga the free food no culture is

like when everyone said you know you

were going to fail in your darkest hour

when you didn't know how to get out of

the situation when you know you were in

this incredibly difficult POS position

maybe you're in a difficult negotiation

maybe you're about to run out of money

maybe you're in this horrible situation

with a competitor whatever you do in

that difficult or the P or in our case a

pandemic and you're about to go public

and you're working on one of the biggest

IPOs ever at that

point and then suddenly you lose 80% of

your business in eight weeks that's what

you lost 80% of our business and we had

a business larger we were handle our our

gross sales were probably higher than

Starbucks I think at that time was $35

billion I think Starbucks is like 25 30

billion this is gross sales through the

platform gross revenue gross gross

booking

value when a company that big loses 80%

of its business in 8 weeks it's like an

18wheeler going 80 mil an hour and

slamming on the brakes nothing really

good comes out of that situation at

least not initially was that your

darkest hour 100% % it was so dark at

least professionally I mean My Darkest

Personnel hour I I'll talk about in a

second but my

darkest professional

moment

was I

remember there were news

articles is this the end of

Airbnb will Airbnb

exist and this is 8 weeks after we were

preparing for one of the highest IPOs

ever

how could we go from this noun and a

verb used all over the world to suddenly

people were

worrying will we even survive and I knew

there were probably some questions not

only could we survive but could I could

I could I Brian lead us through this I

think no one doubted I knew how to build

this I did I mean that happened but was

I enough of an adult and a grownup and a

leader to be able to man through a

crisis and that crisis occurred on March

15th that's when the world shut down the

Ides of March and I remember holding an

emergency board

meeting and I remember there was a quote

by Andy Grove he one of the founders of

Intel I believe and he

said bad companies are destroyed by a

crisis good companies survive a crisis

but great

companies are defined by a crisis

and I told our board that we're going to

be that third

category see everyone was like oh my God

why us and I was like no no watch us and

I told myself at that moment this is our

defining moment I had no evidence that

this was our defining moment but I said

this is our defining moment and I said

what's about to ensue over the next six

months will be the best 6 months in the

company's history we are going to

redefine every part of our company so I

learned a lesson in a crisis you make

principal decisions not business

decisions a business decision is you

make a decision predicting the best

possible outcome a principal decision is

irresp of the outcome maybe you have no

idea how the outcome is going to play

out how do you want to be remembered

what's important to you I wrote a bunch

of principles some were pretty simple

like act decisive and fast Everyone by

the way data oriented people really

struggle in crisis M because the data is

changed and they don't know what to do

and they are uncomfortable making

intuitive decisions you better do that

in a crisis the second as I said act

with all stakeholders of mind a lot of

people suddenly they don't think about

everyone and they get really cold and

heartless I mean that's a Temptation and

you should not do that in a crisis

always imagine how to Well Be Remembered

in history maybe history won't remember

you maybe we're not important enough to

be remembered but pretend like we are do

if we had to be remembered how would we

want to be remembered

act decisive with all stakers of Mind

preserve cash win for the next travel

season people said travel may never come

back it may not come back forever I said

it will come back and we're going to win

and I think the final thing is to

remember that a crisis is a terrible

opportunity to ways if you tell yourself

this is my defining moment then that

creates an optimistic mindset and that

optimism is what everyone looks to

because in a crisis the hardest thing to

you know what the hardest thing to manag

in a crisis is this is what I learned

what it's your own psychology it's not

the employees it's not the financials

it's your own psychology because if you

think you're screwed people see in your

eyes and they say well you have the most

information so we must be screwed but if

you're optimistic and that optimism is

rooted in reality some basic facts that

people still want us to exist and here's

why then that optimism is going to be

the conditions for creativity and you

damn well need creativity in a crisis

cuz in a crisis you often have like two

bad options and you sometimes want that

third path and that's what creativity is

often times in life creativity is that

third path that third road that doesn't

exist that you pave with all the

components that weren't ahead of you so

that's what we did we rallied the

company together we got in a foxhole

basically and we rebuilt the company

from the ground up we had to make some

incredibly difficult decisions we had to

reduce the size of Company by 20 uh 25%

history will always remember how you did

that I hope so and I hope they remember

it well I remember it I read it one hour

ago before you came here I read every

article about it and you were can I read

the ending of it yeah yeah yeah yeah so

I wrote this long letter when I uh when

I never thought I would and I just want

to read the ending of it because I want

to I want to um I want to I'm going to

read just the close the last three

paragraphs so I write this letter

informing the company of a layoff this

is is you know obviously very difficult

and actually in a pandemic it's pretty

traumatizing because it's uncertain

you're isolated you're by yourself maybe

and you don't know if you're laid off in

a pandemic who's hiring because the

economy slowed down and we were in a

recession so I go through this email I

write out all the benefits I'm not going

to read that whole thing I want to just

fill the gap for you though because okay

the benefits you gave I read it upstairs

the benefits you gave people were unlike

any other company did that the way you

looked after their mental health the way

you um offered to maintain their

Healthcare in the US people lose their

healthare if they lose their job I

looked at it and thought [ __ ] H we

created an alumni directory where if you

were laid off you could opt into a

public directory we'd publish your

information and we'd Point recruiters to

your information and we ended up getting

like mil hundreds of thousands of PE

recruiters and people ended up visiting

those profiles and lot of those people

got rehired I was even calling

CEOs and I I remember this is how want

to be remembered I only remember that

when I'm imp Peril we're in our darkest

hour I'm not just worrying about how we

will survive I'm trying to call CEOs of

other companies to see if they can hire

our people but I want to I want to read

you what you made a long-term decision

in that moment yeah it's so clear well I

asked how do I want to be remembered

CFOs wouldn't have made like I'm not

saying CFOs in general but Finance

focused data people would never have

made those decisions it's nothing yeah

and the lesson is isn't that Finance

isn't good or data isn't good it's that

making CI solely on a financial basis

yeah yeah are usually not good Finance

is an input I appreciate my CFO and the

finance team I every be more than I ever

have before before the pandemic before

the pandemic I did not have nearly as

healthy relation my CFO I saw them as

somebody trying to control me and say no