With commerce comes fraud.
Nathan Blecharczyk
When you think about it, Airbnb is a great solution if your family is traveling with you on business and you need more space, if you're going for an extended stay, like a week plus. It's a great solution if you want close proximity to the work site and maybe there isn't a hotel across the street or whatnot.
We're a provider of experiences, not strictly accommodation.
I don't feel like my life happens to me. I feel like I happen to my life. I feel that I'm in the driver's seat.
Being a father gave me a new purpose for existing. That newfound purpose has somehow given me the stamina and patience to take on the endless stream of challenges that come along with parenthood.
We try to take a very strong stance against discrimination and hatred.
No hotels have gone out of business because of Airbnb... Airbnb is not a perfect substitute for a hotel. We excel at different things.
For entrepreneurs, choosing your co-founders is like a professional marriage. You're going to go through tough times, and you need to remember that ideas can change, but business partners can't.
Part of being an entrepreneur is, like, it's just so great to run your own business, that feeling you get.
I think we've always thought that it's important to have a positive relationships with local government rather than taking a confrontational kind of stance.
Our interest isn't in just serving the guests and hosts. We need to serve the entire community. If that means we have to take action against the host, we will.
I don't like spending money.
I like to keep things simple.
I don't like asking people for things, so if I can do it myself, that's the mindset I have. My dad is very much a do-it-yourself kind of person, so I had a strong sense of independence.
It's not just exciting to build things but to explore new fields and to recognize what comes with that is a lot of uncertainty.
When we founded Airbnb in 2008, our dream was to help create a world where you could belong anywhere, and that vision has taken root in almost every country in the world.
More efficient workers are always in an employer's best interest.
I realized that I'm increasingly in a position where I know a network of people, and I'm able to connect more or less anyone.
I actually almost made a million dollars while in high school.
We have to be careful that we don't have so much regulation that would prevent all of the people who are benefiting from Airbnb to benefit.
I'm married. I have a daughter, so I put aside time in the day to spend with them.
My wife and I try to have a date night once a week. We schedule them all in advance.
Airbnb is creating a new marketplace for space and is facing many of the challenges that eBay faced back in 1998 when they created a new marketplace for goods.
Deviants from around the world are trying to 'beat' our system every day. We have to proactively identify suspicious behavior and quarantine users until additional verification steps can be taken.
We don't want to go starting completely separate businesses that do nothing for our user base.
We want to strike the right balance between the governments and our users. If there are concerns, we can work together.
I had this question when we started: Is this something that's only going to work in New York City? And then, is it just in North America? Is it just in Western culture?
Historically, we've just been doing accommodation. And, going forward, we're really exploring the full boundaries of everything that someone needs while on a trip, and also how can we reinvent that experience.
Silicon Valley is super competitive and super expensive for talent, for office space, for everything.
Ultimately, what we're trying to do for our customers or our guests is create magical travel experiences.
I have incredible wealth, and I think there's a great responsibility to use this position to do good stuff.
Talking to hosts and asking them, 'What does Airbnb mean to you?'... I get amazingly heartfelt stories about the people that they met, about the money that they earned, about the mindset of empowerment they got through this and how they then applied that to their own business.
I cannot deny that there are unavoidable, day-to-day tradeoffs between being a parent and a professional. There are only so many hours in a day.
We're really creating a whole different kind of travel experience. One that really celebrates the different places, different cultures, the different cities and immerses you in that culture.
Some hotels are trying to dig their feet in and trying to say that Airbnb shouldn't exist - that 'illegal hotels' shouldn't exist. And, of course, illegal hotels shouldn't exist. But when they say illegal hotels, sometimes they mean anything that's not a hotel.
When you offer consumers choice, let them vote with their wallets.
What we've demonstrated is there's an immense appetite to travel more authentically and immerse yourself in culture... as opposed to having a commoditised experience.
Airbnb is dedicated to empowering people and communities through healthy tourism, and we have a long tradition of supporting local projects in Asia-Pacific.
Airbnb is built on the foundation of creating community through belonging, and we're honored to stand with a bipartisan group of mayors and businesses from across the country dedicated to improving communities by addressing affordable housing and homelessness.
There's a perception out there that Airbnb doesn't want there to be rules. We think rules would be fantastic. We think rules would help our community, but not necessarily the rules that have simply existed for decades.
We make every one of our users sign a pledge when they sign up that they will not discriminate, that they will not exhibit hatred. Whenever we become aware of such an example, they're permanently banned.
