Chesky argues startups should hire smart, hungry people slightly ahead of the founder rather than seasoned executives who don't understand the company's stage, and founders must stay close to them and the company.
What you actually need to do is not hire big grown-ups that don’t understand your stage. You have to hire people just a little bit ahead of you that are smart, hungry, and you got to stay really close to them. You got to stay really close to the company.
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Chesky says that deferring to experienced executives over his own intuition was usually a mistake in his early CEO years.
The hard part for me was sometimes my intuition would tell me one thing, and they tell me another. And what do I do when my intuition and their experience collide? Usually, I deferred, and that was usually a mistake.
Chesky says Airbnb has returned to growth mode, with its fastest revenue growth in over three years and acceleration even in its mature markets.
"Airbnb is back in growth mode," CEO Brian Chesky said in a release to investors. "It's rare for a marketplace of our size to reaccelerate growth, but that's exactly what we're doing. In Q3, we delivered our fastest revenue growth in more than three years, with acceleration across our business, including our most established markets."
Chesky notes North American nights booked grew at their fastest pace in four years, with more repeat and first-time guests.
"In North America, nights booked grew at their fastest pace in four years," Chesky said. "We're also seeing more guests return to Airbnb, and more people try it for the first time."
Chesky argues chatbots are the wrong interface for travel planning and says Airbnb is building a custom AI-native, generative-UI-like experience.
"Perhaps most importantly, we're building a new interface specifically for travel," Chesky said. "We don't think the traditional chatbot is the right way to plan travel. It's the wrong interface. So what we are doing is developing a custom-designed AI-native experience that responds to what guests are looking for … This is going to feel a little bit like generative UI in the sense that it's going to offer up the right interface at the right time for your specific travel needs."
Chesky believes specialization will win on complex tasks, and that specialized agents must be multiples better than general ones to overcome switching costs.
I think as they get really, really complicated, specialization is going to win. Now, the chat agent can hand over to a specialized agent, but a lot of people are going to go direct to the specialized agent