Words matter. These are the best Brian Chesky Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The American dream, what we were taught was, grow up, own a car, own a house. I think that dream’s completely changing. We were taught to keep up with the Joneses. Now we’re sharing with the Joneses.
As children, we have vivid imaginations. We stay up late waiting for Santa Claus, dream of becoming president, and have ideas that defy physics. Then something happens. As we grow older, we start editing our imagination.
The office is the laboratory and meeting your users is like going into the field. You can’t just stay in the lab. And it’s not just asking users what they want, it’s about seeing what they’re doing.
I think the key that makes Airbnb is the fact that we’re a community, not just a series of commodities.
When we started Airbnb, I had no idea about the people we would meet or the friendships I would make.
Airbnb is different from most brands. We’re a community of individuals, and yet there’s a consistency holding us together through the values we share. We have a common belief in belonging, but everyone’s expression of it will naturally always be a little different.
Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.
People don’t use Airbnb overtly to trust people more. They use it because they want to get a better sense of the culture and to save money. A by-product was that they live in someone else’s shoes.
Whatever the press is talking about, they want to keep talking about it. So instead of asking yourself, ‘How can I get them to start talking about me?’, figure out a way to get yourself involved in what they’re already talking about.
Repetition doesn’t create memories. New experiences do.
Customers are willing to try new things, and if you can survive, you will have fewer competitors. It’s like entering the eye of the storm. As long as you are strong enough to survive, you can end up in still water by yourself.
In June 2010, I moved out of my apartment and I have been mostly homeless ever since, off and on. I just live in Airbnb apartments and I check in every week in different homes in San Francisco.
When you are in someone’s home, in their bed, you see the world from their eyes. You understand ‘the other’ is not so other.
Never assume you can’t do something. Push yourself to redefine the boundaries.
Think of the imagination as a giant stone from which we carve out new ideas. As we chip away, our new ideas become more polished and refined. But if you start by editing your imagination, you start with a tiny stone.
Travel is a new experience that can transport you out of your everyday routine to create memories with the ones you love.
Our perception of time is really driven by our perception of the unfamiliar, vivid, and new.
I think the next big thing in music, and it’s kind of because I come from the tech industry, is actually, I think it’s the platform… Spotify is incredibly interesting. I think the platform is becoming the star.
What I’ve been surprised by is not how different people are, but how similar they are. There are certain types of Airbnb people, and they are in every city in the world – it’s just that in some cultures, there is more of a generational divide.
Culture is a thousand things, a thousand times. It’s living the core values when you hire; when you write an email; when you are working on a project; when you are walking in the hall.
If you want to create a great product, just focus on one person. Make that one person have the most amazing experience ever.
The stuff that matters in life is no longer stuff. It’s other people. It’s relationships. It’s experience.
