Airbnb

Airbnb is a website for people to list, find, and rent lodging.[2] It has over 1,500,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries.[3][4][5] Founded in August 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company is privately owned and operated by Airbnb, Inc.[6]

History

Shortly after moving to San Francisco in October 2007, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia created the initial concept for AirBed & Breakfast during the Industrial Design Conference held by Industrial Designers Society of America.[7] The original site offered short-term living quarters, breakfast, and a unique business networking opportunity for attendees who were unable to book a hotel in the saturated market.[8]

At the time, roommates Chesky and Gebbia could not afford the rent for their loft in San Francisco. They made their living room into a bed and breakfast, accommodating three guests on air mattresses and providing homemade breakfast.[9]

In February 2008, technical architect Nathan Blecharczyk joined as the third co-founder of AirBed & Breakfast.[10] During the company’s initial stages, the founders focused on high-profile events where alternative lodging was scarce.[11] The site Airbedandbreakfast.com officially launched on August 11, 2008.[12]

To help fund the site, the founders created special edition breakfast cereals, with presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain as the inspiration for “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCains”.[13] In two months, 800 boxes of cereal were sold at $40 each, which generated more than $30,000 for the company’s incubation[14] and attracted Y Combinator’s Paul Graham.[15]

After its inauguration, the site expanded to include properties in the market between hotels and CouchSurfing.[16] In January 2009, Y Combinator invited Chesky, Gebbia and Blecharczyk to join the incubator’s winter session for three months of training.[17] With the website already built, they used the $20,000 Y-Combinator investment to fly to New York to meet users and promote the site.[18] They returned to San Francisco with a profitable business model to present to West Coast investors.

In March 2009, the name Airbedandbreakfast.com was shortened to Airbnb.com, and the site’s content had expanded from air beds and shared spaces to a variety of properties including entire homes and apartments, private rooms, castles, boats, manors, tree houses, tipis, igloos, private islands and other properties.[19]

One year later, there were 15 people working from Chesky and Gebbia’s loft apartment on Rausch Street in San Francisco. To make room for employees, Brian Chesky gave up his bedroom and lived through the Airbnb service until the company moved into its first office space.[20]

Brian Chesky

Brian Joseph Chesky (born August 29, 1981) is an American Internet entrepreneur. He is best known as one of the co-founders of the hospitality exchange service, Airbnb. Chesky is the CEO of the company. He was named one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People of 2015”.

Early life and education

Brian Chesky was born on August 29, 1981. He grew up in Niskayuna, New York. He is the son of Deborah and Robert H. Chesky,[2] His parents were both social workers.[3] He has an elder sister, Allison.[3] He is Catholic.[4] During his youth, he was interested in art, drawing replicas of paintings, and design, redesigning shoes and toys.[3] Chesky later became interested in landscape architecture and design.[5]In 1999, Chesky started attending the Rhode Island School of Design, emphasizing in industrial design. He received his Bachelors of Fine Arts in Industrial Design in 2004. During his time at RISD, Chesky met Joe Gebbia, who would later be one of the co-founders of Airbnb.[5]

CareerAfter college, Chesky worked as an industrial designer and strategist at 3DID, Inc. in Los Angeles.[5] After moving to San Francisco, Chesky became roommates in an apartment with Joe Gebbia. In October 2007, the Industrial Designers Society of America was hosting a conference in San Francisco and all hotels rooms were booked.[6][7] The pair could not afford rent for the month and decided to rent their apartment for money.[8] They purchased three air mattresses and marketed this idea as “Airbed and Breakfast”, with three guests staying the first night.[9][10]

In February 2008, Harvard graduate and technical architect Nathan Blecharczyk became the third co-founder of Airbnb.[11] Each co-founder assumed a role within the new company, with Chesky becoming the leader and chief executive officer.[3] In order to receive funding, Chesky and his co-founders created special edition cereals known as “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCains”, which were based on Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Y Combinator saw these cereal boxes and were impressed, so it accepted Airbnb into its seed funding program.[12] In its first year, the company began internationalizing and opened several new offices in Europe.[13] In 2011, Chesky wrote a letter on behalf of the company for its handling of a resident complaint about tenant vandalism by announcing a 24 hour hotline, additional staff support and a guarantee for theft or vandalism.[14] In 2015, Chesky announced that Airbnb was the official sponsor of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in Brazil. He stated that more than 120,000 people stayed in Airbnb homes during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.[15] As of March 2015, Airbnb has a $20 billion valuation.[16]

In 2015, Chesky evoked Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March to complain about New York City’s 30-day restriction on Airbnb rentals. He tweeted, “Apparantly during Salt March, Ghandi stayed in homes. Good thing gov didn’t require a min 30 day stay. He wouldn’t have gotten very far.” Chesky deleted the tweet and apologized for making it.”[17]