Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky: 'I was a great founder and a terrible CEO' — 8 lessons from losing 80% of the business
tibo_maker · x · 2026-11-10
Brian Chesky reflects on Airbnb's COVID crash — losing 80% of the business in weeks before a $100B+ IPO — and his evolution as a manager.
Key points:
- 'Hire great people and get out of the way' is a death sentence for young companies; hire people slightly ahead of you and stay close
- He deferred to execs 20+ years older; a departed exec's direction can take 5-10 years to fix
- After Ken Chenault warned COVID would be '10x 9/11 for travel,' he went hands-on and never went back
- Jobs' Apple taught him presence over absence: skip-level talks, key reviews with the full chain in one room, overruling 10% of the time
- Founder mode: stay in the details until it's muscle memory; a press release once took 70 iterations, now he reads it once
- Obama's advice: stay grounded with old friends and one new friend a year
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