Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky’s mom used to worry he’d have ‘the only job in the world that pays less than a social worker’
Before Airbnb had over 7 million listings worldwide, there was one sole lodging: three inflatable air beds at CEO Brian Chesky’s San Francisco home. He had quit his job and packed up all his belongings in a Honda Civic to make a cross-country move, and couldn’t pay his rent. That’s when he noticed all the local hotels were booked because of the Industrial Designers Society of America’s International Design Conference in San Francisco, and a business was born.
Transcript
00:00 I guess all origin stories start with your mom.
00:02 So growing up, I grew up in Albany, New York.
00:05 So I actually think of myself more as a New Yorker.
00:08 I was for 18, 19 years.
00:11 And my parents were both social workers growing up.
00:14 And I remember my mom giving me advice when I grew up.
00:20 She said, Brian, your father and I, we chose a job
00:24 because we love it.
00:25 But we didn't really get paid a lot.
00:27 So you should choose a job for the money.
00:29 And so it was very obvious.
00:32 And so we're looking at what jobs pay a lot of money.
00:35 And so one day, I told my mom, I think
00:37 I'm going to go to the Rhode Island School of Design.
00:39 I'm going to become an artist.
00:41 At which point, she said, you somehow
00:43 managed to pick the only job in the world that
00:45 pays less than a social worker.
00:47 You'll get paid nothing.
00:48 And I said, I'll make an income.
00:50 I'll get a job.
00:51 I promise.
00:51 And she said, well, I do want you
00:53 to promise me that if you get a job,
00:54 that that job has health insurance one day.
00:57 And so this was the kind of beginning of my endeavor.