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The co -founder and CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, had a problem that he wanted to solve.
When the company launched in 2008, it did with a direct proposal: rent its house or a room at home, to change the way people travel around the world.
But that was always a starting point.
«I remember thinking, I don’t think we have monetized the greatest asset of people, because I think that the greatest asset of people is their time and their full income potential,» Chesky recalls in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. «We started thinking, what would happen if you could more than an Airbnb?»
On Tuesday, the Technology Company is implementing a huge review of its offer and application, adding services (think of massages, personal training or meals) and personalized experiences in each city or locality (that is, a class of manufacturing cakes in Paris, a wrestling experience in Mexico City or a tour of the gallery in New York).
«What happens if this time, instead of obtaining tour operators, we find some of the most interesting people in the world, from famous chefs, to sneakers, musicians, even global celebrities icons?» Chesky says. «And what would happen if we examined them all and it was easy to reserve them instantly? And what would happen if these experiences become social, in the sense that you could see the other guests, you could send them a message, you can keep in touch later, and what would happen if everything were incredibly easy to reserve?»
So, your company is making it possible.
The result covers the basics to the extraordinary, with a wide intermediate range. In the front of the celebrities, Chesky says that the company has «dozen» of high profile people who cover music, sports and entertainment ready to participate. The initial lot of unique experiences in life will include days with characters like Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mohamses playing football and eating barbecue; One day on the short and sweet set with Sabrina Carpenter; And one day with Megan Thee Stallion, with others launched in the coming weeks.
Chesky says that the idea was inspired by last year’s launch of Airbnb icons, in which the company made available a wide range of iconic locations (some real, some recreated fiction) in which its users could stay. Some of those places, such as the management of X-Men in Westchester County, New York and the mansion of beetles in New Jersey, included an experimental element.
«We did some houses in which there was a celebrity in the house, and then, at some point, we said, maybe we can only make celebrities without the home,» says Chesky, and pointed out that, as part of his new Airbnb Originals program, users can reserve things like music lessons of musicians and beach volleyball lessons with Olympic stars. «We had this basic idea that, from a next musician to Sabrina Carpenter and everything else, that there were no holes. At each stage of someone’s career, almost as if Sabrina Carpenter was unknown, she could be on our platform, and as she becomes more popular, she can become an original, and eventually becomes a superstar and still has a place on Airbnb. Why do you make it more popular? indirectly through them. «
Of course, celebrity experiences are a high profile of what the company has created, with experiences in some 650 cities available in the launch, covering art, culture, food, physical state, outdoor air and almost everything else.
Airbnb application design about experiences.
Courtesy of Airbnb
«We had to build a network of creators of treasurers essentially, in cities around the world that were highly on a network, which came from these different communities,» says Chesky. «So we had chefs and had musicians, and we had people in entertainment and sports in cities around the world that were on our network, and basically worked with us to find and recruit all these different hosts, and then we incorporated them.»
Airbnb is also being built in social networks characteristics based on these experiences, with plans to recover part of the magic of social networks of medium teachings, when platforms like Facebook were about people you know in real life, instead of videos with algorithmic and content generated by AI.
Everything is part of a wholesale rethinking of the Airbnb platform, which Chesky is part of the greatest review in the company’s history.
«We wanted to build a community in the real world where you can travel anywhere, live anywhere and belong to anywhere, so we needed the jump point to do it. I think that experiences in particular are a way of doing so,» says Chesky. «I wanted to be one of the companies that took people from their device to the real world, experiencing the magic of the world. And that is a bit what we are trying to do here.»
«We build these experiences for travelers. But I bet that a group of people in New York would love to experience a Friday night,» he adds. «I think that eventually a large percentage of our business will probably be people who use us in their own city.»
Chesky, widely considered one of the most vision of Silicon Valley, paints a future of Airbnb that, in many ways, reflects the silicon valley of the not so distant past, when it seemed that technological companies connected people around common interests and spread good vibrations. When an Airbnb user reserves a group experience, the application will connect them with other people with whom, for example, they took a cooking class, allowing users to share photos of the experience or send a message. A social platform built around real life, not videos of another person’s life.
«When I arrived in Silicon Valley, the iPhone had just announced, Facebook has just opened from university students to all, and there were these things called social networks, and you could keep in touch with people. Children do not use social networks today,» says Chesky, regretting the algorithmic foods of Instagram and Tiktok video. «I always wondered, what would happen if you could build the equivalent of a social network in the real world?
And he believes that Airbnb can be a center for that future network, one that may be a counterweight for the revolution generated by AI that is strengthened in Silicon Valley.
«I want the Airbnb profile to be the most reliable profile on the Internet. We verify 200 million identities. Now we have these really interesting social characteristics where you can connect with people,» says Chesky. «It’s like the first Facebook, except in the real world, and that was the idea behind this. Children spend more and more time on devices, and I want us to use technology to help people from devices to the real world. Because AI is magical, but you know what is more magical than the real world, and people and relationships and memories.»
(Tagstotranslate) Airbnb (T) Facebook
