In 2020 Airbnb lost 80% of its business in a matter of weeks.
That crisis is what turned Brian Chesky into a real CEO, twelve years after he started the company.
Airbnb went public in December 2020 and was valued at more than $100B by the end of its first trading day
for most of the decade before, Chesky doubted he would ever be a great CEO
the way he rebuilt his job inspired Paul Graham's essay on founder mode
his entire executive team eventually left
Chesky co-founded Airbnb in 2008 as a designer with no management experience. For years he followed the standard advice: hire experienced people, trust them and get out of their way. He now calls that advice a death sentence for a young company.
So he rebuilt the job around a few rules: who to hire, when to say no, how deep to go into the details and how to get people to disagree with him.
→ He still runs about 20 projects at a time, each on its own review rhythm.
📚 In this newsletter, I break down the management rules Airbnb's founder learned the hard way, with clips from his interview with Guy Raz on How I Built This and the takeaways for founders.
Inside you will find:
How to Hire and Fire Before You Have an HR Team
See who Chesky hires for a young company, why he regrets deferring to senior hires and the test he uses to read people.How to Keep the Whole Company Moving in One Direction
Find out how Airbnb ended up doing everything at once and the three things Chesky swore he'd never do.How to Stay in Every Detail Without Slowing the Team Down
Learn how he runs reviews with the whole chain of command in the room and why he overrules his team only 10% of the time.How to Never Have to Kill a Six-Month Project
See the kickoff checklist and the daily, weekly and monthly rhythms he uses across 20 projects.How to Get Your Team to Tell You You're Wrong
Find out how a tagline he was sure about taught him to take the opposite side of his own ideas.
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