Brian Chesky

Chesky is originally from Niskayuna, New York. He has written that he grew up in a small town and never met a CEO or entrepreneur growing up; he was a little disruptive in class, and by the time he graduated high school and decided to go to art school, his main goal was to one day get a job with health insurance. A high school teacher recommended that he go to art school.⁠[1][2][2][2][2][2]

In 2004 Chesky earned a BFA in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), serving as class speaker at his own graduation ceremony that year. At RISD he met his future co-founder Joe Gebbia, who later convinced him to move to San Francisco to start a company.⁠[3][4][2]

In 2007, Chesky and Gebbia were roommates in San Francisco and were struggling to pay their rent. When an international design conference came to the city and every hotel was sold out, the two created a website, AirBedandBreakfast.com, and inflated three airbeds in their apartment to rent to attendees.⁠[5][5][5]

In October 2007 they hosted three designers, Michael, Kat, and Amol, becoming the platform’s first hosts.⁠[6][5]

In 2008, software engineer Nathan Blecharczyk joined, and the three set out to solve how to make strangers comfortable enough to stay in each other’s homes, designing trust mechanisms including host and guest profiles, integrated messaging, two-way reviews, and secure payments.⁠[5][5]

In March 2008, Airbed & Breakfast officially launched during SXSW and received just two bookings; in August of that year the website relaunched in time for the Democratic National Convention and received 80 bookings, and the company launched its own payments platform.⁠[6][6][6]

In January 2009, AirbedAndBreakfast joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2009 batch. When Paul Graham recommended the company to investor Fred WilsonFred WilsonFred Wilson is an American venture capitalist, co-founder and partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), and earlier co-founder, with Jerry Colonna, of the internet investment firm Flatiron Partners. He has written the blog AVC since 2003, chaired Etsy’s board for many years, and is a director of Coinbase.Open the full entry that month, he noted that the team was in New York, its biggest market, meeting users, and suggested asking them how they had funded themselves with breakfast cereal.⁠[7][8][8]

Graham later cited Airbnb as a classic example of doing things that don’t scale: the founding team went door to door in New York recruiting new hosts and helping existing ones improve their listings.⁠[9][9]

In March 2009, the company officially changed its name from Airbed & Breakfast to Airbnb and expanded beyond rooms to apartments, whole homes, and vacation rentals. That year, Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry invested in Airbnb at the seed stage.⁠[6][10][11]

In November 2010, Airbnb launched its app and Instant Book feature. The company had previously raised a $7.8 million Series A from investors including Greylock, Sequoia Capital, and SV AngelSV AngelSV Angel is a San Francisco venture capital firm cofounded in 2009 by angel investor Ron Conway and former Google executive David Lee. It typically writes small follow-on checks in seed rounds and has invested in companies such as Airbnb, Pinterest, and Dropbox; in 2018 it said it would no longer raise new funds from outside investors, and from 2022 it set up growth funds.Open the full entry.⁠[6][12]

On July 25, 2011, Airbnb announced $112 million in Series B financing led by Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry with participation from DST GlobalDST GlobalDST Global is a technology investment firm founded by Yuri Milner in 2009 that focuses on growth-stage investments in internet companies worldwide; it has invested in companies including Facebook, Twitter, Alibaba, JD.com, Airbnb and Spotify, and in 2026 led the US$400 million Series B round of the AI visual content company Higgsfield.Open the full entry and General CatalystGeneral CatalystGeneral Catalyst (GC) is an investment firm founded in 2000 and headquartered in San Francisco, United States, created by Joel Cutler, David Fialkow and Bill Fitzgerald, that backs companies from the seed stage through growth.Open the full entry, bringing its total funding to $119.8 million. Chesky called it “a watershed moment” for the company and its community. In June of that year, Airbnb opened an office in Germany, beginning its international expansion.⁠[12][12][12][6]

In 2012, the partner who had represented Sequoia on Airbnb’s board left the firm, and Chesky asked Michael MoritzMichael MoritzMichael Moritz is a venture capitalist, writer, and philanthropist who was a partner at Sequoia Capital from 1986 to July 2023 and long served as a member of the firm’s leadership and as its chairman. He represented Sequoia in investments in and on the boards of companies including Yahoo, Google, PayPal, Zappos, Stripe, and Klarna, and he is involved in San Francisco civic affairs through his family foundation Crankstart, local San Francisco media, and political donations.Open the full entry to put Alfred LinAlfred LinAlfred Lin is an American venture capitalist who has been a partner at Sequoia Capital since 2010 and, since November 2025, one of the firm’s co-stewards together with Pat Grady. Before joining Sequoia he was an executive at LinkExchange, Tellme Networks, and Zappos, companies acquired by Microsoft and Amazon; at Sequoia he has represented the firm on the boards of companies including Airbnb and DoorDash.Open the full entry on the board. Chesky said he had gone to art school and had no operations experience, while Lin had operational discipline and was highly analytical. Around 2013, during the company’s hypergrowth, Lin spent one day a week in the Airbnb office, helping Chesky ramp up customer service and internal operations.⁠[10][10][10][10]

In 2014, the 33-year-old Chesky shared the No. 1 spot on Fortune’s 40 under 40 list with Uber founder Travis KalanickTravis KalanickTravis Kalanick is an American entrepreneur, a co-founder of the ride-hailing platform Uber, and Uber’s chief executive officer from 2010 to 2017. He drove Uber’s expansion to hundreds of cities worldwide with a hard-line approach to taxi regulation, resigned as CEO in 2017 amid scandals over company culture and pressure from investors, and left the board in 2019. He went on to lead City Storage Systems, the parent company of CloudKitchens, which he reorganized in 2026 into the robotics and artificial intelligence company Atoms.Open the full entry and ranked 44th on Fortune’s Businessperson of the Year list. That year, New York City announced a crackdown on Airbnb listings, citing that more than 70% violated local hotel laws.⁠[13][13][13]

On June 1, 2016, Chesky signed the Giving Pledge. In his pledge letter he wrote that he was only able to write it because a few people saw in him what at times he had not seen in himself, and that he hoped to help more kids see a wider world of possibilities.⁠[2][2][2][2]

In June 2016, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G. K. Butterfield and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II wrote to Chesky about discriminatory behavior by some Airbnb hosts. On September 8 of that year, Airbnb released a report outlining steps to fight bias and discrimination on the platform; former Attorney General Eric Holder took part in the review.⁠[14][14][14][14]

The Congressional Black Caucus said it commended Airbnb and its CEO, Chesky, for taking a significant first step to address racial discrimination on the platform.⁠[14]

In November 2016, Airbnb launched Experiences, activities led by locals. In February 2017, Airbnb aired its #weaccept Super Bowl ad to protest the US travel ban, and in March of that year it launched its Chinese brand, Aibiying.⁠[6][6][6]

On June 3, 2017, Chesky received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and delivered the keynote address at its Commencement; Joe Gebbia also received an honorary degree.⁠[3][3][3]

After the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020, borders closed and travel stopped, Airbnb’s business declined by nearly 80%, and its IPO was put on hold. The company raised $2 billion in capital and cut costs dramatically; in choosing between debt and equity financing, director Alfred Lin favored debt to avoid a down round.⁠[5][15][10]

On May 5, 2020, Chesky wrote to employees announcing layoffs: nearly 1,900 of the company’s 7,500 employees, around 25%, would leave; Airbnb paused its Transportation and Airbnb Studios efforts and scaled back investments in Hotels and Lux, returning to its core business of hosting.⁠[15][15][15]

In November 2020, in preparation for the IPO, Airbnb’s board awarded Chesky a performance-based restricted stock unit award intended to cover ten years of compensation, earned only if the company’s 60-trading-day trailing average closing stock price exceeds progressively higher hurdles from $125 to $485 over ten years. Chesky receives a $1 base salary, does not participate in the bonus plan, and intends to donate the net proceeds of the award to community, philanthropic, and charitable causes. As of April 2026, the first two tranches had been earned and vested.⁠[16][16][16][16][16]

On December 9, 2020, Airbnb priced its initial public offering at $68 per share, offering 51,323,531 shares of Class A common stock, of which 50 million were sold by the company, for gross proceeds to the company of approximately $3.4 billion; trading began on December 10 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ABNB, and the offering closed on December 14.⁠[17][17][17][17][18][18]

At the IPO, Chesky was chief executive officer, head of community, co-founder, and chairman of the board. Airbnb has a multi-class share structure, and after the offering holders of Class B common stock held about 99.0% of the voting power.⁠[5][5]

In the founders’ letter to investors, Chesky wrote that the COVID-19 crisis had been the company’s “most defining period” since its founding; to let hosts share in the company’s success, Airbnb created the Airbnb Host Endowment, seeded with over nine million shares of company stock. That month, Airbnb announced the launch of Airbnb.org, a non-profit that provides places to stay for people in times of crisis.⁠[5][5][6]

On April 28, 2022, Chesky wrote to employees worldwide announcing a “live and work anywhere” policy: most employees could choose to work from home or the office; they could move anywhere in the country where they work without a change in compensation; and starting that September they could live and work in over 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location. He said remote work and flexibility would become the predominant way of working 10 years from then.⁠[19][19][19][19][19]

In September 2024, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham published the essay “Founder Mode,” prompted by a talk Chesky gave at a YC event. As Graham recounted it, the theme of the talk was that the conventional wisdom about how to run larger companies is mistaken: as Airbnb grew, Chesky followed the advice to “hire good people and give them room to do their jobs,” with disastrous results, and later found a better way partly by studying how Steve JobsSteve JobsSteve Jobs (1955–2011) was a technology entrepreneur, Apple co-founder, NeXT founder, and investor and former CEO of Pixar. His career spanned personal computing, digital music, smartphones and animated films, with an emphasis on product design, user experience and multidisciplinary teams.Open the full entry ran Apple.⁠[20][20][20][20]

From this Graham argued that there are two different ways to run a company, founder mode and manager mode, and that founders can do things that professional managers cannot.⁠[20][20]

On May 13, 2025, Airbnb launched Airbnb Services (initially covering 10 categories such as chefs, photography, and massage in 260 cities), a redesigned Airbnb Experiences, and an all-new app, expanding beyond lodging. Chesky said: “Seventeen years ago, we changed the way people travel. … With the launch of services and experiences, we’re changing travel again.”⁠[21][21][21][21]

On May 20, 2026, Airbnb announced its 2026 Summer Release, adding service categories such as car rentals, grocery delivery, and airport pickups, introducing exclusive FIFA World Cup 2026 Experiences, bringing boutique and independent hotels to the platform, and adding AI-powered tools to the app. Chesky said travel should not just be convenient but meaningful.⁠[22][22][22][22]

As of October 2026, Chesky remains Airbnb’s chief executive officer and chairman of the board and lives in San Francisco. In the second quarter of 2026, Airbnb’s revenue grew 17% year over year to $3.6 billion and net income was $816 million; the company said it had rebuilt Airbnb from the ground up as an “AI-native” company.⁠[16][1][23][23][23]

As of May 2026, Airbnb had more than 5.5 million hosts, more than 2.5 billion guest arrivals all-time, and listings in over 220 countries and regions. Chesky was named to Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful People in Business list in 2024 and 2025, ranking 64th in 2025.⁠[6][6][6][6][24][24]

Airbnb: Official website: https://www.airbnb.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

X: Public account: https://x.com/bchesky (opens in a new window)⁠[1]