00:00It was never meant to be a business.
00:01How could you trust a stranger ever in your own home?
00:03This was really the insight that turned everything around
00:06when we were on the verge of quitting.
00:13Welcome to this special live edition
00:16of The Big Question from Brussels.
00:19I'm Angela Barnes.
00:20Now, on The Big Question,
00:22we dive deep into some of the biggest topics
00:25on today's business agenda.
00:27It is my great pleasure to please welcome
00:30our special guest, Nathan Placharczyk,
00:33who is the co-founder and chief strategy officer at Airbnb.
00:38I would love to get started with talking about
00:41Airbnb's backstory because, of course,
00:43you co-founded Airbnb in 2008.
00:46Did you expect it, first of all,
00:48to become as big as it has become now today?
00:51In the early days, folks didn't even like the idea
00:54for the most part.
00:55They said, how could you trust a stranger ever
00:56in your own home?
00:58Well, today, fast forward,
00:59we have 9 million homes on the platform
01:01in 220 countries and territories
01:03across 150,000 different cities.
01:06More than 2.5 billion people
01:08have stayed in other people's homes.
01:09I think it's amazing how we've created
01:11the trust necessary
01:13to create this kind of exchange at global scale.
01:16And last year, for example,
01:1892 billion was transacted on the platform,
01:21and the majority of that income
01:22went to the individuals hosting their homes.
01:30What was your original inspiration for Airbnb?
01:34When it began, it was never meant to be a business.
01:36I was in San Francisco with my two other roommates,
01:39and we were just trying to solve our own problem,
01:41which is how to pay the rent one weekend.
01:43You see, the rent on our apartment
01:44had just been raised 25%.
01:46And I said, that's too expensive.
01:48I'm moving out here.
01:48The two other guys wanted to stay.
01:51But they had just quit their jobs
01:52to become entrepreneurs.
01:54They didn't have the money
01:54to pay the rent either.
01:56But they're both designers by background,
01:58and they saw that a design conference
02:00was coming to San Francisco,
02:01and they noticed that all the hotels were sold out.
02:04And so they decided to rent out
02:05the extra bedroom in the apartment
02:06to designers who might need a place
02:08to stay that weekend.
02:09This bedroom was empty.
02:11It had no bed.
02:11So they set up an air bed.
02:13So instead of calling it a bed and breakfast,
02:14they called it an air bed and breakfast.
02:16So Airbnb is short for air bed and breakfast.
02:18And they ended up hosting three designers that weekend
02:20who got an affordable place to stay.
02:22Joe and Brian made enough money
02:23to pay their rent that month.
02:26And all five of them, I guess,
02:27went to the conference together and had a great time.
02:30And so it was really a win-win.
02:32And it was out of that that we thought to ourselves,
02:34why don't we make it just as easy
02:35to book someone's home as a hotel?
02:37And we set off to do that in 2008.
02:39But it wasn't until 2009 that things changed.
02:41Did you all just say,
02:43well, this is becoming a really big deal now?
02:44Was that the turning point in 2009?
02:47Well, basically, at the end of 2008,
02:48we were on the verge of quitting.
02:49And we joined an accelerator program
02:51called Y Combinator.
02:52And long story short,
02:54at the end of the 12 weeks,
02:55instead of deciding to quit,
02:57we had actually turned around
02:58the trajectory of the company
03:00and were successful in raising
03:01our first venture capital money.
03:03I saw a quote from you
03:04where you said,
03:05it's better to have 100 users that love you
03:09than 1,000 users that like you.
03:11Find your evangelists and build for them.
03:14Can you just talk us through this philosophy
03:17and essentially how you followed it at Airbnb
03:21and why it's so important to you?
03:22This was really the insight
03:23that turned everything around
03:25at the start of 2009
03:26when we were on the verge of quitting.
03:27It was basically that
03:30you need to focus on finding
03:31what the internet and tech world
03:33is known as product market fit.
03:35But the way you do that
03:36is by focusing on finding a few people
03:38and turning them into your evangelists.
03:39The advice we got was
03:40go meet your users.
03:41We would fly to New York
03:42and meet our users.
03:43But how do you meet your users
03:45when you're an internet company?
03:46We noticed that a lot of them
03:48didn't have very good photos of their homes.
03:51So we thought to ourselves,
03:52why don't we offer them
03:53free professional photography?
03:55So we'd call and say,
03:56would you like a professional photographer
03:57to come to your home?
03:58And people would say,
03:59well, they're a little surprised,
04:00but they say, sure.
04:01Well, knock on the door
04:02is actually my co-founder showing up
04:04to take the pictures.
04:05While in the home,
04:06they would also provide a tutorial
04:08on how to use the website,
04:09gather product feedback.
04:10Through that interaction,
04:11we formed a bond
04:13with these first 50 hosts in New York.
04:17And they wanted us
04:18at that point to succeed.
04:19We had in New York City
04:22apartments that had great photos,
04:24great prices.
04:25And these hosts would host somebody
04:27from Paris, let's say.
04:29They'd make $500.
04:30They would then tell their friends.
04:32Their friends would sign up.
04:33They would see the high standards
04:35on our site
04:35in terms of the photography
04:37and the effort people had put in
04:38and they'd look to emulate that.
04:39And so that just got
04:40the flywheel spinning.
04:41And after that,
04:43it started growing.
04:44We've seen some cities
04:45ban or place heavy restrictions
04:48on short-term rentals.
04:50How has that affected your business?
04:53At this point,
04:53after 18 years,
04:55Airbnb is heavily regulated.
04:56If you look at our top 200 markets,
04:5880% of them have regulation in place,
05:00oftentimes for more than a decade.
05:01And despite that,
05:03we've still had very successful growth.
05:06Our general approach
05:06has been to partner with cities
05:08and be supportive
05:09of their desire to regulate.
05:11The trick of any regulation
05:12is finding the right balance
05:14to focus on the objective
05:16and root that in data
05:18without over-regulating
05:20in such a way
05:21that prevents economic growth
05:23or opportunity.
05:24We've had examples
05:26of over-regulation
05:28like Amsterdam
05:28in 2019
05:29passed regulation
05:30that resulted in 54%
05:32of the listings
05:33on Airbnb being removed.
05:35The motivation for that
05:36was housing costs.
05:38But what played out
05:38over the next five years,
05:40although the number
05:40of listings dropped in half,
05:42the rents increased
05:42by one-third.
05:44And so, you know,
05:44there was no impact
05:45by that regulation
05:47on the cost of housing.
05:48And we've started
05:48to see some cities,
05:49you know,
05:50realize that and evolve.
05:51So, for example,
05:52Edinburgh had a similar experience
05:54where they kind of
05:55over-regulated,
05:56didn't see the impact
05:57on housing prices,
05:57and then pulled back
05:59some of the regulations.
06:00Same in Lisbon.
06:00Nathan, what do you think,
06:02what can you say
06:02to policy stakeholders
06:03about how Airbnb customers
06:05can positively contribute
06:07to local communities?
06:09Tourism in general
06:09is a huge driver
06:10of the economy generally
06:12and local economies.
06:13In the EU,
06:14we estimate Airbnb's impact
06:16is about 149 billion euros
06:19to GDP,
06:20supporting 2.1 million jobs.
06:22Of course,
06:23if all that tourism
06:24is going to one place,
06:26that can lead
06:26to an over-concentration.
06:27But one of the special things
06:29about Airbnb
06:29is how we can disperse tourism.
06:31All these homes
06:32are not just
06:32in one neighborhood downtown.
06:34They're throughout a city
06:35and actually throughout
06:36the country.
06:37If you look at our business
06:38in Europe,
06:3860% of the nights booked
06:40are not in cities at all.
06:41They're actually
06:42in rural areas.
06:43Many of these small towns
06:44don't even have hotels.
06:45They didn't have accommodation.
06:46They weren't able
06:47to support tourism.
06:48And now,
06:49visitors can have
06:50more local,
06:51more authentic experiences.
06:53And these small towns
06:54are eager for it.
06:55If you were to pinpoint
06:56one of your proudest moments,
06:57what would that be, Nathan?
06:58I think, in general,
06:59what I'm most proud of
07:00is empowering people
07:01economically.
07:02But a specific moment
07:04that I'm most proud of,
07:05one of the creative ways
07:06in which we've used
07:07our platform
07:08more recently
07:09is to help
07:09displaced people
07:10during natural disasters
07:11or other times of need.
07:13when the war in Ukraine broke out,
07:15the Airbnb host community
07:16opened up their homes
07:17along with the help
07:18of donors
07:18to host those
07:20who were displaced.
07:22And over this subsequent,
07:23let's say,
07:2418 months or so,
07:25the Airbnb community
07:26hosted 140,000 refugees
07:29from Ukraine
07:30in their homes
07:31around the world.
07:32So, you know,
07:33that kind of capability
07:34just wasn't even possible
07:35in the world.
07:36There wasn't enough
07:37infrastructure,
07:38but we've crowdsourced
07:39and made a community
07:40and in times of need,
07:42the community's
07:43really stepped up.
07:43Thank you so much, Nathan,
07:45for joining us
07:45on Logic Question.
07:46It's been a pleasure.
07:47Thank you.
07:48Thank you very much.
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