Chesky on Airbnb's future in travel and beyond
Brian Chesky is far from slowing down at Airbnb.
The 43-year-old co-founder and CEO of the short term rental giant sees his company evolving to new heights.
“We're not an OTA. We do not do alternative accommodations. Alternative accommodations is what Booking.com does. We do Airbnb. It's a distinct, standalone category,” said Chesky. “Take the Airbnb model and we're going to bring it to a lot of different categories.”
He referenced Apple and Amazon’s journeys - what if Apple never launched the iPod, or Amazon never sold more than books?
“Why would Airbnb just offer homes? Why couldn't we offer significantly more things? And that's the future of this company,” Chesky said.
Chesky appeared virtually at Skift Global Forum on Wednesday and shared that Airbnb will be introducing two to three lines of “new business” each year on a go-forward basis starting next year. His intentions extend beyond travel and he reiterated that innovation is his "bread and butter."
“I think we're going to start with travel,” said Chesky. “Eventually we do think there's a path here to be doing more than just travel, but we're going to start with the way the consumers think about us, which is travel.”
