Scaling Airbnb, Founder Mode, and What’s Next for Travel — with Brian Chesky

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0:01:51 Episode 321. 321 is the year it goes serving Orlando, Florida. In 1921, the first Miss America
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0:02:22 Welcome to the 321st episode of the Prop G-Pod. In today’s episode, we speak with Brian Chesky,
0:02:27 the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. We discussed with Brian founder mode and how Airbnb is becoming
0:02:31 a leading indicator for the broader economy. We also dive into how Airbnb is leveraging
0:02:37 AI and what’s next for the platform. Okay, I’m back in New York. What does that mean?
0:02:43 I have self-care in New York. First off, my place here is very zen. No kids, no shit everywhere,
0:02:46 like climbing walls. That’s not true. I have a climbing wall in the kids room, but it’s
0:02:52 more for show. It’s more meant to signal what a nice dad I am with a kids room, and I got
0:02:58 the skateboards and everything that they don’t use. I’m mostly here for self-care, acupuncture.
0:03:05 I do my Botox. If you can’t tell, I’m actually crying right now. Anyways, I’m also starting
0:03:09 this thing called NAD. As far as I can tell, that is something that rich people do to try
0:03:14 and pretend we can live forever. I’m spending so much time and money on self-care. I think
0:03:17 it’s a little bit like the alternative investments universe where wealthy people like to think
0:03:22 that they can beat the market so they pay some very credentialed person to underperform
0:03:26 the market by the amount of their fees. I’m not sure a lot of this is worth it. I’m actually
0:03:31 a little fed up. Also, when you get this NAD treatment, it takes two to three hours.
0:03:38 Some lovely young woman comes over and sets up an IV and then puts basically liquid nausea
0:03:41 into you. I keep telling her to slow it down because I don’t want to throw up in front
0:03:50 of her. For that nausea, I better look like Macaulay Culkin in the first home alone. I
0:03:54 want to look like … You know who I want to look like? I want to look like Barbara Streisand
0:03:59 in the first yental or the yental. Papa, can you hear me? I want to look like a young
0:04:06 Barbara Streisand. It could happen. It could happen. Okay, what’s happening? What’s happening
0:04:10 other than Babs comes to New York. A big story from the Wall Street Journal. Private equity
0:04:15 firms are spending millions of dollars to purchase HVAC plumbing and electrical companies.
0:04:20 That’s why private equity is coming to a van parked outside and a guy looking to fix your
0:04:25 heater. According to Pitchbook, private equity investors have purchased nearly 800 HVAC
0:04:31 plumbing and electric companies since 2022. Why are they doing this? The Wall Street Journal
0:04:35 reports that investors see the skilled trades as ripe for opportunity. Also, it’s an industry
0:04:40 with recurring predictable revenue. Air conditioners break, boilers need upgrades, etc. I also
0:04:46 think probably the biggest thing here is that there are supposedly tens of not hundreds
0:04:50 of thousands of small businesses owned by boomers that have no succession plan. Their
0:04:54 kids want to be baristas or go back and get their masters in philosophy or go touch Indians
0:04:59 or whatever it is they’re going to do. They have no interest in taking over dads. Air conditioning
0:05:05 repair company, despite the fact these are really good businesses. There’s no succession
0:05:10 plan, which means, and they’re good businesses, maybe doing one, three, $5 million, $10 million,
0:05:14 which means they’re ripe for acquisition because someone just wants liquidity in an exit and
0:05:17 probably says, okay, they’ve been doing this with dental clinics. They’ve been rolling
0:05:20 them up and saying, all right, you stick around for four years, we’ll bring in another dentist,
0:05:25 who we pay less, you’ll get an exit, you’ll get some liquidity, and we get to buy a business,
0:05:30 a solid business with a built-in customer base, pretty low, multiple of EBITDA, and
0:05:35 then we can roll them up and kind of consolidate the back end, bring some efficiencies around
0:05:38 marketing, around technology. I think this makes a lot of sense. Now, people will say,
0:05:42 oh no, it’s private equity showing up to bad guys. I don’t think that’s true at all here.
0:05:47 I think it’s giving a bunch of dentists and people who own small businesses in the trades
0:05:52 and exits, so I think it’s a good thing. We’ve previously spoken about the shortage of skilled
0:05:57 tradespeople, labor shortages worsened by the impact of COVID-19, have increased competition
0:06:02 for workers driving up wages in these sectors by over 20% since Q1 of 2020. There are a lot
0:06:06 of jobs in the main street economy, and there’s a critical need for these trade skills in
0:06:10 the U.S. According to McKinsey and Company, the annual demand for critical skilled roles
0:06:15 in the U.S. could exceed the projected annual growth or new jobs by more than 20 times between
0:06:21 2022 and 2032. Jesus, think about that. The U.S. could exceed the projected annual growth
0:06:26 and new jobs by more than 20 times for critical skilled roles. Where is this demand coming
0:06:31 from? Infrastructure needs, a surge in real estate to redevelopment, and a shift from
0:06:37 fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. This is such an exciting opportunity. I really
0:06:45 do like to never miss an opportunity to virtue signal. I’m involved in a program that increases
0:06:50 funding for continuing education at UCLA and Berkeley because they wouldn’t let me call
0:06:54 it vocational training, but I think there’s an enormous opportunity for the two-thirds
0:06:59 of kids that don’t end up with a traditional liberal arts degree. The majority of our kids,
0:07:02 hello, parents, aren’t going to end up with a traditional college degree. And guess what?
0:07:05 It doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean they failed. And there are a lot of wonderful
0:07:10 jobs in the mainstream economy. The problem, the problem is that we shame kids and family.
0:07:14 If you’ve ever been to a cocktail party or a party where all of a sudden under hush breath,
0:07:17 they go, “Well, little Johnny dropped out of Rutgers and his home.” It’s like, “Oh no,
0:07:22 Johnny’s a failure and the parents have failed.” No, most kids aren’t cut out for the traditional
0:07:28 liberal arts college degree. There is an enormous opportunity. Gen Z, more young people are
0:07:32 turning to trades as they grow dissolution with the traditional college path, which is,
0:07:36 I don’t know, inspiring or encouraging. Enrollment of vocational training programs is on the
0:07:40 rise, as it should be, while numbers at community colleges and four-year schools have dropped.
0:07:44 According to data from the National Student Clearinghouse, vocational-focused community
0:07:49 colleges have seen a 16% jump in enrollment since 2018. Students pursuing construction
0:07:53 trades increased by 23% and enrollment in HVAC and vehicle maintenance programs grew
0:08:00 by 7%. A Harris Bull done for Intua Credit Karma found that half of Gen Z and 42% of millennials
0:08:04 are considering switching to blue collar jobs, jobs including welding, plumbing, or electrical
0:08:10 work. By the way, just free gift for purchase here, people enjoy these jobs. They like working
0:08:16 outside. They’re working with people. The day goes fast. They own their own business.
0:08:22 This is just a fantastic opportunity for young people. There’s an enormous, if you will,
0:08:28 succession problem around these businesses. These are great jobs. They pay well. This
0:08:32 is, to a certain extent, taking advantage of a little bit of income inequality in that
0:08:37 there are so many amazing mega-mansions going up. Every home needs a new roof. Every home
0:08:42 is thinking about solar panels or energy-efficient HVAC. We’re going to need tens if not hundreds
0:08:45 of thousands of skilled tradespeople to build all these nuclear power plants, which are
0:08:52 going to come back online. What do we need to do as parents and as people going to college?
0:08:57 You haven’t failed. No have your parents failed. No have you failed. If you decide to pursue
0:09:01 a career in the trades, yeah, you want to get a philosophy degree and be a barista, fine,
0:09:04 and maybe it works out, maybe you teach, maybe you write scripts, whatever it is you want
0:09:09 to do, fine. But if, in fact, you decide to work with your hands and make good money, maybe
0:09:14 even great money, that’s absolutely a fantastic career path. We need more on-ramps. We need
0:09:17 to be more thoughtful about the fact that two-thirds of our kids aren’t going to end
0:09:23 up with a traditional college degree, work with your hands, vocational jobs are an outstanding
0:09:32 opportunity for America. We’ll be right back for our conversation with Brian Chesky.
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0:13:03 Welcome back. Here’s our conversation with Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb.
0:13:13 Okay. Here with Brian Chesky, just up front disclosure, Airbnb, I am a shareholder. It’s
0:13:17 one of my biggest holdings. I’m a big fan of the company. Anyways, enough of that shit.
0:13:20 Brian, where does this podcast find you? I’m actually in New York, though. I usually live
0:13:25 in San Francisco. I’m in Airbnb’s office here in New York. Got it. I’ve always thought. I mean,
0:13:29 we’ll come back. We’ll talk specifically about Airbnb. But if I would say you guys are a great
0:13:34 forward-looking indicator of where the economy is headed in travel trends and consumer spending
0:13:40 and what people are spending money on, what can you provide insight into in terms of the
0:13:44 economy and travel trends as evidenced by what’s happening on your platform?
0:13:49 One of the things that I think is so notable in the last year was this the year of events on
0:13:56 Airbnb. You saw the Paris Olympics. We had 500,000 people staying at Airbnb for the Paris
0:14:01 Olympics. That’s equivalent of eight Olympic stadiums where the people and 50,000 new homes
0:14:07 were listed on Airbnb just for that reason. When Taylor Swift came and she did her international
0:14:13 tour, you can literally predict her tour by looking at the rising occupancy of Airbnb’s.
0:14:19 It was a massive phenomenon and sure tour generated a bigger business lift than some
0:14:24 giant international events that would be in these cities. We’re starting to see a lot
0:14:29 of more people want to gather for events. And why are they doing that? I think people
0:14:32 are desiring connection. They want to get out of the house. They want to have a shared
0:14:36 experience. They want to have the experience of other people. This often involves traveling.
0:14:41 More and more people are not living in the same city as people they grow up with. And
0:14:45 so they have to travel to see them. They do more of these annual trips together. We’re
0:14:51 seeing a huge boom in ski destinations. That’s like really popular. It’s like the Austrian
0:14:55 Alps, Italian Alps, the French Alps this winter. We’re seeing a lot more people go to Southeast
0:15:02 Asia. So basically the summary is that travel is going strong. I think that it’s just the
0:15:07 very beginning. I think as emerging middle classes form, the first thing people want
0:15:11 to do is travel. And as the economy is strong, more people will travel. That’s what we’re
0:15:19 seeing. I’ve heard there was sort of this revenge travel trend after COVID. And I’ve
0:15:23 actually talked to some hotel operators saying that actually travel has started to wane a
0:15:29 little bit because people kind of got there at it scratched. And now it’s starting to
0:15:32 come back a little bit. Are you seeing the same trends?
0:15:36 We’re seeing is like what I would describe as like probably the post pandemic kind of
0:15:41 equilibrium. So during the pandemic, there was like basically three things didn’t happen.
0:15:44 People didn’t go to cities, they didn’t cross borders and they didn’t travel for business.
0:15:48 And so you had this different type of travel that we benefited from that hotels didn’t,
0:15:53 which is people getting in cars and staying in big homes and more rural or like less urban
0:15:58 destinations. Then you had this huge boom, which I think was a little bit of a natural
0:16:02 amount of pent-up demand. I think the pent-up demand is now subsided and now we’re in the
0:16:06 new world. The new world though is quite a lot of travel and I think it’s going to continue
0:16:11 to grow, but it’s definitely not like the pent-up demand era of like 2021, 2022. Now
0:16:15 we still grow because we grow through all that.
0:16:19 And any trends in terms of demographics around who’s traveling more, who’s traveling less
0:16:22 than what it says about the health of our economy?
0:16:25 There’s a lot more people are traveling in groups. You know, before the pandemic, it
0:16:32 was a lot of like solo travelers and couples. Now it’s families. And I think there’s a
0:16:36 couple explanations for why. I mean, one obvious demographic shift is like, Scott, I mean,
0:16:42 I started coming out as 26. I’m like a millennial and most 26 year olds don’t have families,
0:16:46 but like essentially there was a big question when people are under 30s and 40s, do they
0:16:51 age at Airbnb or do they keep using Airbnb? Well, luckily for us, the answer is they kept
0:16:54 using Airbnb and a lot of those people now have families. So there’s a whole generation
0:16:59 of people that started as single people, then they used Airbnb for like couples travels
0:17:03 and now they’re using a family travel. Additionally, I just think a lot of families are now realizing
0:17:08 Airbnb is a better solution for a lot of travel than hotels. We have this big advertising
0:17:13 campaign. It’s kind of a, almost like a references the Mac versus PC campaign. It’s kind of like
0:17:18 Airbnb versus hotels. We kind of show that for family travel, for group travel, like
0:17:21 people being able to stay in a house, be able to cook together, not be separate in different
0:17:25 rooms is really compelling. So that’s probably the big one. The other one we’re seeing, we’re
0:17:31 seeing a couple others. People are staying longer. The length of stay is going up. And
0:17:35 I think maybe the answer to that explanation is people more flexibility, right? The fact
0:17:39 is like 10 years ago, it would be unthinkable for you and I do an interview unless we were
0:17:43 in the same city together. And now with Zoom and this technology, we can be able to do
0:17:46 that. So I think there’s a lot more flexibility. And then I think people are just traveling
0:17:51 to more locations, right? I think, you know, before everyone went to Rome, everyone to
0:17:54 Paris, everyone to Vegas, everyone to Miami, they’re still going to all those places, but
0:17:58 they’re also going to a lot of smaller towns and cities and different destinations. I think
0:18:03 social media drives that because there’s a lot of new destination discovery on Instagram,
0:18:06 TikTok and others.
0:18:13 So I follow you and I read your earnings releases and you talked about a new feature you guys
0:18:17 are working on called the co-host network. Can you say more about that?
0:18:22 Absolutely. You know, Airbnb, we’re only as good as the homes we have. And, you know,
0:18:26 one of the keys to Airbnb is we want to make sure everything is affordable. Well, let’s
0:18:29 take a city. If a city doesn’t build housing, what happens to the price of housing? It typically
0:18:35 goes up. If we don’t add enough Airbnb’s, then the price of Airbnb goes up. So we need
0:18:38 to add a lot more supply, literally millions and millions more homes we want to add in
0:18:44 the coming years. The number one reason people don’t list their home on Airbnb is because
0:18:49 they perceive it as being too much work. And it is for some people. And let’s say like
0:18:54 you live in New York and you have a summer home in Florida or maybe you maybe use it
0:19:01 in the winter, actually. And you want to put on Airbnb, but you’re not physically there.
0:19:06 So either you can host or you go on Google and you type like, you know, Airbnb property
0:19:11 manager and a third-party property management company that has nothing to do with Airbnb
0:19:16 could take over custody of your property. But why that is a problem is the average five-star
0:19:22 rating for third-party property management Airbnb is only like 4.62, which is not nearly
0:19:27 as high a rating as individual hosts. So we thought, what if we like took a marketplace
0:19:32 approach to this? What if we paired homeowners, people with homes that don’t have time that
0:19:35 want to make extra money with people that have time, they’re really great hosts in Airbnb
0:19:39 and they would like to expand, but they don’t have access to properties themselves. And
0:19:43 so that’s exactly what we’ve done. We built a network of 10,000 co-hosts. These are the
0:19:48 best local hosts. The average rating is 4.85. So these are like great hosts and we’ll match
0:19:53 you with them. And the other thing is not only do we match you, Scott, but we built
0:19:58 this really elegant in a software integration. I think when you get your hands on it, you’ll
0:20:04 hopefully agree that it’s a really beautiful, seamless integration. So they can manage everything
0:20:07 about your Airbnb or just the bookings or just the cleaning or just the checking it
0:20:13 of guests. You negotiate the rate with them. And so, you know, it’s pretty turnkey.
0:20:18 Let’s break down the economics. I own a place in SoHo and I decided, right, I want to monetize
0:20:23 it or I want to get some return on it. And let’s just say, I can rent it out for 500
0:20:29 bucks a night. If I rented out for 500 bucks a night, how much would I typically end up
0:20:33 paying to Airbnb? And how much if I totally wanted to outsource sort of that 500 bucks
0:20:37 would go to a co-host? I’m trying to figure out the net to the owner.
0:20:45 We have a blended take rate of 15%. So now, if you rent it out for $500 a night, you actually
0:20:52 get 97% of it because we withhold 3% and then we add an additional about 12% additional
0:20:57 guest fee. But let’s just keep the math really simple and let’s assume that you’re saying
0:21:02 $500 a night is what the guest pays, right? Just to keep the math simple. So it’s 500
0:21:08 times, you know, 0.15, you know, and that’s 75 bucks. Yeah. So that’s $75. And then, you
0:21:15 know, with a co-host, you’ll probably negotiate between 10, 20, 30% take rate. And it’s basically
0:21:19 what you negotiate and how much they take home. So I think it’s very reasonable even
0:21:28 with a co-host that you could take 60, 70% home. We’ll be right back.
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0:24:46 You strike me as sort of ground zero for a company that could potentially leverage AI.
0:24:51 I want to understand how you’re using AI, where you’ve seen real ROI, where it may have
0:24:58 been overhyped. I’m just curious as a business owner that I imagine is being pitched by,
0:25:02 I imagine you and Sam have had a lot of conversations and that there’s a lot of AI companies that
0:25:05 would love to put out a press release saying we’re the exclusive AI partner, maybe we’ve
0:25:11 already done this with Airbnb, but I would like to get one, how you’re using AI and
0:25:16 two, just as a business person who has real insight into technology, where you think AI
0:25:22 is underhyped or overhyped. I think AI’s long-term impact on society
0:25:28 is perhaps underhyped. I think that anyone that has a child today, the world they’re
0:25:32 going to grow up in is going to be so fundamentally different than they can imagine because of
0:25:37 what happens when computers can essentially think. And I think it’s going to change society.
0:25:43 But I remember in mid-2010s, there was the self-driving car crates. And people were saying
0:25:49 in 2014, 2015 that there would be very few people that would be driving cars, that driving
0:25:53 a car would be anachronistic like riding a horse and you’d only do it if you enjoyed
0:25:59 it. And while that’s probably the long-term truth, we’re almost 10 years post the self-driving
0:26:04 car craze, and it’s still very rare to see a self-driving car on the road. And so I think
0:26:08 the lesson here is that this technology is going to have a much bigger impact on society
0:26:13 than probably we think. But what’s that old saying? You overestimate what you can done
0:26:16 in 10 any year and you underestimate what’s possible in 10 years. I think we in Silicon
0:26:20 Valley do that all the time. We invent a technology and we think society’s just going to adopt
0:26:25 it and it’s going to take a lot longer. And so I think that all of us were way too Polly
0:26:29 Ennis when chat should be launched. And I think we all thought all of our businesses were
0:26:33 going to change in three or four years. And honestly, like if I just like, I don’t know,
0:26:39 here’s a good test. I open my phone, I look at the apps on my home screen and I ask, how
0:26:43 many of these apps have finally changed because of generative AI? And I really can’t say very
0:26:48 many have. Maybe the algorithms are marginally different. There’s some interesting kind of
0:26:52 on the margins filters that are possible because AI, but their experience is not that different
0:26:58 than a pre-AI startup. So I would say if you think about the stack, you’ve got the model,
0:27:03 you get the chips, there’s a lot of development there, mostly just Nvidia. Now there’s a huge
0:27:09 amount of development at the model level. Obviously open AI was the kind of was the frontier model,
0:27:14 but there’s so many others. But there’s been very little innovation on the app front. And
0:27:19 I think all of us are trying to basically figure out, like, what is the application interface
0:27:25 paradigm in a like AI world? One of the comments that Johnny, I’ve made, he’s a designer that
0:27:29 I work very closely with, he designed, you know, almost all the products between iMac
0:27:35 and, you know, iPad beyond. Was he noticed that there was a user interface paradigm of
0:27:40 the graphical user interface formed in the 1970s, popularized in 1980s, basically a mouse
0:27:46 and a point and click. And then you had multi-touch introduced in 2007 with the iPhone. So a lot
0:27:52 of startups are starting to work on these new layers. But, you know, mostly what these
0:27:56 startups are doing is scraping data, the kind of same data that open AI would scrape or the
0:28:00 data that Google would scrape. And they’re just trying to do marginally different interfaces
0:28:06 by doing these kind of pseudo, you know, assistance, but the assistants are very chatbot. And I
0:28:10 think a chatbot is just, you know, you know why I don’t think a chatbot’s the right interface
0:28:15 for the same reason that like I have a messaging app, but I don’t want to use that to do the
0:28:19 calculate, like to do a computation, I want to open a calculator, and I have a different
0:28:23 interface for the calculator. So in other words, I think every job wants a different
0:28:28 interface. And I don’t think we can revert to that like the universal chatbot interface
0:28:32 to be able to handle all these different tasks. It actually is very inefficient. For things
0:28:36 like travel, I don’t think a chatbot is the way to book travel. So that’s like my general
0:28:41 commentary. Now let’s take Airbnb. I think the thing that will first get revolutionized
0:28:46 through AI via Airbnb is customer service. Just to give you a sense, we have a very Scott
0:28:50 very difficult customer service challenge. We get more than 10 million calls in chats
0:28:55 a year. They come from people in every country in the world. And a lot of the calls are urgent,
0:29:00 like I’m locked out, there’s a problem. And we often have to adjudicate disputes between
0:29:05 a guest and a host that don’t even speak the same language. And because we’re a travel,
0:29:10 we have a lot of seasonal workers, right? And so the seasonal workers is a lot of turnover.
0:29:17 And so you often call a customer service agent that is seasonal, and a lot of them are new,
0:29:22 and they’re trying to handle adjudication between guests and hosts. And there’s like
0:29:27 a hundred different policies. And the policies can be like a hundred pages of documentation.
0:29:33 And so AI can be the frontline, it can basically speak every language, it can be 24/7, it can
0:29:37 read the corpus of all your policies, it can also look the last million times something
0:29:43 happened and say, based on that, this is the best predicted resolution. And of course,
0:29:47 it can be a tool for customer service agents to provide better service. So I think customer
0:29:52 service is the first thing that’s going to be reinvented at least in the e-commerce space
0:29:57 because AI. And then I think the question is, can you bring that customer service paradigm
0:30:02 to search? In other words, can search be not a chat bot, but a slightly more conversational
0:30:06 experience where it’s not like the Amazon paradigm where it’s a search box and filters.
0:30:11 But it’s a little bit more this app that’s getting to know you, understanding you,
0:30:14 it’s more personalized. And that would probably be phase two.
0:30:20 I’ve sort of, and I might have this wrong, but I was really just fascinated by the meta
0:30:25 earnings call. I think it was turning calls ago where he said, and I’ve never seen this before,
0:30:30 we’ve increased our revenues 23% year on year while decreasing our headcount 20%.
0:30:35 And what I’ve generally found, the analogy I would use is that AI is a little bit like
0:30:42 corporate ozenthec and that is it turns off the signal we have as managers, CEOs and directors
0:30:47 that just because we’re growing, we need to eat more, or in this case, we don’t need to hire more.
0:30:52 Have you thought, and I realize this is a difficult conversation for CEOs to have,
0:31:00 but has AI given you the sense to maybe rethink if you need more employees and to see how technology
0:31:04 can make you more efficient? And what’s happened to your employee headcount over the last 12 months?
0:31:10 I went through one of the first big layoffs in Silicon Valley since the pandemic. We were
0:31:15 like a well-known layoff. We had to cut 25% employees, but actually we lost like almost
0:31:19 half the employees because we also had to cut 10% of contingent workers. And then when you’re a
0:31:25 travel company, a pandemic, people tend to leave you for other hotter fields or other hotter industries.
0:31:30 So we ran the experiment of having significantly fewer employees against our will. We weren’t
0:31:35 looking to do this. And something remarkable happened. The remarkable thing happened is
0:31:39 that we actually started getting more work done with fewer people. And it was partly because there
0:31:43 was a massive communication tax and that like people weren’t meetings all day. And there are
0:31:48 meetings all day because people create meetings and you can try to impose things, but it was just,
0:31:52 it turned out we had too many people probably. And we never would have realized that until we
0:31:56 kind of ran the experiment of having fewer people. And we actually started getting a lot more done.
0:32:01 So then I, you know, mentioned this to Mark Zuckerberg. And, you know, I’m close to him. And,
0:32:08 you know, I think he kind of realized that, you know, there were a lot of efficiencies to be gained.
0:32:15 And, you know, obviously he made his decisions with this year of efficiency. I think he found
0:32:19 that there was a huge communication tax and that they probably had way too many people.
0:32:24 Now it’s hard for a CEO because you don’t want to always be on the side against hiring people.
0:32:29 I’ll say this. I think that most startups raise too much money. They hire too many people. I don’t
0:32:34 think that has to be against workers. I think that they can just be redistributed to other companies
0:32:39 that we should fund more companies. There should be more startups built, but the startups should
0:32:45 probably not hire so many people. I think that’s a general view I have. AI, I think is making people
0:32:52 marginally more efficient, but I’ve not seen yet a massive displacement of workers because of AI.
0:32:57 You know, whether it’s customer service, we still have mostly agents doing it.
0:33:02 And then software engineering, you know, it can make software developers a lot more efficient,
0:33:07 but it is not reducing our workforce. And actually the way this would probably work
0:33:13 is we’d probably, if AI made everyone more efficient, instead of downscaling the employee base,
0:33:17 we’d probably try to get more revenue per employee. So we wouldn’t be doing,
0:33:22 we wouldn’t be eliminating jobs. We would hope that the revenue per employee would increase
0:33:25 so they have more leverage. And we’re starting to see this. We’re starting to see that,
0:33:30 that like what we’re seeing is our headcount is only growing in low single-digit percentages
0:33:34 a year of a year. And our revenue is growing faster in our headcount. And I’d like that to
0:33:39 continue. And so a metric of revenue per employee or free cash flow per employee,
0:33:43 hopefully will massively increase. We won’t have fewer employees, we’ll just do more revenue.
0:33:48 So you had a bit of a viral moment. You probably weren’t planning this. And I just want to say,
0:33:52 I thought your comments were sort of taken out of context around founder mode.
0:33:58 Talk a little bit about what you meant. And, you know, it kind of, it kind of went wild. Everyone,
0:34:04 my favorite meme was, I’m going to go founder mode on this breakfast burrito, founder mode,
0:34:09 question mark. Let me see this. I’m not sure anyone really knows that founder mode is,
0:34:14 because Paul German essay about it, but you never described exactly what it was.
0:34:18 So let me just give a little of backstory. I was asked to go to see a white,
0:34:23 to white comedy or alumni event. It was the first time they got basically a hundred startups that
0:34:27 are, you know, like around a billion dollar market cap or higher, later stage companies,
0:34:31 they did a basically like a, like a, the quote of a conference, they did different speakers.
0:34:35 I joined last minute. It was off the record. I remember they’d tell me like, they’re going to
0:34:39 do this talk and no one’s ever going to know you did this talk. It’s off the record. There’ll be
0:34:44 no knowledge of it. So I do this talk off the record. And I basically described my experience
0:34:52 from 2009 to 2019 going through hyper grow. But the problem was I was told a certain philosophy
0:34:56 of leadership, which is you hire, you know, hire great people and entrust them and power them to
0:35:01 do their job. And that sounds great. But there was a big missing piece of the puzzle, which was
0:35:06 being in the details and being close. And I had let go. And I noticed this paradox that the more
0:35:11 I let go, the more dysfunctional company got, the more people thought it was leadership meddling.
0:35:15 And so the further I got from the details of the company, and I would hire these people and I thought
0:35:19 they were doing a good job. And I would find out years later, they weren’t doing the job I thought
0:35:25 they were doing because I wasn’t close enough to the job. So I think Paul Graham wrote this essay
0:35:30 was a very compelling essay. I think the theory is a really great way he framed it, that there’s
0:35:34 this orientation that is germane, the founders, which is being in the details, having real ownership
0:35:40 of your company, which is different than a classic manager mode. But to be clear, I never said this
0:35:46 was something exclusive to founders. Basically, the general principle is being in the details.
0:35:52 And in being very, very hands on, and it’s this basic idea that great leadership is not absence,
0:35:57 great leadership is presence. And then the counterpoint is, well, what about like,
0:36:01 isn’t it sound like micromanagement? Isn’t this micromanagement? And no one wants to work for
0:36:07 a micromanager. And here are my two thoughts on micromanagement. Number one, I actually think like
0:36:12 a lot of people are afraid to get in the details could be accused of being a micromanager. And I
0:36:16 actually think a lot more leaders would benefit from being in the details and model more hands
0:36:21 on leadership. But the other thing is what Steve Jobs said, because what I took from founder mode,
0:36:27 a lot of it was what I learned observing Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs said he didn’t believe
0:36:32 was a man of a micromanager. He said that what I do is I’m in the details, but I’m partnering with
0:36:37 the people. And if you ask johnny, I don’t think johnny, I’ve thought like Steve Jobs, the micromanager,
0:36:41 but Steve Jobs visits the designs to you every single day. They had lunch every single day
0:36:46 together. They were talking Steve was steeped in every detail of the design of the iPhone,
0:36:50 but he wasn’t telling Johnny what to do. They were having discussions, they were partnering.
0:36:54 And I think that’s the key. I remember one time at employee, and they asked me,
0:36:59 is this your decision? Or is this my decision? And I said, that’s exactly the problem. Every
0:37:06 decision should be our decision. This notion of this black and white, like decision making authority
0:37:13 between owner and worker manager and employee is I think the problem that you’re kind of partnering
0:37:18 with people in the details working with them. And so that was probably the single most important
0:37:25 philosophy that is a founder, or as a leader, you set the pace of organization, you set the standards
0:37:31 of of equality, you set the standard of how much you care, you identify excellence, that you work
0:37:36 with the leaders on the ground, and you don’t defer to them, but you don’t tell them what to do,
0:37:40 you’re constantly partnering with them. And the one reason you shouldn’t defer to your leaders
0:37:44 is because oftentimes you’ll have different leaders come from different functions with
0:37:48 different interests, and they’ll conflict. And you’re the only leader, or maybe if you’re a general
0:37:53 manager, you’re one of the ones that can actually consolidate and have the most global view and
0:38:00 make the most macro decision based on all the different inputs. So let’s talk a little bit
0:38:05 about the company and the stock and your public company CEO so you can plead the fifth on anything
0:38:10 here or just say you can’t comment. But your revenue is two and three quarter billion,
0:38:15 most recent quarter, that’s up double digits, that’s up 11% year on year, net income,
0:38:20 over half a million, 555 million representing a net income margin of 20%, which is very healthy,
0:38:28 adjusted EBITDA of about 894 million up 9% year on year, and representative adjusted EBITDA
0:38:34 margin of 33%. These are solid numbers. Airbnb generated a billion of free cashflow in Q2 and
0:38:39 4.3 billion of free cashflow over the trailing 12 months, which is I think the most you’ve ever
0:38:47 done. Now the bad news, since the company went public, it’s first trade to retail investors,
0:38:53 and I figure we went public four or five years ago, it’s effectively flat. If you’ve purchased
0:38:57 the stock, you’re effectively flat. I mean, there’s been some bumps and some ups and downs,
0:39:03 but is this a case of where quite frankly, you went public in a market that was very frothy
0:39:08 and the company is growing into that valuation? At some point investors are going to get,
0:39:11 or shareholders are going to get restless and say, “This is a great company that’s growing.
0:39:16 How come it’s not reflected in the stock price?” What is it, as a CEO, is that you’re going to
0:39:20 continue to block and tackle and just continue to stay the course? Do you think it might involve
0:39:25 acquisitions moving forward? But what would you say to a shareholder who’s been in the stock
0:39:29 the last four years, and quite frankly, it’s underperformed the rest of the market?
0:39:34 I think there’s a couple of things going on. I think that beginning of 2020,
0:39:41 we had a private market valuation of $30 billion. Then the pandemic hit, and we raised debt,
0:39:46 and the warrants were priced at $18 billion. That might be the best proxy for our valuation.
0:39:54 In May of April 2020, we were $18 billion. Then our goal in the summer was to go public
0:39:57 at $30 billion. We don’t want the last round investors to be underwater, so we would like
0:40:03 to clear $30 billion. Then by the time we priced the stock, we priced it at $50 billion. Then
0:40:10 the first day of closing went to $100 billion. That was crazy. It was not what we expected.
0:40:14 I did not think the stock would pop double. If I did, I probably would have increased the issue
0:40:21 price. We probably, at that point, had a valuation that was a little ahead of our numbers. We were
0:40:26 not generating a huge amount of free cash flow. We were not profitable on an EBITDA basis in 2020.
0:40:33 The market was super frothy. Now, there’s this old saying, “You’re never as good as they seem.
0:40:37 You’re never as bad as they seem. We’re really as good as they seem in 2020.” I don’t know.
0:40:41 Maybe we got a little frothy, but we’re certainly not as bad as people say now.
0:40:47 Those that are a little bit cynical of the company, I mean, you mentioned we did over
0:40:52 four billion free cash flow. We have one of the highest free cash flow margins in all of Silicon
0:40:59 Valley. We put out a little bit softer guidance for a quarter, and that really had a huge impact
0:41:03 on the stock price because investors, they’ll forecast the subtle change in growth rate over
0:41:07 the next five or 10 years, and it massively changed your valuation. What I would just say
0:41:15 is the following. I’m 43. I intend to continue to run this company for the coming decades.
0:41:20 I want to build one of the great defining generational companies. I’m spending a lot of
0:41:26 energy taking Airbnb, which was basically a noun and a verb. That’s one vertical and trying to do
0:41:31 what Amazon did in the late 90s, which was take a platform, an e-commerce platform that’s designed
0:41:35 for books and bring it to everything. I think that there’s going to be a massive amount of
0:41:40 category expansion for Airbnb beyond short-term rentals. You’re going to start to see that next
0:41:45 year. We have some really exciting ideas that we’re working on, but beyond that, there’s a huge
0:41:50 amount of growth in our core business. I would just point to a few things. Number one, quality
0:41:56 control. We are now bumping up against the growth rate of what Airbnb can grow. It’s growth rate
0:42:01 without better quality control because we are now an alternative to hotels. A lot of hotel
0:42:06 travelers compare to Airbnb’s, and they want the similar level of consistency and quality.
0:42:11 For every person who stays in Airbnb, nine people stay in a hotel. If we can get one of those people
0:42:15 to stay in Airbnb, we double the size of our business. Then you’ve got international markets.
0:42:20 Most of our business is in six or seven countries. We’re in 220 countries,
0:42:27 but most of our business is in US, Canada, Australia, UK, France. There are so many opportunities in
0:42:32 Asia. There are many countries in Europe, Latin America, where there’s huge growth expansion.
0:42:40 That’s the next frontier. Without revealing your corporate plans, I think of Airbnb loosely as
0:42:44 you’re great at monetizing fallow assets and creating community. That might be the wrong
0:42:51 description, but that’s how I think of it. What are the most monetizable assets? People’s homes,
0:42:58 you’re in that. Next would be commercial real estate. I don’t like apparel. People have tried
0:43:06 that. It isn’t working. I could see private jets. I could see … What am I missing? What are in your
0:43:09 view without giving … Oh, you’re missing the biggest one of all people’s time.
0:43:16 Skillshare? Tell us what you mean by that. What do I say without saying it? There’s a lot of
0:43:22 services that are available that we could go into. Imagine Amazon, they had books, but they went
0:43:27 initially into DVDs and CDs when those existed and then all these different retail categories.
0:43:31 We’re looking at … Let me just break it down for you. You have short-term rentals,
0:43:35 which are corvettes. You have long-term rentals. Long-term rentals will be defined as 30 days
0:43:39 or longer. That’s the same asset, but for longer stays and seasonal, that’s huge.
0:43:46 Then, yes, you do have car rentals and boats and other large assets. They’re not as big as
0:43:51 our house, but those are your next biggest assets to your life. But again, the biggest asset are
0:43:57 people’s time. Services and experiences would be a big opportunity for us. As far as going down the
0:44:03 list of those categories, there are dozens and dozens of categories, but I’ll start to accidentally
0:44:10 talk of and reveal our new product if I do that. Just a double-click on that. I’m outstanding at
0:44:16 installing energy-efficient HVAC and I’m in Delray Beach. I’m very good at installing solar panels
0:44:22 or installing soapstone, kitchen counters, and homes that need this. My problem is new business.
0:44:28 Can I see an environment where I put my services and pictures and photos similar to the way you
0:44:33 would advertise an apartment on your platform and you bring them a bunch of business and assure
0:44:39 a certain level of quality in exchange for that 15% fee everybody wants? Is that a logical extension?
0:44:44 That’s a logical extension. It wouldn’t be the first extension. We would probably start with things
0:44:50 a little more adjacent to travel and to hosting an Airbnb. But down the road, almost any type of
0:44:54 service, I don’t want to say almost any type of service, but many services including building,
0:45:02 maintenance, cleaning, interior design, up-tape your property. We built the COS platform. This
0:45:08 COS network we built, we took lessons from Amazon. The lesson from Amazon is don’t pull the book
0:45:14 marketplace based on ISBNs, build an abstracted marketplace where you can sell diapers and books
0:45:19 and a number of things on the same platform. That’s what we’ve done. We basically re-architected
0:45:25 entire platform. There’s many services that could use the COS network. Then on the demand side,
0:45:30 I’ll probably stop there because there’s, but you’ll see, there’ll be more things coming.
0:45:37 When you’re thinking is kind of 2025, the year where you start rolling out and testing it?
0:45:41 Every year, I made a statement on the earnings call. I believe I can stick with it,
0:45:46 which is every year for now on, we’re going to launch two to three new businesses or verticals
0:45:49 that we believe will one day generate an incremental billion dollars of revenue or more.
0:45:55 You’re going to start to see those next year. Will you do this organically, or will you make
0:45:59 small token acquisitions to give you a head start? Primarily organically. The reason why is because
0:46:04 similar to Apple, when Steve ran it, we’re a functional organization. It’s kind of difficult
0:46:10 organization to plug in businesses because then they become divisions. But if they’re small
0:46:15 acquisitions or it’s extremely compelling, we’ll always take a look at it. I will just say a lot
0:46:19 of entrepreneurs really want to work with Airbnb. They’re very motivated. I think we have a very
0:46:25 entrepreneurial culture, especially for an SMB 500 company. So it is a very appealing place for
0:46:32 an acquisition candidate. Well, let me just ask you this. You’ve got a $85 billion market cap,
0:46:39 I’m sorry, $84, $85 billion market cap. Lyft, the number two has a $6 billion market cap. So
0:46:44 you’d have to pay a premium of $8 billion for 10% dilution. Why wouldn’t you take a flyer and become
0:46:51 the number two and then maybe the number one in terms of sharing or monetizing people’s cars?
0:46:57 I mean, these are like, I think there’s a lot of opportunities. One of the frameworks that
0:47:02 Jeff Bezos had, I think, is this IDF perishable, non-perishable opportunities. And I think doing
0:47:06 an acquisition, most of these acquisitions are not perishable. I mean, maybe someone else could
0:47:11 take them out. But we generally think that we want to get a little more momentum in the core
0:47:16 business, get to a little bit larger scale before we try to absorb large companies and large
0:47:20 acquisitions. So that’s kind of why we’ve tried to build our muscle. Having done acquisitions in the
0:47:26 past, they’re very, very time consuming. I think acquisitions benefit larger corporations because
0:47:32 they can absorb the acquisition, right? I think of smaller company struggles with just the administrative.
0:47:37 You think of yourself as a small, you’re $84 billion market cap, you’re by far and away the
0:47:43 largest hotel company in the world by number of rooms, growth. You have solid EBITDA. It’s just
0:47:47 funny that you think that way. I would think that… We’re a baby compared to what we’re going to become.
0:47:52 And by the way, we only have 7,000 employees or so. I think Uber has like 30,000. So yeah,
0:47:56 maybe today they’re double the market cap, but they also have like four to five times the number
0:48:01 employees. So we’re actually a smaller company from an employee base than people realize. We try
0:48:06 to build like this, not a Navy, but like the Navy SEALs, this lean elite group. But I think this
0:48:10 is just the very beginning. Like I got to tell you, Scott, I’m 43, but I have more energy,
0:48:14 more motivation and more passion. That was when I was 26 and I was running this company.
0:48:18 And I just see endless opportunity for this company. I think we’ve done a lot of the hard work
0:48:23 to rebuild our company from the ground up, to be prepared for this next phase where we can take
0:48:28 Airbnb and bring it to more business models around the world. So I mean, yeah, it’s just,
0:48:34 maybe it’s a mindset, you know, Jeff, like Steve Jobs said, Apple’s the world’s biggest startup.
0:48:39 And I think you know what he means by that. Jeff Bezos had his version, he called it day one.
0:48:44 It’s all basically is the road in front of you longer than the road behind you. And for us it is.
0:48:50 So I pitched you on this idea privately 18 months ago and the set of limitations are over so I can
0:48:56 pitch it to you publicly. But Airbnb plus or whatever we call it, and I pay 50 bucks a month
0:49:02 and it does a few things. One, when I’m in a city, I have access to cool gyms like an Equinox or
0:49:10 whatever. I have access to concierge services. But more than anything, it’s a thinly veiled
0:49:17 aspirational community slash dating site. And that is I travel so much. And when I’m in a town,
0:49:22 I’m almost always alone. And I find myself at five or six or 7pm thinking, I don’t know what to do.
0:49:26 And if there were other entrepreneurs, if there were other academics, if there are other people
0:49:33 from New York or just locals, what about some sort of Airbnb plus community offering?
0:49:39 I think it’s incredibly compelling. I think you sold me. I’m in. Listen, 18 months ago I was in when
0:49:44 you told me. And the only reason we haven’t done it is because we had really foundational things.
0:49:48 People were complaining about Airbnb’s aren’t affordable. They were complaining about our
0:49:52 customer service. They were complaining about like there were a lot of things. There were a lot
0:49:56 of complaints. And so I felt like, well, we got we got to get our house in order. We still have
0:50:01 to grow into this valuation. We have to generate a real consistent profit on a free casual basis.
0:50:05 And we have to address a lot of these issues that customers are brought up. And over the last two
0:50:11 years, we made 430 upgrades and improvements. So yes, we are now looking for this expansion.
0:50:16 I’ve always believed that there was some type of Airbnb membership model, not necessarily a points
0:50:21 program, but where you get access. And I guess my only question back to you is, are you available
0:50:28 as an advisor? Oh, Jesus Christ, Brian, you’re so full of shit. I’m always available. I love this
0:50:33 company. We’re going to talk privately after this. But I think it’s a great idea. And I generally do
0:50:39 see Airbnb as a community. I mean, like in, you know, Berlin tonight, there are tens of thousands
0:50:44 of Airbnb people that are staying there. We can match them together. They can do variety things.
0:50:48 Those local businesses would love to have specific travelers and they could tell us what
0:50:53 travelers they want. And we could target just those travelers. I think there’s a social overlay
0:50:58 here. And that is, I think that there’s a crisis or an epidemic and loneliness. 100%. And young
0:51:05 people aren’t connecting in a safe environment where they want to know each other and want to
0:51:10 establish professional and personal relationships. There’s a lack of third spaces. You know, people
0:51:15 aren’t going into work. They aren’t going to church. They are participating in organized athletics as
0:51:20 much. And I think that you guys are in a position to provide third spaces on a pretty big scale.
0:51:24 Look, now I’m going to sound like your mother here. Last time you were on the show, you spoke
0:51:31 about feeling like a 61 year old and you were 41 there. So 43 year old’s body working 18 hours a
0:51:38 day, essentially living like a monk during the pandemic to scale Airbnb from 18 to 85 billion.
0:51:44 So over a year later, have you been able to make strides in reconnecting with your personal side
0:51:47 of your life? Do you found as if you found more balance or is this still kind of an ongoing
0:51:53 journey? No, it’s been a major change for me. Kind of three changes. The first change is I’ve
0:52:00 gotten much healthier. I was always into exercise, but I’ve, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we
0:52:05 glamorize sleep deprivation. And I think until recently, no one was talking about the benefits
0:52:09 of sleep. But I think only five last five or 10 years, but the truth, when I started, like,
0:52:14 it was a badge of honor to never sleep. And I do that for years. And, you know, we didn’t really,
0:52:20 like, we weren’t that healthy. And I’m, I’m much more healthy. Now I’m sleeping more exercising.
0:52:23 And I think, I think that’s a good trend in Silicon Valley that like people seem to be
0:52:27 much more mindful of health and fitness. That’s the first thing. Second thing is I’m spending a
0:52:31 lot more time with friends. And I, one of the things I do with friends is I travel, you and I
0:52:36 talked about like one of the great ways to have a shared experience is to travel with people.
0:52:42 And like that’s a great form of memories. And I do that. And then I’ve started to, the third
0:52:47 category is like, I’m single and I’m 43. And then I’ve waited longer than ever thought I would to
0:52:51 meet someone and have a family, but I do desire to have a family. And so I’ve been dating a little
0:52:56 bit. And, you know, hopefully I meet someone. And you also said on the professional front,
0:53:01 you talked about your desire for Airbnb to have a next act, your Disneyland, your AWS, your iPhone
0:53:07 moment. Give me a moonshot crazy idea that you wouldn’t, people wouldn’t expect from Airbnb or
0:53:11 Brian Chesky. There’s so many, but I’ll just pick one based on the coverage who’s had loneliness.
0:53:17 People are lonely. I think there’s a massive way that we can facilitate people meeting one
0:53:23 another. So I’ll give you an example. If you travel by yourself, you ever go to a restaurant,
0:53:26 you got to eat at the bar by yourself and sometimes all the time. It’s literally one
0:53:32 of my favorite things and it’s pathetic. Yeah. Yeah. And I do it too, actually. You know,
0:53:37 I do go to the bar and sometimes by myself get food and I like it, but I have no alternative.
0:53:41 Like if I’m traveling by myself, that’s the only choice. So what if we could basically pair and
0:53:46 meet travelers together at restaurants, pre book reservations, and bring travelers together?
0:53:53 Taylor Swift, number two, she like, obviously had this incredibly, unprecedentedly successful
0:53:59 concert tour. And we noticed in Europe, where sure concert was, we saw this massive rise in
0:54:05 Airbnb bookings. And what if you could pair check, what if you could sell concert tickets on Airbnb,
0:54:09 but not to sell concert tickets, but you could actually pair people together to go to the concerts,
0:54:14 they can meet one another. We could go down the list of other types of things like pick up sports.
0:54:19 So there are kind of things you might not think of as Airbnb, but if we’re talking about difficulty
0:54:24 meeting one another, there’s a lot of ways we can pair people together. So I think the most
0:54:30 not obvious biggest idea would be Airbnb becoming like a social network in the physical world,
0:54:34 not an online social artwork, but essentially a physical social network where we’re matching
0:54:39 people together in real life around events and shared experiences. God, I just thought you should
0:54:45 take on live nation. By the way, I love the idea of you sitting alone at a bar and everybody being
0:54:50 like, isn’t that Brian Chesky? By the way, you know what I call when I see, I’m not young nor
0:54:53 a billionaire and not as good looking as you. You know what I call eye contact at a bar when I’m
0:55:01 meeting alone? What? A prostitute. Oh. Anyways, there you go. All right, Brian. Brian’s literally
0:55:06 turning B red. Yeah, what a great way to land this interview. This is great. He’s literally
0:55:12 turning B red here. Brian Chesky is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb since launching in 2007. The
0:55:16 firm has grown to a community of over 5 million hosts who have welcomed more than 2 billion
0:55:21 guests in almost every country across the globe. He joins us from New York. Brian,
0:55:26 you know I’m an enormous fan of you. I think you’re not only a baller professionally in the
0:55:31 world of tech, but I think you’re just generally speaking a good person and think about the common
0:55:35 wealth and what’s good for society. And we don’t always have that peanut butter and chocolate
0:55:40 combination. So thanks for your time, Brian. Oh, thank you so much, Scott. Thanks for having me.
0:55:55 Algebra of happiness. My sister and I have put my father into hospice and hospice is a scary
0:56:00 sounding word. Jimmy Carter’s been in hospice for five years. It’s basically saying we’re not going
0:56:04 to continue to shuttle him to the hospital. If something goes wrong, we’re just going to try
0:56:09 and make him as comfortable as possible. And my father’s 94 and has declined pretty significantly
0:56:14 in the last two and a half months. He had a series of very weird bladder infections and UTIs that
0:56:19 just took it out of him. And the last time I went down there and it was coming, he didn’t recognize
0:56:24 me. And I saw him about two months ago and we had a conversation and then two months later,
0:56:28 he’s like a baby and he doesn’t recognize me, which is obviously very much prepared for it,
0:56:32 but you can’t really prepare for it. Just a couple takeaways. Something I’m really happy about
0:56:38 is I knew the end or that end where I would no longer have my father or he would have me in
0:56:43 terms of consciousness was coming. And I said a lot of nice things to my father and I made sure
0:56:49 that he felt loved. And I’ve also about 25 years ago, one of the best decisions I’ve ever made is
0:56:53 that I’ve always thought of relationships as transactions. And my father wasn’t very involved
0:57:00 in my life and I resented him for it. And then I decided across all my relationships that I was
0:57:06 just going to decide, okay, don’t keep score. What kind of what kind of partner, what kind of father,
0:57:10 what kind of son do you want to be? And I decided I wanted to be a generous and loving son,
0:57:17 distinct of what I thought his contribution was. And also I was a little bit hard on my father.
0:57:21 I think when you’re the child of divorce and you live with your mother, you have a tendency to
0:57:27 you know, is it sanctify or deify your mother because she’s taken care of you and making your
0:57:34 breakfast and demonize a little bit dad because you know, it was his fault. And my dad, divorce
0:57:40 really kind of was his fault. But look, the thing you got to think about your parents, what I
0:57:47 realized, come to realize is that their number one job is to be a better dad to you than their dad
0:57:51 was to them. And I found out at a much older age, my dad never said this to me that my father was
0:57:57 abused by his father physically abused. His father was an alcoholic and used to come home and get
0:58:03 this, wake him up, start yelling at him and beat him. And I just think about Jesus Christ, talk
0:58:07 about trauma that might not make you a wonderful dad. And my dad did try. It wasn’t always there,
0:58:13 but he did try. And so I forgave my dad 25 years ago and said, I’m just going to be a generous,
0:58:18 loving son. And I’ve been that number. I’m really glad I was that that gives me a great deal of
0:58:25 comfort. The other takeaway is that it’s so wonderful to have siblings in this situation.
0:58:30 My sister handles all the logistics and makes the millions of decisions you need to make every day
0:58:36 when your father’s not doing well. And it’s actually brought us brought us closer. And I can’t
0:58:41 imagine how difficult it can be for siblings that don’t get along, or one contributes more than the
0:58:45 other and the resentment and the martyrdom. And, you know, some people just don’t show up.
0:58:50 And I handle the money side of things because I’m blessed on that end, which is important.
0:58:56 And it’s, it’s a sad reality here. It is just so goddamn expensive. And so if you’re in a position
0:58:59 where you’re making some money and you have aging parents, you may want to think about
0:59:03 the costs that are going to be involved there. And if you can’t, otherwise they’re going to have to
0:59:08 live with you. But let me just try and land this plane. I didn’t know where this was going to go.
0:59:17 I decided to put the scorecard away and be a generous, loving son. And that was the right call.
0:59:23 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Chagrin. And Drew Burroughs is our
0:59:27 technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:59:33 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercenome Alice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow
0:59:38 our Prop G Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.
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