Quotes from Brian Chesky

Our perception of time is really driven by our perception of the unfamiliar, vivid, and new.

As children, we have vivid imaginations. We stay up late waiting for Santa Claus, dream of becoming president, and have ideas that defy physics. Then something happens. As we grow older, we start editing our imagination.

Every day I would wake up and think, 'Today is another missed opportunity to do something important.' After enough days like this, you start feeling like you are getting old, even when you are relatively young. We are all natural entrepreneurs, and being manacled to a desk job is not for us.

People don't use Airbnb overtly to trust people more. They use it because they want to get a better sense of the culture and to save money. A by-product was that they live in someone else's shoes.

If you want to create a great product, just focus on one person. Make that one person have the most amazing experience ever.

Unless you have fixed costs, you don't need any capital to create a prototype. Ideally, your co-founders, with sweat equity, can create the product themselves.

I think we go through our lives limiting our potential, and when times are tough, it's easy to convince ourselves that something isn't possible, but if you start there, then you limit yourself and the possibilities of what you can create.

My life is longer because of the journeys I have taken.

Whatever the press is talking about, they want to keep talking about it. So instead of asking yourself, 'How can I get them to start talking about me?', figure out a way to get yourself involved in what they're already talking about.

The American dream, what we were taught was, grow up, own a car, own a house. I think that dream's completely changing. We were taught to keep up with the Joneses. Now we're sharing with the Joneses.

Everyone's got a moment or two in their life where something happens and you make a decision and then your entire life changes.

Think of the imagination as a giant stone from which we carve out new ideas. As we chip away, our new ideas become more polished and refined. But if you start by editing your imagination, you start with a tiny stone.

CEOs are often chief product officers. But for me to say I'm a chief product officer when my product is a community, I really should be thinking of myself as head of this community.

I think the next big thing in music, and it's kind of because I come from the tech industry, is actually, I think it's the platform... Spotify is incredibly interesting. I think the platform is becoming the star.

Our culture is the foundation for our company.

Customers are willing to try new things, and if you can survive, you will have fewer competitors. It's like entering the eye of the storm. As long as you are strong enough to survive, you can end up in still water by yourself.

In summer of 2008, I meet a guy named Michael Seibel. And Michael Seibel says, 'There are these people called angels, and they'll give you money.' The first thing I thought is, 'I can't believe this guy believes in angels.' That's how naive I was.

Culture is a thousand things, a thousand times. It's living the core values when you hire; when you write an email; when you are working on a project; when you are walking in the hall.

Our shared vision of belonging is the thread that weaves through every touchpoint on Airbnb.

Airbnb is different from most brands. We're a community of individuals, and yet there's a consistency holding us together through the values we share. We have a common belief in belonging, but everyone's expression of it will naturally always be a little different.

Belonging has always been a fundamental driver of humankind.

Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.

Whatever career you're in, assume it's going to be a massive failure. That way, you're not making decisions based on success, money and career. You're only making it based on doing what you love.

Repetition doesn't create memories. New experiences do.