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Brian Chesky

Co-founder and chief executive of Airbnb

United States · b. 1981

Co-founded Airbnb in San Francisco in 2008 with Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, and has led it as chief executive since. Trained as an industrial designer at the Rhode Island School of Design.

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How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?

When we started Airbnb, no one wanted to invest. I felt like a failure so many days. It was small, it wasn't growing... A sane person probably would have quit. But we kept going through obscurity, through rejection. We couldn't raise money — but over time, it started growing.

Recorded Carlos Watson, The Carlos Watson Show, quoted by Yahoo Finance source

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What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?

Getting rich slow isn't actually slower. It's slower in year one, but it might be faster in year seven.

Recorded Chesky's remarks to Fortune in 2017, quoted by Business Insider, Business Insider (Markets Insider), August 2020 source

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What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you have ever made — of money, time, or energy?

We need to have mentors. I think I've always been pretty shameless about seeking out people much smarter and much more experienced than me from the very beginning. Michael Seibel and other people. And the more successful I got, the more leaders I started seeking out, whether it was investors, or Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook, or I got the opportunity to spend time with Warren Buffett and he became a close mentor of mine.

Recorded Fortune interview, 27 March 2017 source

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