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How I Built This with Guy Raz

Airbnb: Joe Gebbia (2017)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.831.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2017

⏱️ 44 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're hard at work planning our upcoming live show, so we bring you this favorite from the last year: Airbnb. A chance encounter with a stranger gave Joe Gebbia an idea to help pay his rent. That idea grew into a company that now has more rooms than the biggest hotel chain in the world. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," we check back with Michael Vennitti of TP Foam, a company that came up with a way to squelch the smell of trash. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

0:07.0

Download the app today.

0:09.0

New years is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

0:13.0

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

0:17.0

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

0:24.0

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

0:27.0

Hey, it's Guy here. So we've been super busy working on a bunch of live shows this summer.

0:32.0

In fact, this very Thursday, check your podcast queue for my conversation with the founders of Reddit, Alexa, Sohanian, and Steve Huffman are incredibly insightful and also very, very funny.

0:45.0

You'll hear a lot of laughs from the live audience in San Francisco, so stay tuned for that, and for more live events coming to your cities and towns throughout the year.

0:54.0

But right now, we've got one of our all-time favorites from the HIV-T Archive, so enjoy.

1:01.0

We ended up going from zero to 800 homes in a matter of four weeks, and I have to tell you, I thought that this was it.

1:10.0

Like, this was our rocket ship to the moon.

1:14.0

You thought we made it, we're here, we got it.

1:16.0

Right, if you build it, they will come and look what's happening.

1:19.0

And so we get introduced to 20 investors in Silicon Valley, 10 of them replied our email, 5 of them needed for coffee, 0 invested in us.

1:32.0

From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

1:46.0

On today's show, the story of how a side hustle to pay rent led Joe Gavia to build a company that now has more rooms than the biggest hotel chain in the world.

2:01.0

Ten years ago, even five years ago, most of us would have thought the idea of renting out a room in our home to a complete stranger, a little creepy, even spending the night in someone else's home you never met would probably seem weird, especially on vacation or a business trip.

2:25.0

But now it's not just normal, it's actually the preferred way to overnight for millions of people around the world, even celebrities do it.

2:34.0

And the company that made all of this normal, of course, is Airbnb.

2:39.0

And the guys who started it had no background in travel or hospitality or even technology.

2:45.0

Joe Gavia graduated from art school at the Rhode Island School of Design, Brian Chesky, his co-founder, was Joe's college buddy, they played Pick Up Basketball together.

...

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