Brian Chesky cofounded Airbnb in 2008 to help pay rent on his San Francisco apartment, and now he's worth $4.2 billion. Here's what the CEO's life is like, from partying at Burning Man to taking Airbnb 'staycations.'
Brian Chesky is the cofounder, CEO, and Head of Community of Airbnb.
Airbnb is estimated to be worth about $38 billion, according to what a source close to the company told Vox in March 2019 and what Forbes estimated in March 2018.
The company, which is reportedly slated to go public in 2019, has more than 6 million listings in more than 100,000 cities worldwide.
Chesky and the other two Airbnb founders are all billionaires.
Before cofounding Airbnb, Chesky had a background in design and strategy.
After growing up in upstate New York, Chesky attended the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design.
It was at RISD that he met Joe Gebbia, one of the future cofounders of Airbnb.
Despite being worth $4.2 billion, the Airbnb cofounder has maintained a relatively modest lifestyle.
In 2015, Chesky told People that he still lived in the apartment where he and Gebbia started the company.
"I still live in the original Airbnb and I still Airbnb it so you can book it," he told the magazine. "It's available throughout the year, you can book the couch for just like $50."
A source at Airbnb told Business Insider that Chesky recently moved and isn't hosting at the moment, but that he looks forward to hosting in the future.
Chesky started dating artist Elissa Patel sometime in 2013.
The couple met on Tinder, Chesky told Fortune magazine in a 2015 interview.
Chesky said the couple does yoga together every Thursday morning.
He also said they often go on "staycations" and book an Airbnb in a different neighborhood to experience a new part of town.
A source at Airbnb declined to comment on whether the couple is still together.
Like other tech CEOs, Chesky has reportedly attended "Burning Man," the wild 9-day arts event in the Nevada desert that's frequented by celebrities and tech moguls.
After he attended Burning Man for the first time in 2013 on the invitation of Burning Man board member Chip Conley, Chesky reportedly said: "Burning Man is what life would be like if artists ruled the world."
A source at Airbnb told Business Insider that Chesky hasn't attended the event in years.
In 2016, Chesky signed the Giving Pledge promising to donate the majority of his fortune to charity over the course of his lifetime.
"With this pledge, I want to help more kids realize the kind of journey I have had," Chesky wrote in his pledge. "I want to show them that their dreams are not bounded by what they can see in front of them. Their limits are not so limited."
Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett launched the pledge in 2010, and it has since been signed by more than 200 people, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Source: Huffington Post
The CEO often acts as the public face of the company at Airbnb events, mingling with celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashton Kutcher.
Source: Yahoo News
One of Chesky's biggest productivity hacks is making lists.
"If you have a list of 20 things to do, you end up realizing, 'I don't need to do 20 things,'" Chesky said during a 2017 appearance on the "Masters of Scale" podcast, Business Insider previously reported. "If I do these three big things, the other 20 things will kind of happen as outcomes, or outputs, of it."
Already worth $4.2 billion, Chesky stands to become even richer when Airbnb eventually goes public.
The company, which was recently valued at $31 billion, may or may not go public in 2019.
"We have already said that we are taking the steps to be ready to go public in 2019. That doesn't mean we will go public in 2019," cofounder Nathan Blecharczyk told Business Insider in a March 2019 email interview.
"We have not decided if we will go public in 2019, and our focus is on building a 21st-century company, and we're all committed to that goal," Blecharczyk added.
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