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Bonus: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky · Stephanomics

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Andy Brown, the editorial director of the Bloomberg
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: New Economy. I'll be with you for the next few weeks,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: sharing highlights of my video broadcast called on the front Lines,
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  Speaker 1: in which I talked with c e O s about
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  Speaker 1: how they're coping with the COVID nineteen crisis. When I
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  Speaker 1: spoke with Brian Chesky, the chief executive of air B
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  Speaker 1: and B, a few months ago, he'd recently laid off
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  Speaker 1: a quarter of his staff, but the business has since
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  Speaker 1: staged a remarkable comeback. Air B and B is now
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  Speaker 1: said to be planning a stock market listing. All those
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  Speaker 1: city folks vacationing close to home have clearly rescued the
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  Speaker 1: fortunes of the home sharing giant. I hope you enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: this and other interviews on how the coronavirus is transforming
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  Speaker 1: the business world. You can find them all on Bloomberg
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And thanks to Stephanie Flanders for letting me
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  Speaker 1: hijack her feed. Bryan, thanks for joining us, well, thank
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  Speaker 1: you for having me today. So you said in an
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  Speaker 1: interview last week that travel as we knew it is over.
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  Speaker 1: It's never coming back. Really, What what do you mean
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  Speaker 1: by that? Exactly. Yeah, well, um, I think that there's
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  Speaker 1: been no moment in the history of travel, or at
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  Speaker 1: least not for the last probably fifty years, that has
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  Speaker 1: impacted the industry quite like today. And what I mean
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  Speaker 1: by that is, and I think maybe that's uh, is
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  Speaker 1: the following. Right now, what we're seeing is a mass
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  Speaker 1: adoption of a different way to travel. Right now, people
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  Speaker 1: are not comfortable, um large, getting on airplanes, crossing borders,
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  Speaker 1: being in crowds and lines. And what's going to happen
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  Speaker 1: is what people are saying is they're comfortable getting in
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  Speaker 1: a car, traveling like as much as two miles, staying
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  Speaker 1: in small communities. And so what I think this is
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  Speaker 1: going to be is a new chapter for travel that's
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  Speaker 1: going to be a little more intimate, a little more local.
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  Speaker 1: And I think you're gonna see travel getting more distributed
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  Speaker 1: to more communities because when you travel locally, by definition,
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  Speaker 1: you travel to more small communities. Now doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 1: the travel as we knew it like all that won't exist,
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  Speaker 1: of course it will. It's just that once people experience
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  Speaker 1: some other types of experience of small communities, you can
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  Speaker 1: never undo that. It's always gonna now move towards a
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  Speaker 1: more intimate way. And this is something that frankly everyone
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  Speaker 1: industry can participate, and I think it's actually gonna be
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  Speaker 1: there's a silver lining here, although it's gonna be painful.
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  Speaker 1: I do think out of this is going to be
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  Speaker 1: a new, a new growth opportunity for travel. So destinations
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  Speaker 1: will change, as you say, people want to go to
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  Speaker 1: communities or experience will be more of a democratization. So
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  Speaker 1: the the destinations that we're winning before, I think they'll
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  Speaker 1: all recover. What's going to happen is people are gonna
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  Speaker 1: realize that you don't just have to go to like
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  Speaker 1: twenty cities, go to the tourist district those cities and
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  Speaker 1: get in lines and double decker buses, stand in front
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  Speaker 1: of landmarks and selfies. That that's not going away as
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  Speaker 1: much as that will be supplemented with an entire new
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  Speaker 1: way of traveling to small communities. That is pretty clear. Well,
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  Speaker 1: will people view home sharing differently? Yeah, I I do
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  Speaker 1: think that. Um you think you know, it's like this
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  Speaker 1: is all what's gonna happen in the future. People are
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  Speaker 1: spending months in their home, They're saying they want to
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  Speaker 1: get out of their home. They want to go somewhere,
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  Speaker 1: they want on a plane. And so what's happening is
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  Speaker 1: because there's not as many hotels and small communities, and
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  Speaker 1: because the hotels really don't want to operate without a
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  Speaker 1: reasonable occupancy. I think a lot of people, a new
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  Speaker 1: generation travelers, are going to discover staying at a home,
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  Speaker 1: and I think they'll find that as an appealing option
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  Speaker 1: for them. So I do think this is going to
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  Speaker 1: lead to a lot of people trying it, and I
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  Speaker 1: think that people are gonna want for a while travel
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  Speaker 1: it's a little more intimate, and again I think you
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  Speaker 1: will still see recovery of the old way of traveling.
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  Speaker 1: But I think even all the traditional travel companies are
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  Speaker 1: going to continue to evolve to a more intimate way
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  Speaker 1: of traveling, and you're gonna see them participate in more
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  Speaker 1: communities all over the world. So what this really means
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  Speaker 1: is that thousands of communities can now I think, participate
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  Speaker 1: in travel. We call this kind of travel redistribution, and
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  Speaker 1: ultimately even very large cities may welcome some of this.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I spent time in France, and I remember
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  Speaker 1: one time I met with the Minister of the Economy
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  Speaker 1: and Tourism and they told me one of the things
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  Speaker 1: that were interested in wasn't necessarily just getting more people
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  Speaker 1: to travel to Paris, but they wanted more people to
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  Speaker 1: go to Provence where the countryside or other parts of
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  Speaker 1: France UM and parts of the United States people are
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  Speaker 1: saying a lot of governors saying they want um people
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  Speaker 1: to visit more rural communities. We worked with the state
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  Speaker 1: of North Carolina to promote travel throughout North Carolina outside
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  Speaker 1: of cities national parks. I think you're gonna see a
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  Speaker 1: lot of outdoor travel, a lot of small community these
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  Speaker 1: and once you discover it and you realize how fun
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  Speaker 1: it is, it's really never the same after that. So
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  Speaker 1: you've talked about about France UM, some city governments are
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  Speaker 1: complaining that A B and B forces uprants, changing is
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  Speaker 1: the character of downtown areas. Ian Brossat, who's the Paris
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  Speaker 1: deputy marriage charge of housing, said we intend to take
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity to regain control. He was talking about the coronavirus.
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  Speaker 1: Do you worry about this kind of backlash? Oh, what
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  Speaker 1: does the kind of travel that you've been talking about them,
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  Speaker 1: what discussed democratic kind of travel less than that type
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  Speaker 1: of criticism. Do you think well, yeah, I mean I
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  Speaker 1: think number one, we want to be really good partners
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  Speaker 1: to cities, including Paris, and there's many stakeholders, but we
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  Speaker 1: want to be a company of strengthen the community in Paris.
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  Speaker 1: And I also think that like travel is going to
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  Speaker 1: probably be a little more distributed for a period of time.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the things we're trying to do is
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  Speaker 1: work with DMS destination market organizations governments that want travel,
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  Speaker 1: and so we want to basically partner with them and
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  Speaker 1: and if people say they want more travel, we would
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  Speaker 1: love to be able to help market those destinations. So
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  Speaker 1: and the vision would be, and I think this is
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  Speaker 1: a vision for all travel companies is communities that want
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  Speaker 1: more travel, we can help um promote their destinations and
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  Speaker 1: that really that would be ultimately a place to get
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  Speaker 1: to do you think the trends in work from home
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  Speaker 1: here to stay? And if they're permanent, how will you
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  Speaker 1: adapt your business to meet the demands of this new
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  Speaker 1: nomadic workforce that can operate from anywhere in the world.
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  Speaker 1: And that's a big part of your business now, right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's permanent, absolutely, But again it's like a pendulum. If
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  Speaker 1: the pendulum was here and it's now all the way here.
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  Speaker 1: It's not staying here. It's gonna come back, but it's
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  Speaker 1: not going back to where it was. Maybe that's another
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  Speaker 1: way saying travel. Once people realize and we have collectively
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  Speaker 1: realized you can work from zoom remotely new work from
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  Speaker 1: a home, not every person is going to go back
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  Speaker 1: to the office all of the time. There's gonna be
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  Speaker 1: much more flexibility. Companies are gonna realize they can open
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  Speaker 1: the talent pole to communities all over the world. And
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  Speaker 1: what's also gonna happen is, I think work from home
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  Speaker 1: is going to become really like work from any home,
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  Speaker 1: and people can start living different places month to month,
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  Speaker 1: because if you don't actually need to go into the office,
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  Speaker 1: then you don't necessarily need to live in that place.
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  Speaker 1: And the place you were living may have been more expensive,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe you live there for your job, and now
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  Speaker 1: you'll have to make a choice to live there, And
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  Speaker 1: some people will choose maybe to live elsewhere, maybe they're
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  Speaker 1: from another part of the world, maybe they want to
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  Speaker 1: be closer family, maybe they want more space. So this
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  Speaker 1: is also going to lead to I think a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of at least a temporary population redistribution from mega
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  Speaker 1: metropolisis towards perimeters. I think we're already seeing it. This
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  Speaker 1: is not the end of cities, but it is like
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  Speaker 1: a pendulum. It's not going to go all the way
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  Speaker 1: back right away to where we were because once people
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  Speaker 1: try something they like it, they don't go completely back
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  Speaker 1: to where they were. They we kind of move forward.
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  Speaker 1: We don't. We don't go backwards like we go forwards.
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  Speaker 1: And you know that's how things are gonna be. So
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  Speaker 1: how does this change the AMB and B business? Maude? Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it does change in the business model.
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  Speaker 1: But it's not just the travel trends. It's also the
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  Speaker 1: constraints we have. You know, we are like every other company,
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  Speaker 1: and Travel were hit hard by COVID nineteen, really hard.
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  Speaker 1: We were hit so hard that, um, we had to
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  Speaker 1: go through a very painful layoff. And when we had
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  Speaker 1: to do that layoff, we had to m confront a
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  Speaker 1: very hard truth. And the hard truth is we can't
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  Speaker 1: do all the things we used to do. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: a crisis has a way of um it has a
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  Speaker 1: way of giving you clarity and you ask yourself, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I remember in the depth of the crisis, UM,
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  Speaker 1: I got a lot of We've got a lot of
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  Speaker 1: support from people, and people said, like, we want everybody
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  Speaker 1: to pull through, we want everyone to to kind of thrive,
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  Speaker 1: and I remember asking people, look, why do you want
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  Speaker 1: us to survive? And like why do you want us
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  Speaker 1: to throw like to exist in the future. And the
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  Speaker 1: answers that came up over and over again where that
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  Speaker 1: the part that was most special about Airbnb was really
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  Speaker 1: the reason we started Airbnb. Because we started Airbnb, it
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  Speaker 1: really wasn't about travel per se and intend to chart
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  Speaker 1: to quote travel company in real estate, was really about
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  Speaker 1: connecting people and belonging and that was really offered consistently,
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  Speaker 1: most consistently by everyday people that we all hosts to
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  Speaker 1: offer their homes or share experiences, and that's the roots
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  Speaker 1: of Airbnb. And so we're gonna go back to basics.
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  Speaker 1: We want to get back to the roots, back to belonging,
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  Speaker 1: back to connection, and that is where we're focused. And
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  Speaker 1: it just so happens that communities around the world have
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  Speaker 1: host everywhere and so it kind of does work with
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  Speaker 1: the travel trends. But that's what we're focused on right now.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about practicalities. Um, it was a subt conducted
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  Speaker 1: by p WC in May. Travels were aust about the
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  Speaker 1: proceed of the paced risk of certain types of travel
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  Speaker 1: fifty full percent. So they thought saying the short term
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: random like an am by be was risky. How do
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  Speaker 1: you make the case now that it is safe for tropics, Well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we've seen a quite different travel pattern. Um,
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  Speaker 1: if you search Airbnb and Google trends, and you search
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  Speaker 1: other brands of Google trends, I think the data is
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  Speaker 1: pretty public. You can just do the research yourself. I
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  Speaker 1: think we're gonna find is that right now travelers, what
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  Speaker 1: they're saying is that they don't want to be in crowds,
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  Speaker 1: they don't want to be in public spaces, they don't
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  Speaker 1: want to be in lines. And whatever being B provides
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: is privacy. Whatever and B provides is intimacy. That you're
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  Speaker 1: not sharing space with other people. You get a space
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  Speaker 1: all to yourself, and you can get it not just
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  Speaker 1: in a big urban area. You can get it in
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  Speaker 1: a small community. And you don't have to get on
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  Speaker 1: an airplane to go that small community. You can drive
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  Speaker 1: to that small community. So I'd make the argument to
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  Speaker 1: get in your car and go to a small community,
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  Speaker 1: into a private space without a lot of people. I
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  Speaker 1: think that's actually pretty consistent with people are looking for
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  Speaker 1: right now international travel. So many of the new economies
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  Speaker 1: around Asia, Africa, South America has brown to a halt.
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  Speaker 1: Do worry that abnb may lose market shed the local
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  Speaker 1: competing platforms like two job in China that are used
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  Speaker 1: more frequently for domestic travel, Well, I mean, I I
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  Speaker 1: have concerns, but my concerns are more for our host.
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  Speaker 1: I'm the Airbnb. No matter how hard like we're hit,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna be okay. I mean, we're a pretty big
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  Speaker 1: sized company, I think, so our hosts, they're not all
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  Speaker 1: gonna be okay. And what I'm specifically concerned about, so
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: countries that have robust domestic travel, I think those hopes
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  Speaker 1: will be fine. So if if host in France a
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: lot of people in France who would have come to
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the United States, they're instead They're gonna travel within France,
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  Speaker 1: They'll be okay. The communities that I'd be concerned about
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: our communities that are communities built on tourism. They have
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to fly to and they don't have a huge domestic market.
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  Speaker 1: So these would be more like smaller can entities island communities.
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  Speaker 1: You know, so these are ones where you know, we're
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  Speaker 1: certainly concerned on behalf of our host and you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a very difficult period and
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  Speaker 1: we want to be able to try to help them
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  Speaker 1: get through this. Last question, what warriores you most? Second wave,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: third wave of the virus, economic collapse, recession, depression, rising
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: protectionist sentiment that might impact local businesses? What what are
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: you What are you focused on now? Is as the
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  Speaker 1: single biggest threat to the business. Well, I mean, well,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: what I'm most worried about isn't a specific threat to Airbnb.
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  Speaker 1: But I'll just I'll just offer it, which is um.
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  Speaker 1: I saw a study I think it was conducted by
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the University of Chicago that said that the number of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Americans that self identify as lonely or lacking companionship, I
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: think it was like now close to But I think
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the combination of you know, people being locked down, people
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  Speaker 1: being lonely, people not having companionship, people not having I'm
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: pretty concerned about how like isolating lonely painful, scary, and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: harrowing this can be for an individual living at home
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: or even somebody is trying to support their family, and
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I think that is very, very concerning to me. And
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I think ultimately we as a society, you're gonna have
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to find ways to help reconnect people, to help help
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: them gain employment. I think you know the way to
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: do that is wenn have to create new jobs and
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: new kinds of jobs and new ways to connect people,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: because it's gonna take some time for the world to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: go back. And you know what, the world doesn't go
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: back whence, it only goes forward. And so we're gonna
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: have to find, like, together collectively as business leaders, as
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: an industry, how do we want people to live in
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  Speaker 1: the future. And I hope the way they start living
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: is a way that gives more people opportunity and more
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: communities and reconnects people, because the problem is the more
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: digitally connected we seem to get, sometimes the more physically
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: disconnected we get, the more we live closer to one
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  Speaker 1: of our own cities, the more further apart we often feel. Together.
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  Speaker 1: If there was an opportunity out of this crisis, I
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  Speaker 1: hope that opportunity is one of reconnection to one another,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: an opportunity and commnees all over the world. On that note,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Ryan Schafsky, thanks for your time. Thank you very much,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: thanks for listening. I hope you'll tune in later this
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: year for a digital edition of the annual Bloomberg New
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Economy Forum, where business and government leaders from around the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: world we'll talk about the challenge of building a more
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: sustainable and equitable post COVID economy.