Former Steve Jobs staff helped shape how the Airbnb CEO ran the company when his business was brought to a standstill by the pandemic
By iProfessional
08/05/2023 – 08,59hs
To reassess how to run Airbnb during the pandemic, the CEO of the stays and experiences company, Brian Cheskyassures that he initially relied on a rule popularized by the founder of Apple, Steve Jobsabout time management.
In a recent appearance on the This Week in Startups podcast, Chesky noted that when the vacation rental company lost about 80% of its business in just 8 weeks after COVID-19 crippled the tourism industry, he used the time to adjust the way the business was operated.
The Jobs rule that he used for this says that a company should never work on more things than the CEO can focus on.
“We were like staring into the abyss,” Chesky told host Jason Calacanis. “I mean, you might remember people making predictions like ‘Is this the end of Airbnb? Will there be Airbnb?'” he recalled.
Jobs Collaborators on Airbnb
According to Chesky, some people who worked closely with Steve Jobs during his time at Apple were instrumental in reshaping the way Airbnb works. Specifically, he says that he collaborated with both Jony Ive and Hiroki Asai, key executives who led Apple’s design and marketing efforts, respectively, for years.
Ive given her the perspective of how Jobs used to run Apple, especially how he ran the company when he returned and pulled it out of near-bankruptcy in 1997, he said. Chesky that Ive used to tell Jobs that it was important that Jobs himself be personally involved in product development.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky took one of Steve Jobs’ leadership rules
Chesky notes that that advice, along with Asai’s hiring, led him to adopt a policy of never working on more things that the CEO might be involved with.
“I am going to do very few things and I will be involved in each and every detailand Airbnb isn’t going to do anything more than I can personally focus on,” Chesky explained, referring to rethinking the business.
At first, the process of having to review almost every decision the company made by himself slowed progress, and some people wondered if the CEO “meddling” in so many different parts of the company was good for the company. business. However, over time, he believes that change created a culture of responsibilityknowing that every decision will be reviewed by someone like him.
Chesky points out in the statements released by Business Insider, that now the company is more efficientadding that he spends most of his time on products, marketing and recruiting, and very little on corporate affairs.
