@Sharon1014
Well here's a few snippets for you, that are pretty representative of the breathless tone and disingenuous content of the entire piece. Whitewash doesn't begin to describe it. All hail the conquering, compassionate, cookie-baking hero..
While business this year will be nowhere close to pre-pandemic levels, and the future of travel is uncertain, some of Mr. Chesky’s critics and observers said he won them over with quick thinking and bold moves. “What impressed me was how quickly he did it,” said Michael Seibel , the chief executive of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley accelerator.
The pandemic has reinvented travel, possibly in lasting ways, as many businesses make remote work a permanent fixture. While some people will move to the suburbs, Mr. Chesky said, others will become globe-trotting nomads. Even those that return to work will have more flexibility, leaving room to travel locally.
The post-pandemic Airbnb looks a lot more like the company Mr. Chesky and his two co-founders started in their San Francisco apartment more than 10 years ago.
Mr. Chesky said the pandemic forced him to go “back to our roots.” He refocused on home rentals and scaled back efforts to become a broader travel behemoth.
“This is going to be bigger than 9/11 and 2008 combined,” board member and former American Express Co. Chief Executive Kenneth Chenault remembers saying. “This is your defining moment as a leader,” he said to Mr. Chesky.
On May 5, Mr Chesky choked back tears and announced on a videoconference his plan to lay off 1,900 employees. He also scaled back ambitious moves to list traditional hotels and luxury properties and paused diversifying into newer areas such as transportation and media.
The cuts were a dramatic pullback from Mr. Chesky’s ambitions. He had previously told investors, advisers and employees in all-hands meetings that as long as he hired the smartest people, nothing would stop the company’s growth. That mentality worried investors, who watched Mr. Chesky spend heavily to recruit talent.
Mr. Chesky himself was spending more of his time focused on newer bets, including Experiences, which lets people book activities like mountaintop yoga, wine tastings and pottery classes. He had been describing the company as one with big, broad ambitions—using phrases such as the “magical world of Airbnb” that had an “infinite time horizon.”
Last year, the company bought the hotel-booking site Hotel Tonight as it sought to generate revenue growth by adding hotels to its mix. It hired an airline veteran to be its global head of transportation. It also released a feature film about a gay men’s chorus and had plans for more.
The pandemic upended those efforts.
Mr. Chesky turned his attention back to Airbnb’s main business. He said he would keep his focus there even after things return to normal.
Mr. Chesky told investors and advisers he never wants to be forced to cut staff in a dramatic way again. To avoid that, he said he has no immediate plans to boost the company’s marketing budget and will keep other expenses low, according to people familiar with these discussions. “He’s off that drug,” said an investor.
Laid-off employees were allowed to keep company-issued Apple laptops and received a year of health insurance. Airbnb posted an online talent directory of departing employees so companies looking to hire could tap them, and separately said its recruiters would assist in finding them jobs. Half a dozen former and current employees said in interviews they felt newfound respect for Mr. Chesky because of the way he handled the layoffs.
The CEO increased communication with existing employees, switching to weekly Q&As from monthly. He also sought to make amends with hosts angered by his refund policy at the height of the pandemic shutdown by allocating funds from the money he raised to reimburse them for a third of canceled stays.
Earlier in the crisis, he had stepped in to refund guests for cancellations with funds meant for property owners, who then blamed him for emptying their coffers overnight. Mr. Chesky had regretted not outlining some relief to hosts in conjunction with his offer to guests, according to a person he frequently consulted.
Then, this summer, the stars began to align in Mr. Chesky’s favor. Families, students and friends were turning to Airbnbs as quarantine lodging. And, as local governments eased restrictions around the world, people in big cities ventured into neighboring towns and cities, where big-chain hotels don’t have a footprint.
The rebound has been better than the best-case scenario that bankers had pitched investors months ago, when they forecast business would start to pick up in the last three months of the year.
Mr. Chesky said he spent most of the past several months working 16-hour-shifts, largely glued to his iMac. When he is on the phone, he paces up and down his makeshift office—a 20-by-20-foot attic on the top floor of his home in San Francisco’s trendy Mission neighborhood. At times, he spoke with his board while sitting on a bench in nearby Dolores Park.
Mr. Chesky’s mom, who was in the city before the lockdown, moved in. He hadn’t lived with her since high school, more than two decades ago. He purchased his first bicycle, frequently riding it around the park, and sought refuge in baking chocolate-chip cookies.
With business recovering, Mr. Chesky wanted to send a strong signal to investors and boost morale among employees, some of whom were anxious about their stock options expiring at the end of the year, according to the person Mr. Chesky has frequently consulted.
Penelope
