Earlier this month, “founder mode” took Silicon Valley by storm after Paul Graham, co-founder of the startup accelerator Y Combinator, coined the term in a blog post that described how startup founders should embrace a more hands-on management style. Some tech leaders praised the concept as revelatory, while others have accused the term of encouraging micromanagement.
The creation of founder mode itself occurred by accident, according to AirBnb (ABNB) CEO Brian Chesky, whom Graham credited as having inspired the concept after hearing Chesky discuss his leadership approach during a recent Y Combinator event. The talk was supposed to be off the record, said Chesky while speaking at the Skift Global Forum 2024 yesterday (Sept. 18), and was originally scheduled to last only 30 minutes before turning into “a two-hour talk about what happened since the pandemic and how I now run the company.”
After the onslaught of Covid-19, Airbnb lost 80 percent of its business in eight weeks, according to Chesky. “I had to figure out how to rebuild this company from the ground up. And I found another founder who had faced a similar position, and that was Steve Jobs,” he added, recalling Apple’s near bankruptcy in 1997. Chesky began collaborating with Jony Ive, Apple’s former chief designer under Jobs, and Hiroki Asai, Apple’s creative director, and learned valuable lessons from the two on how the late CEO ran his company.
“[Jobs] said you have to be in all the details of people’s work,” said Chesky, 43, who claims he has since embraced this strategy and works with all Airbnb team members to make decisions and understand every aspect of Airbnb’s product. “I think there’s a lot of leaders that don’t understand their business—it’s kind of like leading a cavalry, and you can’t ride a horse. It makes no sense,” he added. Despite criticism of such management style turning into micromanagement, Chesky said Jobs “didn’t micromanage [his employees], he partnered with them.”
The most divisive aspect of founder mode is the name itself, according to Chesky. “I never called it founder mode; I just described my experience, and I believe that my experience is something that every CEO, whether a founder or not, can do,” he said.
Brian Chesky’s close ties with OpenAI and Sam Altman
Chesky also defended the public perception of Silicon Valley. “I think the portrayal of Silicon Valley as a rapacious place by some is not true at all,” said the executive, who noted that “when you build a platform that impacts hundreds of millions of people, it is impossible for there not to be unintended consequences.”
Chesky is particularly close with Silicon Valley power players like Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. “I’m probably one of his closest confidants; I think he’d say that publicly,” he said. The Airbnb head also revealed he has “been pretty involved in OpenAI unofficially” and played a small role in putting the company back together after Altman’s brief ousting last year.
Much of his involvement is inspired by a belief in “the importance of A.I.,” said Chesky at the Skift Global Forum. The possibilities of the new technology include applications across Airbnb as “the ultimate travel concierge,” with A.I. able to eventually play a “massive” role in tackling over-tourism by suggesting less well-known locations for travelers, he said.
“I want to be helpful in making sure that we’re really thoughtful about bringing this technology to the masses,” said Chesky. “This is probably going to change the world more than the Industrial Revolution.”
