The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 16 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Chesky: Remote work will shift travel to long stays in smaller communities
“I mean, maybe the most fundamental change that I see in our world that's going to happen, if you're so fortunate enough, typically upper middle class person or upper class, not everyone can do this, but for those who can, They're realizing, maybe I'll go a mon…”
Chesky: Travelers will shift from crowded cities to outdoor destinations
“People are gonna, instead of traveling to the same 20 cities, going to the same hotel districts that are really crowded, and then standing in line, To get their selfie photo, instead of the same landmarks, to put it on Instagram, say, look, I got that too. The…”
Chesky: Airbnb gave $250M directly to hosts during the pandemic
“We took a quarter of a billion dollars, two hundred fifty million dollars, and we sent it to our host. Just didn't loan it, just sent it to host.”
Chesky: Airbnb is likely one of the world's largest RV rental platforms
“Without having intended to be in that business, we're probably one of the largest, largest RV rental companies in the world. As far as they're not our RVs, it's the communities, but yeah, I'm sure thousands and thousands of RVs.”
Chesky: Airbnb bookings rebounded from an 80% drop to 2019 levels
“So it dropped by about 80%, and I mean, you know, nobody knows if this is pent up demand or not, but no, we're around last year's levels.”
Chesky: Airbnb will be ready to IPO in 2020 if markets allow
“And we don't know when we'll be public, but I basically said, we'll be ready this year if the market's ready for us. If the market's not ready, we'll be ready when they are.”
Chesky: Leaders should reject robotic corporate playbooks when executing layoffs
“There is no playbook, I don't think, to lay people off, and that's the kind of thing that if there was a playbook, you should never use it, because the thing that people want more than anything is, They want humanity. They want compassion, and that means that …”
Chesky: Airbnb lost 80% of its business in eight weeks during COVID-19
“We spent 12 years building Airbnb, and then we lost 80% of business in eight weeks.”
Chesky: Airbnb slashed over $1B in planned marketing spend during COVID-19
“We cut over a billion dollars of planned marketing spend.”
Chesky: Airbnb raised $2B in emergency financing in 72 hours
“Then we quickly raised two billion dollars... Thankfully we had some great investors step up but we had to do that deal, and that was like over the course of 72 hours to like get that deal done.”
Chesky: Airbnb customers canceled over $1B in bookings at pandemic start
“First thing is we had over, we had customers cancel over one billion dollars of reservations.”
Chesky: Hotels require density and cannot serve smaller communities efficiently
“The smaller the community, less likely they have a hotel because a hotel only works with density, right? You need a bunch of rooms, you need efficiency, and so people are basically traveling and going to small communities.”
Chesky: Airbnb will refocus on core connection rather than travel or real estate
“We didn't start this company to be a travel company. We didn't start this company to be a real estate company. It was about connection, and if it took a crisis for us to get back to that core truth, then that's what we're going to focus on.”
Chesky: Airbnb planned to file its S-1 in March 2020 before pausing
“We were, we're going to file it late March. We put on the shelf and recently we've been dusting it off, you know, and you have to update it because the business has changed.”
Chesky: Airbnb was stretched thin and sprawling across businesses pre-pandemic
“Before a pandemic, Airbnb was stretched thin. We were sprawling. We were going into all these businesses, you know, just kind of feeling pressure of trying to make everyone happy.”
Chesky: Airbnb raised $20K-$30K selling novelty cereal boxes in 2008
“Yeah, like 20 or 30,000. It was yeah, something like that. Joe told the story. We had to raise collectible breakfast cereal. We were air, bed, and breakfast. So we said, well, let's do collectible breakfast cereal for the Democratic-Republican National Convent…”