The CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, says that he is still in founding mode: “As, hire, fire, promote and manage”

“I treat them all like my directs,” said Chesky in an episode of Social radars podcast SATURDAY. “I jump at the level, I co-shoot them and I make decisions that they train and leave the business … as, hire, shoot, promote and manage.”

Even Chesky admits that it may seem “a lot of work, but it’s necessary”. Conventional leadership advice generally indicate that CEO should be a high -level execution team and depart. “For me, this is absolutely not what you need to do,” slammed the boss of the rental giant. “What you need to do is have relationships with as many people as possible in the business. You must be as close as people who do the work possible. ”

“The only way to do so is to jump to the level,” said the technological billionaire, adding that he was doing so by speaking to those who report on his management team. “I want to have a relationship with them.”

Chesky has rationalized that this is the only way to know if your management team is doing a good job, but also guarantees that you are “close to vision”. The founder’s work is “to define the vision every day, it is to give the rhythm of the company, it is to shape it every day”.

Chesky doubles on the “founding mode”

This is not the first time that the CEO has expressed his belief in having a start -up mentality. During a combinator event in 2024, Chesky delivered a discourse on the traps that companies faced during the adoption of the “Manager mode”. He recalled that “well -intentioned people advised to advise the experienced managers to execute Airbnb, but when he followed these advice, the results were disastrous.

Paul Graham, one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley who attended the conference, published a test describing the style of Chesky after this pivotal realization as “founding fashion”.

Since then, Chesky has echoed the same feeling, stressing that the age of artificial intelligence has inaugurated the need for a more agile commercial hierarchy.

“In the AI ​​era, my argument is that you must be in founding / founder mode, because you will have to be able to move like a startup to be able to adapt,” said Chesky previously in June on an episode “Decoder” of the penis podcast. “I think that these large companies managed by professionals are not organized to be able to do so, so they do not increase well for this new world.”

Wider adoption of “founding mode”

Chesky adopted a strategy for the “founding mode” after its plans to become public were disturbed by the COVVI-19 pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, Airbnb was faced with a drop of 72% income due to a drop in reservations and lists, because the world tourism industry suffered from locking. The company was forced to dismiss 25% of the staff.

The founder asked for commercial advice to an old friend, the famous Apple Jony IVE designer, who suggested: “You don’t manage people. You manage people through work. ”

It was after this conversation that he adopted an approach to Steve Jobs’s playbook and started to remove the management layers.

Other business leaders followed a similar mantra: Duolingo CEO Luis Von Ahn, said in 2024 that he had a “view of everything” in the language learning platform company worth $ 15 billion. Other leaders, such as the vice-president and chief of design, also do so.

“I am in this (founder) mode, but we have a number of people who could probably also play this role,” said Von Ahn.