Joe Gebbia

“The question that I can't shake - it's this question that keeps coming up for me - is What does the shared home of the future look like? People are sharing homes at a rate that no one ever predicted, but residences and homes weren't designed for it. They were designed around ideas of privacy and separation.”

“Design helps shape our everyday interactions through products, furniture, objects, or experiences.”

“High reputation beats high similarity.”

“Technology moves so quickly; you can't get comfortable with the business you have today because technology will progress.”

“Sympathy relies on a common experience. If you're clumsy, you might have sympathy for others who tend to bump into things. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person's feelings even if you've never experienced them yourself.”

“Creating the future means having a global vision and an extreme focus on the approachability of what we're creating.”

“In the future, we will see living experiences curated around a shared lifestyle.”

“How do you convince somebody to host a stranger for the weekend? That's not a trivial thing. It's not something I think you can throw technology at, marketing at, or sales at. We threw design at it because that's all we knew, and in doing so, I feel like we brought a human touch to it, which is so needed.”

“What we're doing with Airbnb feels like the nexus of everything that is right. We're helping people be more resourceful with the space they already have, and we're connecting people around the world.”

“Airbnb was born out of necessarity. Our rent went up. It was born out of a problem.”

“We didn't invent anything new. Hospitality has been around forever.”

“Ultimately, the power of the Airbnb platform is that it motivates guests to blend into communities, belong anywhere, and live like locals.”

“It's about more than making money; it's about connecting people in countries all around the world. Our social mission is to get people meeting each other, and we need people who align with that purpose.”

“Every apartment I've ever lived in has had a space to make, create, and get stuff done within eyesight of my bed.”

“As Chief Product Officer, I lead our product team to create simple, intuitive user experiences.”

“At Airbnb, we're trying to build a culture that supports details, celebrates them, and gives our teams creative license to pursue them.”

“The fear of mistakes is the fast track to irrelevance.”

“Digital communication is completely different from in-person, face-to-face conversations. One will give you surface insights, and the other really gives you depth.”

“I have the privilege of working with our in-house design studio, called Samara, and our humanitarian team, called Human. Samara is thinking about the future of Airbnb, and Human is working on ways to leverage our platform outside the cause of day-to-day business.”

“I've experienced firsthand the disconnect between furniture, their environments, and the way people work.”