Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky reviewed his strategy for saving the company during the pandemic and came to rely on the rule Steve Jobs used during Apple’s leadership. He talked about it on a podcast. This Week in Startups.
“When the company lost about 80% of its business in just eight weeks after the coronavirus pandemic, my personal time and the way business was run had to be adjusted. Then there was frequent speculation that Airbnb could face bankruptcy and total collapse,” he said.
To that end, Chesky said, he began following the Jobs Rule. According to this rule, a company should never work harder than its CEO can focus on.
“I decided that I would do very little, but I would take care of every detail. At the same time, Airbnb will do nothing but things that I can personally focus on,” the businessman explained, considering rethinking the business.
Chesky says he worked for a while with Jony Ive and Hiroki Asai, key executives at Apple who worked in design and marketing for years.
The Airbnb boss admitted that at first, the process of reviewing almost every solution slowed progress, and some people wondered if such “intervention” from the CEO was good for the business. Over time, Chesky concluded that this problem disappeared and efficiency increased due to the increased requirements for each service change.
Airbnb rental service started to ban users accessing the site because they are “associated with blocked users”.