Airbnb: Joe Gebbia

**Joe Gebbia** (0:03)
We ended up going from to 800 homes in a matter of four weeks. And I have to tell you, I thought that this was it. Like this was our rocket ship to the moon.

**Guy Raz** (0:14)
You thought, we made it, we're here, we got it.

**Joe Gebbia** (0:16)
Right. If you build it, they will come and look what's happening. And so we get introduced to 20 investors in Silicon Valley. Ten of them replied to our email. Five of them made it for coffee. Zero invested in us.

**Guy Raz** (0:38)
From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. On today's show, the story of how a side hustle to pay rent led Joe Gebbia to build a company that now has more rooms than the biggest hotel chain in the world.
Ten years ago, even five years ago, most of us would have thought the idea of renting out a room in our home to a complete stranger, a little creepy, even spending the night in someone else's home you never met would probably seem weird, especially on vacation or a business trip. But now, it's not just normal, it's actually the preferred way to overnight for millions of people around the world, even celebrities do it. And the company that made all of this normal, of course, is Airbnb. And the guys who started it had no background in travel or hospitality or even technology. Joe Gebbia graduated from art school at the Rhode Island School of Design. Brian Chesky, his co-founder, was Joe's college buddy. They played pickup basketball together. And after they graduated in 2005, both Joe and Brian moved out west. Brian went to LA, Joe went to San Francisco. And in that first year, Joe, who was designing book covers at a publishing house, worked really hard to convince Brian to move up to San Francisco to start a business. And as Joe tells the story, after some prodding, Brian agreed.

**Joe Gebbia** (2:18)
Both of us simultaneously quit our jobs. He left his, I was at Chronicle Books full time at that point, and I left to dream up something with him.

**Guy Raz** (2:27)
And you guys were like in your mid-twenties? So you didn't eat a whole lot of money, presumably?

**Joe Gebbia** (2:35)
At this point, no. We're just a couple of college grads, you know, eating ramen.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:38)
Yeah.

**Guy Raz** (2:39)
Why does everybody eat ramen? Everybody eats ramen.

**Joe Gebbia** (2:41)
It's so cheap.

**Guy Raz** (2:42)
There's ramen, ramen, ramen. I mean, you can get rice.

**Joe Gebbia** (2:46)
It's rice cereal, too.

**Guy Raz** (2:48)
Anyway, so you guys are there, you're eating ramen. And what, you're just like spitballing ideas?

**Joe Gebbia** (2:53)
We're spitballing ideas, and that first week was so exciting.

**Guy Raz** (2:56)
You mean the first week he comes, you're like.

**Joe Gebbia** (2:58)
Oh my God, yes. I mean, that first week felt like RISD again. This place was full of ideas. And then something ominous happened. A letter came in the mail. I opened it up, it's dressed to me. I pull it out, and it's from our landlord, who politely states that our rent is now 25% higher than it was the month before.

**Guy Raz** (3:21)
Wait, just in one month, he raised it by 25%?

**Joe Gebbia** (3:23)
25%.

**Guy Raz** (3:25)
And that's legal?

**Joe Gebbia** (3:26)
It was not under rent control.

**Guy Raz** (3:27)
Okay.

**Joe Gebbia** (3:28)
Believe me, I looked into it.

**Guy Raz** (3:29)
Yeah. And so were you like freaking out?

**Joe Gebbia** (3:32)
Of course. I went ran to my online banking and was like, oh my God, oh my God, can I make rent next month? And Brian, the same thing. And we realized that we almost couldn't, we weren't getting paychecks at this point.

**Guy Raz** (3:42)
Yeah.

**Joe Gebbia** (3:43)
So this is a moment where our backs are against the wall. And I feel like all the creative training that we'd received started to pay off. Cause we started to think about, okay, well, how can we design our way out of this? And that was when I reflected on a previous experience that I had back in Providence. The day before that I drove cross country, I sold off all my stuff. And when I was having that yard sale, this guy pulls up in the red Mazda Miata and he starts looking at my stuff. And I'm getting pretty annoyed cause I'm ready to go home. But he ends up buying a piece of art that I was selling. So we get to talking. And he tells me all about how he's about to go into the Peace Corps and he's driving cross country and he doesn't know a soul in Providence. So I invite him out for a drink that night. And I make the mistake of asking him, so where are you staying tonight? And he makes it worse by saying, actually, I don't have a place. And I'm thinking, oh, man, what do you do?