Who is Brian Chesky, the Airbnb founder worth US$8.6 billion? He is pals with Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and ChatGPT’s Sam Altman, and was called one of the US’ most eligible billionaires
- When New Yorker Brian Chesky and his friend Joe Gebbia had the idea to rent out an airbed in their San Francisco flat in 2007, they could never have dreamed how things would turn out
- One of the richest people in the world, Chesky now gets bodybuilding tips from The Terminator and leadership advice from Obama, and has signed Bill and Melinda Gates’ Giving Pledge
“Brian was the person who would just sit down with me for three hours every other week, and give me a list and say, ‘Here’s the five things you got to do,’” Altman told the audience in late June. “And I learned to just always shut up and follow the advice.”
What’s Brian Chesky’s family background?
Originally from Niskayuna in upstate New York, Chesky’s parents Deborah and Robert were both social workers, according to his interview with the Financial Times. By his own admission, he “came from a pretty normal nondescript background” but told Steven Bartlett on his Diary of a CEO podcast that there was one thing “that most defined me – and that was that I was an artist”. His passion led him to study industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he met Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.
When did Brian Chesky found Airbnb?
After graduating from university, Chesky moved first to LA, then to San Francisco, per Business Insider, and shared a flat with his pal Gebbia. When a design conference came to town in 2007 causing a shortage of hotels, the pair had the idea to rent out an air bed in their flat to make some cash. By 2008, they had registered the domain name airbedandbreakfast.com, brought on another friend, Nathan Blecharczyk – and the rest is history.