Brian Chesky: Our "overnight" success took 1,000 days.

The stuff that matters in life is no longer stuff. It's other people. It's relationships. It's experience.

Brian Chesky

matter stuff people

Culture is so incredibly important because it is the foundation for all future innovation. People with passion can change the world.

Brian Chesky

innovation passion people

Do things that won't scale; it will teach you.

Brian Chesky

scales teach

We start with the perfect experience and then work backward. That's how we're going to continue to be successful.

Brian Chesky

being-successful successful perfect

It's better to have 100 people love you than to have 1,000,000 people like you.

Brian Chesky

like-you love-you people

If you want to create a great product, just focus on one person. Make that one person have the most amazing experience ever.

Brian Chesky

that-one-person focus want

Somebody asked me 'what's the job of a CEO', and there's a number of things a CEO does. What you mostly do is articulate the vision, develop the strategy, and you gotta hire people to fit the culture. If you do those three things, you basically have a company. And that company will hopefully be successful, if you have the right vision, the right strategy, and good people.

Brian Chesky

successful numbers jobs

Everyone's got a moment or two in their life where something happens and you make a decision and then your entire life changes.

Brian Chesky

life-changing decision two

[On culture] It's living the core values when you hire; when you write an email; when you are working on a project; when you are walking in the hall.

Brian Chesky

email writing culture

Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.

Brian Chesky

brilliant kind people

The second thing I had to do was not to be reluctant as a leader...And when I started doing that, I realized that people are thriving from this, and that it's so much more helpful for people.

Brian Chesky

helpful leader people

People went to Dell for the computers, but they go to Apple for everything… That’s the difference between a transactional company and a transformational one.

Brian Chesky

apples differences people

Every day I would wake up and think, 'Today is another missed opportunity to do something important.' After enough days like this, you start feeling like you are getting old, even when you are relatively young. We are all natural entrepreneurs, and being manacled to a desk job is not for us.

Brian Chesky

opportunity jobs thinking

The American dream, what we were taught was, grow up, own a car, own a house. I think that dream's completely changing. We were taught to keep up with the Joneses. Now we're sharing with the Joneses.

Brian Chesky

growing-up dream thinking

Designers + artists see potential in things where others do not. I think artists in many ways are the original entrepreneurs.

Brian Chesky

entrepreneur artist thinking

Customers are willing to try new things, and if you can survive, you will have fewer competitors. It's like entering the eye of the storm. As long as you are strong enough to survive, you can end up in still water by yourself.

Brian Chesky

eye strong water

I had to learn to get comfortable in a role of ambiguity where I had to seek out advisers and learn quickly.

Brian Chesky

adviser ambiguity roles

A company's culture is the foundation for future innovation. An entrepreneurs job is to build the foundation

Brian Chesky

innovation entrepreneur jobs

Brand is really the connection between you and your customersif you have a very strong culture, then the brand will come through.

Brian Chesky

connections strong culture

Having a clear mission and making sure you know that mission and making sure that mission comes through the company is probably the most important thing you can do for both culture and values.

Brian Chesky

missions important culture