Can Airbnb Unite the World?

In the wake of the attacks in Paris, Airbnb’s most popular city, CEO Brian Chesky is redoubling his efforts to expand his business and close the cultural gaps between us.

- Max Chafkin

They’d come from 110 countries, including Cuba, New Zealand, Kenya, and even Greenland. They’d spent $295 for three days of talks, parties, and sightseeing as part of the second annual Airbnb Open. On an unseasonably warm November afternoon, they gathered in a tented, football field-size arena in Paris’s Parc de la Villette, 5,000 wildly enthusiastic hosts who offer apartments and bedrooms for rent on Airbnb. The company’s CEO, Brian Chesky—a compact and well-built 34-year-old with an aquiline face, muscular neck, and square jaw—spoke to them. “Share your homes, but also share your world,” he said, explaining how Airbnb’s competitors in the travel industry had lost touch with their customers, boxing up their guests in ticky-tacky hotel rooms and antiseptic resorts, as if the goal were to ensure that nothing remotely interesting happened. He urged his hosts to strive to be different and give guests a real sense of what life in a foreign country is like.