You can spend decades building a dream, and the world can destroy it with something as random as a pandemic from an unknown virus. That was exactly what happened to Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, with the arrival of the COVID-19 this year.
“It took us 12 years to build Airbnb, and we lost almost everything in four to six weeks,” Chesky said in an interview on CNBC, indicating that the company was preparing to go public this year, and now that is up in the air.
Chesky also noted that Airbnb faces an uncertain future due to fears of outbreaks that are already being experienced around the world, adding, “Tourism as we knew it is over. I don’t want to say that the journey is over, but rather that the model we knew has died and will not return. We are going to get in our cars, drive a few kilometers to a small community and stay in a house.
Will you still be staying in a stranger’s home in some parts of the world, post-Covid? That’s the question.
