The Generalitat restricts tourist apartments. That responds?
With our history. We created Airbnb precisely to fight against the skyrocketing prices of hotels in San Francisco. Can you imagine who wins now if that supply is now restricted?
And who loses?
Thousands of families who live better thanks to renting their apartment for a few days.
Aren't they great backgrounds too?
Our data shows that the average of those who rent their apartment with us do not earn more than $4,000 a year from it. In New York we were almost banned and those citizens lost their income.
Without regulation, don't tourists end up replacing residents?
I am in favor of regulation, but when it is abusive it harms everyone. We invented Airbnb precisely because they had suddenly raised our rent... by 25%! And we had already left our paid jobs to be entrepreneurs without it.
Was the problem timing?
We didn't have money, but we had creativity, so we thought about creating an application for people who came to a conference in San Francisco and couldn't find a hotel at a good price to rent a room in our apartment for those days.
Were you already a programmer?
I learned to program at age 12 with my father's manuals and at 14 I earned my first million dollars selling my software online. But Airbnb wasn't about making money; It was and is to gain experiences: those who came to rent the apartment were interesting people: we made many friends.
Some Barcelonans today feel that their prices are driving them out of their city.
The fault is not ours, but a housing crisis in many cities – from Barcelona to San Francisco – with complex causes that no serious study has included. That doesn't mean we don't want regulation.
Didn't you have your friction with Barcelona?
Perhaps at the beginning we reached a certain tension that ended up being political, but we reached an agreement in 2018 to share our data with the City Council so that its regulations were also complied with.
What data do you share with the city?
In more than 7,000 cities around the world, our software directly collects accommodation taxes and with all our data we comply and enforce the regulations. And this way we avoid the renter from cumbersome procedures and bureaucracy.
Now that you are a millionaire, do you still rent out your rooms?
We were three friends in an apartment and today we are a community of 4 million people, because it is as important to connect and share as money. And that's why I continue to receive Airbnb guests in my house: I have already had more than 1,000 and in two weeks we have another family arriving.
Don't the guests hallucinate when they see him?
They see photos, yes, and connect the dots. But it's still fun to meet people like when I rented a room in my house in Palo Alto. And they loved finding out that I was the one from Airbnb. I know of couples, companies, and groups of friends who have met like this and continue to use us together.
The most peculiar offer today on Airbnb?
Maybe the bamboo tree houses in Indonesia, which are unique works of art; There is an Italian castle... Or those on remote islands.
The last house you chose?
I paid 40 euros on Airbnb a few days ago for a room in Riga and I made friends with the owner and we had some drinks.
Did he finally guess who you were?
You guessed it, yes. And then she took me on a bike ride with her friends: is a better experience possible for $40 a day?
Is a bad experience possible?
We have 7 million listings and every year we kick out hundreds of thousands of owners because they receive bad reviews from guests who post the 371 million reviews we publish right now. The user is our best quality controller.
What have you learned these years?
To plan: the time I use to plan is the best spent. If you know how to structure your life, you win it.
How do you get it?
My wife and I spend one night a week planning the next one and each birthday to schedule what we would do until the next one. Time is precious.
Isn't the pleasure lost in losing it?
I have to anticipate it: when you plan a vacation you are already living it and, most importantly, sharing it.
Aren't you tempted to be spontaneous?
Even the best-planned plans force you to be so when they fail and you have to plan for them to fail.
