So i have done it seems like i have known you for at least 20 years. But it doesnt feel old. Feel like we are in our living room. Yes it does. Leigh gallagher his life closest friend. Full disclosure. He asked me tough questions. It is not edgy or challenging. It is up to you to ask for challenging questions, the really tough questions. I was very flattered when i was in the middle of the airbnb story when she asked if i would do this tonight. The book is great. We expect you all to read it. I was a big fan of leigh gallaghers first book, the end of the suburb or end of the suburb. The. The end of the suburb. About the movement from the suburbs to the citys of people, companies and money. So this airbnb story was kind of a natural for you as a followup. How natural was it . How did it come along . A lot of people ask me that. Thank you for having me in this lovely room, this lovely setting, thank you for saying that. The way i came to this idea, a big seismic trend in the consumer zeitgeist rooted in economic data, that led me to we are moving away from the suburbs which is a giant idea because suburbs were america for so long on so many levels. Many years ago in 2009 one of my jobs we are always getting restless pitches from these companies, they will be the next big thing so you get a little bit used to these companies that sound like something and the next year they are nothing so somebody came to me, everybody talks of this Company Airbnb and i rolled my eyes and said i homeaway. Com for years. This is Tech Companies think they can take an old idea and reissue it to the marketplace. I dismissed them. Very quickly after that it became clear that they were growing incredibly fast, clearly struck a chord and shortly after that our colleagues asked me to interview the ceo, brian chesky, at one of our conferences. That was when i dug into the numbers to get ready for the interview and i was pretty shocked by what i saw and i learned about the back story and when i met him and interviewed him i was struck by him and the journey he had been on and this was in 2012 being an Art School Student not knowing anything about business to now running a company that was controversial, disruptive, successful, beloved by consumers, hated by regulators and all this stuff. I was struck by that and it continued, exponentially, three more hockey sticks from there companies doubled every year including last year for nine years and i saw the way the consumer had seized on what they offered and it was this sort of cultural touchstone and i thought all of that plus all the things the cannons have gone wrong on the platform. All the drama. There was so much of their and these total outsiders had accidentally stumbled the business tale for the ages and there had not been a book on it before. My editor rick wilson really wanted it so that always helps. So i met rick, your editor and was in a matter of rick coming to you or you going to rick . A combination, i cant really remember. I knew i had access to brian chesky. He trusted me a lot and there was a book to be written about this company. I also thought it was a natural followon to my last book and these are the things i like to write about but is not a Silicon Valley reporter, i am not one of the people, there are many people who cover these Companies Day in and day out and they know every wrinkle and move and venture capitalist and i am not one of those people so i was coming added from a 30,000 foot angle, more of a cultural and change angle i guess. Who here has used airbnb . Who hasnt . Not many. Get with it. Who has had a great experience with airbnb . Who has had a bad experience . Interesting. Interesting. When i came in here earlier tonight, through the concept of home sharing and airbnb the one person, jennifer, selling the book of her next trip. It is everywhere. You bring it up at a Cocktail Party and everyone has a thought about it or has used it and it goes to show it was a millennial thing and now it is everyone. They have luxury, they have everything. You went into the snook about the company, knowing brian chesky, getting his trust. Once you got in deep, what is the what surprise you . I thought i knew the company but i have a running start, i did a big teacher feature on him but i got into the process, i dont know anything. A couple things surprised me. One is how incredibly hard it was for them to get it off the ground and i sort of knew that but didnt really know the full extent. The company many times came close to dying and not getting off the ground, nobody thought this was a good idea. People thought it was crazy. Are you kidding . Strangers will stay with other strangers . One of Brian Cheskys biggest mentors who told him about it said i hope that is not all you are working on. A very well known investor, many famous investors said no to this and missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars, put them aside one day, you guys, somebodys going to get murdered and you will have blood on your hands. Im not going years this. This is the reaction of everyone. They had no money, they couldnt make it, they launched three times. If you launch, no one notices, lunch again. They kept launching. No one was using this service. They hustled. Had a pitched deck at one point and before the presentation an investor agreed to meet with them. They had a conversation with them altman, another entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, he said he put dont want to hear all their investors were millions, investors want to see billions so they changed the numbers to billions and the cofounders, brian chesky, joe gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk was very serious and more by the book, he took one look, it said to billion dollars, they are going to know that is not true. They said okay and the next day they were in the presentation and got to that slide and changed it to 20 billion. We were like renegades and they hustled and it worked. What is the difference between airbnb at homeaway and other companies that came along first . That is really good question and there are important differences i wasnt aware of when i dismissed them summarily. One is a lot of discussion is made over the fact the two out of two group cofounders our designers. Three cofounders, brian chesky, joe gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. Brian and joe graduated from a school of design, they were design people part part of the reason they couldnt get funded is that didnt fit the mold of what Silicon Valley was looking for, two phd drop outs from stanford in the google mold. The way they designed the site really did make a difference, very userfriendly. They made the photography a very big deal so that when you look through the pages it is like looking at magazines, real estate and they offer free photography for everybody so that was different, they set up a review system meant to be natural checks and balances to keep everybody honest. Everyone review the travelers, people in their homes, that was something. And it was urban. A lot of other sites where almost exclusively vacation, second home rentals in beach towns and mountain towns and functioned like classified ad marketplaces where airbnb is substantive community and took a cut of the bookend. Those differences were very important. The inventory made a difference as well, didnt totally pioneer but the other sites didnt do sharing where you are into space at the same time so that was a disruptive thing. What do you mean by that . You rent a room, you might stay in someones house, their second bedroom. Truly the sharing economy but not exactly sharing but sharing the space was new and disruptive but all those things made it really appealing to millennials which at the time was unclaimed by the Hospitality Industry and an enormous market, they seized on the idea the number one thing when you are sharing a property like that the price is better and say like that it was sort of countercultural or anticorporate, adventurous, authentic. Every property different. All these things are a new way to travel among millennials and plays into culture, local that we all crave. Millennials not to treat them with a broad brush, there is a distrust and dislike for anything too corporate at a time the Hospitality Industry would say things were so commoditized and that is what they strived for for so long but that wasnt exactly what millennials were looking for. One more question and open up to you, i have more questions to make this a group interview. My favorite chapter in your book is the chapter about what brian and the others learned from his mentors and i think it was john donohoe, former ceo of ebay who said brian is a learning machine, learning animal, learning animal. So talk about some of the people, the iconic Business Builders who brian asked for help. They had no experience running a company of this size. Joe and nate try to get businesses off the brown but brian chesky didnt know what a slide deck was or what Angel Investors were, you got to meet with these angels and he said these people are crazy, they believe in angels. That is how outside he was. He didnt know what the word entrepreneur was, he grew up in upstate new york, entrepreneur was like a pizza shop. He just didnt know anything about anything and he knew that. He knew he didnt know anything and there was no time because as soon as they were off, as soon as they started to turn the numbers around and got there first investment, the growth took off, from there until today it hasnt slowed down so there was no time to learn in the traditional ways, night classes or going to executive mba or sitting down and getting some tutoring so basically he came up with a strategy called going to the store and he told me about this. If you had to learn everything about a topic and didnt have much time what would you do . I would Read Everything i could but what if you only had one hour . His point was spend most of your time identifying the best person for whatever the topic is and go right to that person and ask them. By that point he also had access to Silicon Valley so he was able to go to people like johnny ives from apple or marks october. What did he learn and why . From reid hoffman, the founder of linkedin, one of the early investors, he learned about growing a marketplace business, linkedin is very much a marketplace and airbnb is not a core marketplace business. A lot of venture capitalists, he learned everything but he went for example to george tenet who used to run the cia to talk about culture because he thought who better to talk about culture, an organization where everyone were spies, he took a lot from george tenet, told him the importance of Walking Around the office saying you did a good job writing notes to people and things like that. He learned a lot from john donohoe from the day and they learn from each other, had a rivers mentoring sing going on. He went to omaha. And talked to Warren Buffett. And he learned he learned it is important to remove your self from all the noise. He was struck that Warren Buffett sits in his office in omaha and reads all day long. He doesnt get wrapped up in things. He thinks big picture. That was an incredible meeting. He wrote a 4000 word memo to send to his executive team about this. Even to sunday night emails for the whole company that are always on a different theme and he wrote one about his philosophy of going to sources versus mentors. At one point i asked one of their investors who was telling me how special this was and he is in a pretty privileged spot. If i could pick up the phone and call mark lederberg i would have a lot of good ideas too. He has got this privilege of calling all these a lists in Silicon Valley. It is true but a lot of entrepreneurs have the same privilege and dont make the most of it and dont use it and they use it but they dont necessarily see the results of scaling, do you scale with the company, that was the goal for the founders. Could they scale with the company . Could they grow with it . I dont think there is any doubt brian chesky is a great example how to scale as ceo, Going Forward where he is now the journey i dont think we have seen before in business because it wasnt until the current wave of Silicon Valley that someone like that could be in a position to start a company. In the old days you go through traditional channels. Who has a question . If youre comfortable please identify yourself, wait for the mike. We should go over here, correct . If you wouldnt mind. Here we go. So glad you are here. What was the moment after the three times, what was the moment of traction . What were the elements that turned around . The third time they launched was at the 2008 Democratic National convention in denver. There was a housing shortage. It was a big deal and they saw their moment and got a lot of press, they got 800 listings out there and got some business but after that it flatlined again and they realized if there is a convention every week we are great but there isnt so than they had this idea wears a had a marketing gimmick where they had different brands of cereal, air, bed and breakfast, the name of the company, they named two serials captain mccain after john mccain and obama ohs for obama. They were cheeky and quirky and sold them for 40 a box and fed them to the press and they thought the press would like it and they were right, the press aided up. They made 30,000 from serial. Brian cheskys mother called him and said i dont get it, are you a Cereal Company now . He didnt know how to answer that question. Technically they were making a lot more money on cereal and business but ultimately, one of their advisors that you have to apply for an Accelerator Program in Silicon Valley, very highly regarded and the founders said but we launched, we dont need to go there. He looks at them and said you guys are dying. That gave them paul graham, very tough critic, didnt think it was a good idea, what is wrong with people . They stay in peoples homes, that is crazy. On the way out they mentioned they sold all the serial and he said what . If you can convince people to buy serial for 40 a box you can convince people to sleep in other peoples homes. Then it was the advice he gave them once they were in which was go to your users and shower them with love. They didnt have many users but the ones they had were in new york. They didnt think of that, they sat with them for hours on end and watch them use their products and realized they didnt know how to post photos very well, didnt know how to write listings in a way that made them appealing so helped the merchandise there listing in a better way. Doing that they saw their numbers after a few weeks double to the low base. It is a very long journey but that is what sort of that is when the turning point hit and again when they had a check for 185,000 but everyone said no. Right over here. You point out home away and other competitors, more vacation oriented where airbnb has kicked cities, it is more challenging, you have the Hotel Industry happy with airbnb, people who live in apartments dont like some random person across the hall and a random person are they going in your opinion, knowing the leaders, are they going to be able to whether those challenges. Great question. Anyone who reads the headlines know there has been a tremendous pushback against airbnb all over the world, particularly in new york city and san francisco, the two toughest market in the state and not it is illegal to rent out your home s than 30 days when you are not there. They came in any way and they grew and grew and grew. That had a lot of people they did a bunch of activities so this is something they were not prepared for. A little bit naive to everything, the bigger airbnb got the more pushback, the stronger it has gotten and every city has different issues. In new york, a big center for the Hotel Industry and the union is a powerful force, unions in general, a lot says they are on the decline for the hotel union is not in new york city so there has been a lot of pushback and i think that the consumer wantss airbnb. Even the Hotel Industry knows that, that the company has touched on something that is working but the Hotel Industry says you are able to get away with making so much money because you dont have to outfit the ada compliant, dont need sprinklers or adhere to any of the rules, they dont think it is a level Playing Field and there has been criticism that people use it to operate illegal hotels. There is some of that onsite. They say they dont want it. Theres less then there used to be but in the beginning there was a lot of that activity. It has been an ongoing drama and it continues. Everyone recognizes airbnb is here to stay. The other sites are getting into cities as well but it has been a huge head wind for them. We will go to the back, yes, sir . Come on down. Brad. Didnt recognize you. Im the ceo and founder of zeitgeist and i have been following instagram, social and twitter, he has been talking a lot about this United Airlines debacle and he keeps asking questions, if you were to disrupt the Airline Industry, what would you do or if you had the perfect flying experience what would you do . Just because you cover so Many Industries because of what you do, do you think the Airline Industry is disrupt the label . He wantss to do it. Absolutely i think it is. It is a horrible experience. The united crisis that we all saw, the top story every day this week. Airbnb last november did a big launch of expanding to new businesses including on the ground experiences, restaurant reservations, concert tickets, now we have been hinting at this a while, looking at this the same way he looks at anything, denying can be a solution for any problem. Even the regulation stuff, designing our way out of this. He is looking at it like that. What if flying were the best part of the trip, not the worst part of the trip. What if the plane felt more like a home. You can see where he is going but hes using twitter to reach out, what do you think we should do . If you could imagine the best flying experience what would it be . Hes a little disappointed with what people are suggesting because they are not thinking big enough. As a person a fortune, do you think the Airline Industry it is a complicated industry and Warren Buffett has said he wouldnt go near the Airline Industry but he owns net jets, commercial aviation. So bad and so important that with enough time and money and the right idea it is disruptable. Something fascinating to me, i did not know brian is tweeting about this, very interesting and im trying to imagine and wondering if you know more than you are saying about how he might disrupt the Airline Industry. Do you know any more . We didnt talk about this when i was reporting the book. I talk about within a little bit but we havent gotten specific. I will try to find out what i can. I will. What strikes me is one of the things that is so interesting about airbnb versus uber is airbnb has been, so far since its launch, about 300 million total and uber lost 3 billion. It spend 1. 2 billion in the first half of 2016. So airbnb has 30 billion valuation now. What is the valuation . 60 something . The fact, the point is uber has gone to its size by not spending a lot of money. Airbnb. This is not a sensible business. When you talk about airlines you are talking major capital. That is what i wonder, what do they have up their sleeve . I would not be surprised i dont know. They clearly had discussions, he knows if you look at his tweets, looked at, he is investigating. Dealing with crises which airbnb has done a lot, this relates to your question, this disastrous response by united, airbnb learned very early on, i think it was 2011 the ransacking of that one property, talk about how airbnb how brian chesky responded. Very specific parallel to the united situation. In 2011 a woman who would have been there perfect central casting host had a blog where she wrote how much she loved sharing her home, loved the sunny corner of her apartment and sharing it with other people, it was perfect, they loved to do that and she was came back, destroyed so violently, beyond what you can imagine and it was crystal meth heads who made a disaster out of her apartment, broke into her safe, ruined her birth certificate, substances everywhere. It was horrible. They were not prepared for this and this confirmed everyones worst existing suspicion about what was going to happen on airbnb and they came out and got very defensive and said we are sorry, forget the actual wording but this isnt our fault but it was defensive and it got worse. Same thing this week, it got worse and worse and they were reeling. They had people from flying from all over the country, Customer Service people coming in, slept in air mattresses on the floor of company headquarters, took a couple weeks to get through it but in those few days it was escalating out of control. A new and a new investor at the time, the first mega around valued them at 1. 7 billion and a lot of people thought that was why the story got leaked because people they are so big for their britches and this had happened a month prior, nobody noticed and suddenly it was in the spotlight and brian decided after much consternation that the right thing to do was to own this in come out, they didnt probably didnt have the right advisers internally but he came out, took full ownership a few days later and said this isnt right for we will work to make this right and they started this guarantee, 5000 but arc and recent added a 0 the night before as he was getting ready to send a letter and said you have to have a Police Report because he didnt want people to not have a legitimate claim and added a 0 to the number and brian said we cant afford that. What if this happens all the time . You got to do it, you got to go big and they did that endeavor since it is a euphemism for think bigger than what is in front of you and that guarantee is now 1 million. A lot of things are excluded in it but that was the impetus for them to create, they didnt have what they have now, the trust and Safety Department which deals with crises. It is a big department, theres a story in the book about something that was in the ransacking like that, somebody rented out her home to what she thought was a party for some golfers during a Golf Tournament working with golf digest and it was a ticketed hiphop party for 400 youth, 18 to 25 with tickets from new jersey. This happened because they dont every Single Person and there are bad people out there but they learned from the crisis and parallel to the ceo of United Airlines if you said the wrong thing people double down and got crazy because literally, we saw what he said, we had to reaccommodate and he took ownership but it doesnt seem to be working, doesnt seem to be quieting down at all. It did work, they did quell it with the second response and now every time they had subsequent crises, they had a lot, they have taken ownership, learned from that. When something bad happens the way you deal with it, you have to learn from it, otherwise it will happen again. Yes. My question on disrupting not the industry but the culture, the way people think, not necessarily our generation listening to this but my kids and so on. What do you think the airbnb thing, the future of lodging look like, 12 month leases for people who rent, is that the standard or do people start losing, living dramatically, seasonally, importantly, what do we think Bigger Picture down the road . Great question, they are studying longterm housing. They believe there will be more apartments to be shared millennials and young renters want to move into a place where they know they will have an income stream and pitching to landlord it is better for you because you know your tenants can pay their rent. And longterm leases, we didnt talk about this a ton but they think that is the wave of the future, being able to monetize wherever you are living. The era of mass production is over, all these things, i do think the Hotel Industry is seeing a future, the biggest evidence that there is something here, pretty longlasting they are getting into home sharing, it is a big area of growth. Many people foresee a future where you can check into a hotel and they give you your keys and your keys are to an apartment around the corner. There are many startups. A lot of Big Companies are getting into it and in hospitality there will be a lot. A fundamental shift in the way people think about where they live and how they live. If you think about why people live where they tend to live, near the farm, then services and Investment Bank or law firm, all about creative and so on so a lot of people live where they want, not everybody, people have kids in schools and so on and reasons to be settled and you start to see it in the commercial space so companies i used to have a 10 year lease on a building for my business, then i need to rework it and with 30 days i can size up, size down, move across the street, across the country, the flexibility is so remarkable, you think i will ever sign a 10 year lease . In commercial that is very disruptive, and that the answer may be no. When you talk about the concept of home, that is emotional, our safe space. Theres a couple in my book that i wrote about retired four years ago on airbnb and every 10 days they go to a different one across europe. I interview them in croatia, they are in south africa, they sold their house and dont know when they will stop. How much do they spend the year doing this . 10 to 15 more than if they were living in seattle but they are very frugal. They do the same things they do in seattle, they cook every meal, just doing it in other peoples homes. Senior nomads. They have a website. Wealth management advisor, i was cfo of hightech industries, when we were talking about the difference between airbnb, doing a great job but also uber has and doesnt have quite that. Keep that in mind. Insurance for drivers . Right. So homeowners need to have assurance but the change when i asked about that, nobody is so that has a lot to do with it. My question, any specific regulation for or rules to require all the home shares. If i want to check in to marriott i know exactly what i could stay at. Certain types of things i can expect. Are they doing anything like that . No. It is public homes for public consumption and you cannot make someone do something. Somebodys private home they can do what they want. They brought in connolly from the Hospitality Industry and they wanted to double down on hospitality. You guys should do office space, share air mattresses, and they said no, we will double down on hospitality, one thing he did was try to put in standards and a lot of resources on the website, if you are hosting someone in your home and listing your place on the site you want to earn money and increase the odds of booking so you are well advised to follow their advice and clean the sheets and put flowers in the room, spruce the place up, offers neck or coffee and ask everyone to put on their keeper had. And get a good rating. That is the check and balance. This is a Natural Systems that will weed out anyone who doesnt do the right thing will not just get that much business. That basically works that there is a lot of inflation. You stay in this persons place and is a social interaction you dont want to criticize so if theres a way to do it without making it public, the reviews are key to keeping the bar high but everyone will have a different level of service. You can tell when there is a property where the host goes above and beyond. Someone in Staten Island fixed people up at jfk airport, brings them back and loves it. In Staten Island. It is very clear, if you are on your own a place to stay for the night, all kinds of levels of everything and you have to be good about looking for what you want and seeing a place that is what you are looking for. What is the toughest issue airbnb is facing right now . Regulatory pushback is a lot of that. They think they have it under control but it is a big deal, certainly will be a big deal when the company goes public, people want to know if this is a risk or not. I think chances that something could go very wrong is always out there. Any night something bad could happen. There were 2 Million People staying in airbnb listings, there could be an accident because somebody didnt have a railing somewhere, they have seen all of it and they see it more. We will see bad things happen. It will be in the headlines. I have said whatever happens in hotels will happen on airbnb. There might be a terrorist plot. It is possible. All of this stuff, they do the best they can and it is probably one of the Biggest Challenges and things they dont expect like a problem with discrimination last summer. That was a huge crisis in this company because their mission is all about belonging, anyone can belong anywhere. It shouldnt have come out of the blue. There are a lot of challenges which is why it is so amazing the company have gotten so far and why it is so incredible that 160 million trips have been taken on this thing that everyone thought was nuts. You are close observer of beaver and you know travis. Im curious if you think there are any lessons uber could learn from airbnb. I met him at the famous dinner. I dont know him. I dont follow them that closely other than being a business journalist studying the sharing economy universe. They are so different they are often lumped into the same bucket because they are pioneers of the sharing economy but their Business Models are different and losses very different, their cultures could not be more different. Airbnb, the culture is so it is so overthetop, people drink koolaid there. Their mission is belonging, they have 48 taps in their kitchen because there is no wait anywhere. They have a drink that is like a red be in the, a red pool, it looks like you are drinking koolaid. They are proud of their culture and rightly so. People like to work there. They won all these awards for it. Ubers culture we are seeing, it starts at the top. Travis is aggressive, ruthless, everything we read about him. I dont think the stories are far from the truth and the lessons to be learned, really good question. Looking for number 2 supposedly, you cant just say things, you have to believe them. It is all about behavior. You have to learn from other people. I think brian chesky has done it so well, you cant be a know it all. You have to own up to things when they are wrong and bad. I think airbnb has been about that. Took uber a lot time for travis to say i need help as a leader and i will get that help. The biggest lesson would be get the help the way brian chesky got help, interview and sit down, you have access to the top names too, sit down with them and ask what i can do better, how come this is happening, break it down, is it me . Obviously it is, he should go get it. We will wait and see. It is top to bottom, has to be everywhere and you cant when they hired the guy from target, we will tell stories. You cant just hire someone he left but you cant just say you are going to do these things, you have to really believe it and uber really believes it can win and that is what we are seeing. It is winning, it is done, a tremendous amount, during my book deadline i spent a lot of time at uber, you push a button and the car will come. It is all everything is at stake because of these other things. Who else has a question . Yes . Tony . More of a 30,000 foot question, your experience, many entrepreneurs, there is a new book coming out, i am wondering if this is a self answering question but do you feel all the recipes of entrepreneurs that today, stifling the entrepreneurial spirit, would this company have blossomed given the rigor of todays Business Schools relative to the background of the three . This book about harvard school, this business is a classic example of totally stumbling on something accidentally and some of the best ideas in business over centuries have come into being that way, necessity is the mother of invention was the opposite way is to have an idea, there are certain classes from Harvard Business school that brought a lot of entrepreneurs, some the founders of blue apron, the founders of class pass, they all came out and launched these businesses but i think sometimes in Business School it is like okay, we want to start a company, what should the idea be. It is reverse engineered and the best ideas happen the other way around when there is a real need for them. It is interesting, they developed over the years in the lab. It is very different from when you accidentally stumble on something. Nobody who goes to Business School isnt about learning how to stumble on something. It is about learning how to plan is something that will be a success. Im a huge fan of blue apron. There cant be wonderful ideas that come out of it but we are seeing another model by all means. You had a question . I will come over. My question was i heard the founders how i made it how i built it. Exactly what you were saying, thinking about the idea, all of the unknowns in that which of course now it is so successful but even now if someone had a good idea it is a dangerous thing to do but you said over new years, what would be the kind of thing to play devils advocate, what would be the kind of thing that potentially could happen . In the beginning it was a terrible safety incident and that incident in 2011 people thought that was the end of the company, even people that work there this is it, we knew it was going to end. I talked to somebody recently, we know this cant go on forever, we know something will befall us and it didnt so now the company is too big to fail. The worst safety incident, worst thing you can think of. Mass murder, i dont know. Would that take the company down 30 billion . I dont think so because too many users everywhere. 80 of its inventory is outside the us. Only 20 is here. They are not reliant on any one market anymore. The discrimination crisis was pretty big but couldnt have taken the company down. That is a good question. I would like to know. You can stand up. There is a microphone here. That could change peoples impressions, the desire to choose, regulations would change what Consumers Want ultimately. Human rights, those issues could be a factor. Or if it stops growing as much as it investors need to satisfy this valuation he could enter business trouble. The thing that would kill us is our culture and of people stop feeling comfortable that is a big idea. He would say if we stop of the culture suffers and stops being what it is. Was will they get into beyond today . What are they in today besides home sharing . They launched experiences. When you travel you can book an experience with a local in the harlem, a guy who grew up will show you how to wrap and his favorite restaurant and all this stuff and you can do that all over the world, you can book concert events. Brian chesky thinks intimate concert events will disrupt the concert business and that is how we will see music and a new way for music labels and artists to be discovered by playing in the living room, you are going to book Ground Transportation and if you need a crib on your trip you can get that through airbnb, they want to supply everything, offer services, you can have a chef prepare a meal in your listing, what else . Make restaurant reservations. He you can do all this now . Some of it is key like Ground Transportation in the future and services. Basically they want you to use airbnb not just when youre traveling but in your own home city. He wants airbnb to not be synonymous with place to stay. He wanted to be a lifestyle thing. Do you think this is a good idea . I think it is a very open question as to how this will do. We know this company for one thing and one thing only and they have done a very good job at introducing something that went viral and changed things. We dont know if these other things, when you look at the apps you see experiences. What if i only want to put a place to stay . They say they are doing well but we will see. They are trying to be an end to end company, the first Online Travel company that reaches 100 billion is what someone told me. Who knows what else . There is an opportunity, strike when the iron is hot. You are in the front row. I have a property in turkey take is that i put on airbnb in january. I had no problem renting it whatsoever. Half a block from the best beach in the world but this year all of a sudden bookings went way down. My son who lived there said you should put it on airbnb. Instantly no rentals from a year ago, no problem at all and now it has taken over and change the culture in turks and caicos which is a high end island really very exclusive and very little low rental space at hotels or condos. Now you cant get a longterm rental. If someone is coming to be a chef they have trouble finding it because everyone is turning it into a business and it changed the culture of turks and caicos that is like one to the next in a few months. You can see it more at a vacation spot like that than in the big city. Incredible. Changing the character, people who come with rental properties you see that in new york. People who live we live on top of each other in new york city and nobody wants the neighbor issue is a bigger deal than a safety issue in cities because people come using public spaces, lobbying might not lock the door the right way, they are on vacation, a presentation tomorrow morning, drunk because they are having fun i dont know. New yorkers are easily annoyed, and it is an issue. I resisted to putting it on for those reasons. If i was going to turks and caicos i would look at airbnb. Maybe im not the kind of person you want. 5 of turks and caicos. I didnt i was used to booking on the other side and i will tell you the difference i didnt like it first and prefer, it would take longer to rent a place because it was a conversation back and forth which is very good because a lot of times i would call the person and present a telephone number which they did and able to get a feeling but at airbnb, denied, you dont get the same communication. Go ahead. You do like airbnb. A lot of time. There is a convergence. The airbnb people are using booking stuff it is much more. So this leads to should we buy this as well, what are your expectations when the ipo will take place . They say, i interviewed him on stage for the new york economic a few weeks ago and he told me in 2015, he considers getting ready to go public and two year process. His goal would be to be ready so you can pick your moment when the moment is right so he considers them to be halfway through that process. They hired a cfo in 2015. Came from blackstone and lets say they started that would put it next year so i dont think they are going public this year. He said there are four reason to go public, you need the money, want to do everyday, for a branding event and liquidity from shareholders. Terrible idea to do it for branding events, you dont need the money, we are already an acquirer and the only reason to do it is liquidity and they are facing that issue for employees and investors. They have done a few events for employees. I think it will be 2018. It might be later but they dont seem to be in a rush. Hard to know. I would think mid2018 but i could be wrong. One last question. I never used airbnb. I was thinking of using it in mexico. I might as well. What is your basic best advice for the first time user or any users . Read the reviews. It is so obvious but the single best way to make sure you get something close to what you want. The more reviews the better, someone with heavily trafficked property if they take it seriously they get a lot of business and anything negative in a review, take it exponentially further. Like online dating. If someone says something you know it is a big problem. Think things clearly and ask questions and look at photos. If you dont see a coffeemaker, ask about it. Ask about airconditioning, you cant see what it feels like. Put your journalist hat on and ask a lot of questions. You cant ask questions. That is not true. You can ask questions. Thank you. This was fascinating. Enjoy the book, everyone. The airbnb story how 3 ordinary guys disrupted an industry, and billions. And created plenty of controversy by leigh gallagher. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] this Holiday Weekend on booktv on cspan2, tonight at 8 30 p. M. Eastern former us secretary of state Condoleezza Rice looks at democracy around the world in her book democracy stories from the long road to freedom. Americans in particular were blessed with Founding Fathers who understood an institutional design that would protect our liberties, our right to say what we think, to worship as we please, to be free from the knock of the secret police at night, to have the dignity that comes with having those who govern you ask your consent. If we were blessed with that and we believe we were and out by our creator with those right it cant be true for us and not for them. On sunday, john back woodward on the controversy around and perceptions of sounding black in his book talking back, talking to black. We need to get comfortable saying black people have a slightly different sound because they spend more time with one another is white people found more like one another because they spend more time together. That is true of all human groups. It is not racist. It is just true and harmless. Monday at 4 30 p. M. Eastern, former president george w. Bush on his book portraits of courage a commander in chief have tribute to americas warriors. Major chris turner, i was sitting next to him at dinner saying why are you here . I cant get out of my mind seeing a buddy of mine killed. As i am painting turner, what must that be like . For more on the schedule go to book cv. Org. After testifying before congress and making frontpage news with the sunnyside case, grace returned to new york and threw herself into the strange and unusual cases that always found their way to her desk. She fought against the same doctor who tormented the famous reporter nelly bly when she went undercover at an insane asylum and was marked for death by the sinister black hands, the italian crime organizations that used secret codes and mystical rituals. Eventually one of graces rich Society Friends called to tell her a girl had gone missing in new york and begged her to meet with the father of the girl, henry kruger. By the time grace agreed to take the case, ruth krugers photo had appeared in newspapers all over the country. Her image flickered in front of Movie Theater audiences was the press, drawn to the story of a pretty sunday School Teacher who had vanished, openly suspected white slavery, foul play, romantic entanglement, sometimes all in the same story. Juicy clues were flooding detective precincts but none of them panned out. Grace took a different approach, she locked herself in her office for a week to study every scrap of paper related to it. Grace was trained as a lawyer for her inability to trust the police or the law itself. Over the last few years had turned her into more of a detective. Now at age 48 her formula was the search for clues herself, verify them and use them in the courtroom to make arguments. She didnt trust the police so she found her own evidence. In this case grace kept coming back to the man who had sharpened ruth have scales. Since being questioned by detectives coachy had disappeared. Most of his neighbors speculated he simply feared being made a scapegoat for the crime especially because he was italian the police had seen to blame his people for anything in those days. It is true at this time everyone blamed the italians. If anything was criminally related they blamed the italians. Coachys place was searched, motorcycle shop was the last place, grace wanted to see it herself. This is how grace ended up in the middle of manhattan avenue in harlem staring at the metropolitan motorcycle shop in june of 1917, grace craned her neck at a tall glass window that ran 10 feet high across the front of the store. Motorcycle story on the left and Auto Supplies on the right. She saw signs for mobil oil still in the air. Single globe lamp hung up in front of the entrance, huge billboard for graham crackers as big as long as the shop itself, rose off the roof into the blue sky. The inside of coachys shop was behind smoked glass. Maria coachy had been left behind when her husband disappeared, was desperately trying to keep the store afloat. She had two small children, maria who claims to have no knowledge of where her husband was, refused any further searching of the premises. The police were no help either. As grace moved from desk to desk in city buildings trying to gain entrance to the store, Police Officials smiled and said their hands were tied. Grace was limited to what she can see from the outside. There were two signs in the window that read mechanics helpwanted and selling out. On the outside to the left of the front door with a narrow stairwell that sank into the ground and served as a separate entrance to the basement. Grace walked near these stairs as unobtrusively as possible. Grace knew all her misgivings about coachy at his store were circumstantial. The police had searched the seller twice and found nothing but absence. The rest was gossip and headlines. Why was coachy missing . He had taken the girl, he had been Spirited Away by the same beings who had taken ruth or was he terrified of being blamed by proximity . Perhaps there were more Sinister Forces at work such as the white slavery ring that stretched all the way down to brazil or was this the work of the black hand . There were rumors that coachy had been friendly with motorcycle cops in the neighborhood. Grace knew those might be the most dangerous questions but they had to be asked. Grace paused considering the options at play in her mind intersecting with the city itself still struggling to connect its new boroughs into one unified whole. Perhaps ruth and coachy river have a couple in this after all. That version of the truth seemed remote but grace went back to her office thinking through the hes trying to come up with a plan and she got to her office, called her good friend the private detective named julius crone, a federal agent first assigned to grace during her us District Attorney days and one of the things, she was the first female District Attorney and this was a major historical point and you have to look really really hard to find it anywhere. It is a major accomplishment. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Sunday night on afterwards, chris hayes examines how the criminal Justice System is dividing the country in his book a colony in the nation. Mister hayes is interviewed by elizabeth hinton. Seems like ferguson is an anchor in the book. Im wondering how your experience reporting there illuminated what you are talking about growing up in the bronx in the 80s. The thing about ferguson if you grow up in a city, in the bronx you have this conception of cities as think tanks leading cities there are racial frictions, bad neighborhoods and good neighborhoods, all kinds of loaded ways in which Police Communities differently, loaded ways people sit atop each other interlocking and overlapping and creating sandpaper friction. All of that was tied deeply to the bronx, new york or cities and i moved to chicago and when i was in chicago all these things pertained in that and the thing that blue my mind about fergusons it was just a municipality, totally it is anywhere usa, between the Northern Edge of st. Louis and the suburbs. You drive through it, it looks like anywhere. Just parking lots and houses. The idea that what i experienced was the level of exploitation and the level of racial oppression and oppression, the level of invasiveness of policing, the intensity of humiliation in a place that was anonymous blue my mind. What afterwards on booktv. [inaudible conversations] good evening. I am tony clark from the carter president ial library, glad you are here because this is a really good book. Im curious how