Airbnb was almost called ‘Airbed and Breakfast’

Live at the Masters of Scale Summit, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shares how the company started with him renting out air mattresses and hanging out with guests. He once told a host to inflate an air mattress on top of their bed and the concept snowballed from there. His ultimate goal was to get people off their phones and into real-world connection.

Transcript

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because Airbnb started with me renting my house to three guests, and I hung out with them, I became friends with them, we'd walk around the city together, and our business was like booking airbeds. We were called Airbed and Breakfast. That Airbed and Breakfast was air mattresses, and then it was staying in a bedroom. In fact, one time someone said, I wanna put my bedroom on Airbnb, and I said, great, just get an air mattress, inflate it, put it on your mattress, and then suddenly we realized, okay, you can put your bed in the Airbnb. And then somebody said, so we're a network of bedrooms, and then one person said, I wanna put my whole home in Airbnb, and I said, how can you put your whole home in Airbnb and not be there? Who's gonna make breakfast for them? Because we're Airbed and Breakfast. So pretty soon the name made no sense, we shortened it to Airbnb, and then we have mostly empty homes. I love what we do, it's been used almost three billion times, but I want Airbnb to be the company that gets you off your phone, not on your phone. Because I think real connection happens in the real world.