Designer

A world-changing vision often necessitates a profound simplicity in the user experience.

Every apartment I've ever lived in has had a space to make, create, and get stuff done within eyesight of my bed.

The question that I can't shake - it's this question that keeps coming up for me - is What does the shared home of the future look like? People are sharing homes at a rate that no one ever predicted, but residences and homes weren't designed for it. They were designed around ideas of privacy and separation.

My role is to think about what the future could be for Airbnb - and that includes crafting an effortless and easy-to-use service on any platform, whether mobile, tablet, or Web.

When the car was introduced in 1908, people could experience a brand new way to travel that was more efficient than a horse and buggy. Can you believe that cities tried to outlaw cars in the United States? Can you imagine driving a car for a year then having to go back to a horse and buggy?

We didn't invent anything new. Hospitality has been around forever.

Everything at Airbnb is a continuation of what it's like to be a guest in somebody's house. We think about how each stage makes people feel.

Creating the future means having a global vision and an extreme focus on the approachability of what we're creating.

What if cities embraced a culture of sharing? I see a future of shared cities that bring us community and connection instead of isolation and separation.

The hotel industry is a very modern invention - it only really started to become branded in the 1950s.

I feel triumphant when our moms can use Airbnb without their technically inclined kids.

By helping New Yorkers turn their greatest expense - their home - into an asset, Airbnb is a vehicle that artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators can use to earn extra money to pursue their passion.

There's this misconception globally that the platform is about property groups and big property owners renting out entire buildings full-time.

Design can overcome our most deeply rooted stranger-danger bias.

In the post-war United States, you had this race to the suburbs. Cities shrank, the suburbs got bigger - and the notion of community changed drastically. You went from all being very close together to all being spaced apart and slightly suspicious of one another.

I'll never forget my first Art Basel.

In a lot of ways, the real learning at RISD happened after-hours when you're working side by side with your colleagues.

I often stay in Tokyo's Daikanyama neighbourhood. You can go for a peaceful morning run along the Meguro river, and it is particularly incredible during cherry blossom season.

For an international business such as ours, you can't localise without a local. That was a hard lesson for us. We had to be closer, physically present, which is when we put teams on the ground.

Ultimately, the power of the Airbnb platform is that it motivates guests to blend into communities, belong anywhere, and live like locals.