Airbnb rebounds from Covid with plan for $US30bn IPO

Airbnb’s IPO represents an unlikely comeback for a company that only months ago had to slash a quarter of its staff, co-founder Brian Chesky tells The Australian.

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. Picture: Supplied

Airbnb’s upcoming IPO represents an unlikely comeback moment for a company that only months ago had to slash a quarter of its staff, according to its chief executive and co-founder Brian Chesky.

The travel giant is planning to list in December and raise $US3bn ($4.2bn), according to sources, in a deal that would value Airbnb at more than $US30bn.

A successful IPO could provide a moment of positivity for Airbnb in what has been a year from hell for top executives.

Mr Chesky told The Australian that while going public was often viewed as a “coming of age” moment for young companies, the COVID-19 crisis had proved a much greater challenge than an IPO ever could.

In May Mr Chesky fired 1900 staff, writing them a heartfelt letter spelling out termination packages including 14 weeks of pay and a year of healthcare.

“Very few people have run a travel company that lost 80 per cent of its business during a pandemic, and managed it on Zoom. Very few people have done that,” Mr Chesky told The Australian’s Forward Slash podcast.

“What we’re going through is harder than going public. And if we go public, it would be a great comeback story. It will help show the resiliency of the community ... and my hope is that what we have in store is a pretty cool little comeback story.”

Mr Chesky co-founded Airbnb with his former schoolmate Joe Gebbia in 2007, initially calling it AirBed and Breakfast.

He said amid the recent turmoil he never considered stepping down from his role, despite newspaper headlines declaring that the company may have to fold altogether.

“This was always a much more resilient model than what was being written about,” he said. “The average host on Airbnb is hosting in the home they live in. And even when occupancy went down, we did not lose a significant number of listings. We actually have more listings today than we did before the pandemic.

“There was this theory that all these hosts were going to flee the platform, and it never happened.”

At the height of the crisis Mr Chesky said he was working up to 16 hours a day in front of his computer, for months in a row.

He described grappling with COVID-19 and the related economic and social turmoil as the hardest and most stressful period of his professional life, and said working through it was “unrelenting, and never-ending”.

“It was also one of the most meaningful and valuable experiences. It was life-altering,” he said.

“I felt like I was a character in a movie, and then through all these plots, you battle the dragons, you face imminent abyss. And if you can conquer the enemy, there’s a happy ending at the end.

“And this is what I hope to happen.”