Dateline: On Assignment interviews Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. The young billionaire talks about the business which he co-founded in 2007. The former industrial designer (an alum of Rhode Island School of Design) was able to close Airbnb’s Series C with venture capitalist Peter Thiel in 2012. Thiel gave the home-sharing site and app $150 million. When they invited him to the Airbnb office, Thiel told Chesky that the reason he invested in them was because he liked the culture. (Chesky helpfully defines culture as “simply a shared way of doing something with passion.”)
During Thiel’s visit, they asked Thiel – who made his billions from co-founding PayPal with Max Levchin and Elon Musk – for “the single most important piece of advice.” Thiel replied in one concise sentence: “Don’t f*ck up the culture.” Dateline: On Assignment airs Sundays at 7pm on NBC.
