Brian Chesky remains involved in personnel decisions for up to 50 employees at Airbnb. He maintains relationships with as many people as possible and stays close to those doing the work. He treats a concentric circle of roughly 40 to 50 people as his direct reports, engaging in skip-level interactions and co-hiring. He participates in hiring, firing, promoting, and managing decisions alongside executives. The approach prioritizes direct relationships over traditional hierarchy. Chesky frames founder-mode management as necessary to adapt as AI forces companies to reinvent, and he acknowledges that it requires substantial additional work.
"You need to be as close to the people doing the work as possible." "It's a concentric circle of like 40 or 50 people, and I treat them all as my directs." "I skip level, I co-hire them, and I make decisions on whether or not they're working out and leave the company." "Hire, fire, promote, and manage. I co-do it with my executives. It's a lot of work, but it's necessary."
"What you need to do is you need to have relationships with as many people as possible in the company," Chesky said. "You need to be as close to the people doing the work as possible." Chesky, who went viral last year for his talk on leadership styles, said that the only way to work with more people is to go down a level from direct reports. He said, for example, a CEO should not only talk to their chief technology officer or the senior vice president of engineering, but also to the people reporting to those execs.
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