/ CBS News
Airbnb CEO on company's revamped host process
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky wants to show people that being a host through the site isn't "risky" — and is listing a room in his own San Francisco home to make that point.
"It's a really nice bedroom," Chesky said Wednesday on "CBS Mornings." "There's a little bit of Airbnb history. I'll make you fresh cookies. You can come to the gym with me, we'll take a walk to the park. There's a lot of fun things we'll do."
Chesky said he "wanted to show people if I, the founder of Airbnb could do it, that you could do it as well."
"We verify the identity of everyone who books," he said. "We're having reservation screening technology, which uses some pretty advanced machine learning to make sure that we can take signals of suspicious reservations to block what we suspect are parties. We have 24/7 support. So, I feel pretty good about it."
Airbnb has more than 4 million hosts worldwide. To help those still new to the process, the site is enlisting advice from its most experienced hosts.
Starting this week, Airbnb is launching a new service called Airbnb Setup which will connect potential new hosts with "Superhosts." Comparing it to Apple's Genius Bar, Chesky said newer hosts are matched to Superhosts in their area.
"They can walk you through the process," Chesky said.
Airbnb is also rolling out a new feature called Aircover, which verifies the identity of all Airbnb users starting this spring. Chesky said Airbnb also offers $3 million in damage protection.
The home-sharing company has proven to be resilient. It was founded during the Great Recession in 2008. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, it lost 80% of its business in eight weeks, which resulted in layoffs and cutbacks.
Since then, Chesky said Airbnb has rebounded, and he doesn't see the company slowing down anytime soon.
"We stayed lean, disciplined. And we are now very profitable. So we are not stepping on the brakes. We're actually stepping on the gas," he said.
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Analisa Novak is a content producer for CBS News and the Emmy Award-winning "CBS Mornings." Based in Chicago, she specializes in covering live events and exclusive interviews for the show. Analisa is a United States Army veteran and holds a master's degree in strategic communication from Quinnipiac University.
