Everyone's got a moment or two in their life where something happens and you make a decision and then your entire life changes.

The American dream, what we were taught was, grow up, own a car, own a house. I think that dream's completely changing. We were taught to keep up with the Joneses. Now we're sharing with the Joneses.

Somebody asked me 'what's the job of a CEO', and there's a number of things a CEO does. What you mostly do is articulate the vision, develop the strategy, and you gotta hire people to fit the culture. If you do those three things, you basically have a company. And that company will hopefully be successful, if you have the right vision, the right strategy, and good people.

Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.

What I've been surprised by is not how different people are, but how similar they are. There are certain types of Airbnb people, and they are in every city in the world - it's just that in some cultures, there is more of a generational divide.

The office is the laboratory and meeting your users is like going into the field. You can't just stay in the lab. And it's not just asking users what they want, it's about seeing what they're doing.

In June 2010, I moved out of my apartment and I have been mostly homeless ever since, off and on. I just live in Airbnb apartments and I check in every week in different homes in San Francisco.