Real Man

As he opened the door, Brian Chesky, who had been waiting for him, greeted him with open arms.

“Steve, long time no see.”

“Good to see you. But why do you look so tired? Did you stay up all night?”

Brian Chesky’s face, which was always bright, looked pale.

There were traces of intense deliberation around him.

“Yeah. I was preparing for the evaluation.”

“Why? I thought you just had to present what you prepared.”

“Ha! There’s a lot to say about that. Anderson Horowitz suddenly demanded a premiumization plan, and I had no time to sleep trying to match that.”

“Ah…”

It was because of the butterfly effect of what he had said to increase the value.

‘Should I just tell the truth?’

The presentation was not important in the first place.

The Airbnb investment was already scheduled, and the scale was decided by Paul Graham, not by the presentation.

After a brief hesitation, Yoo-hyun answered.

It was not the answer that made him feel comfortable, but the answer that could help the company grow.

“Brian, do you want me to help you?”

“Just take a look at what we prepared. It would be better to see it from a third party’s perspective.”

“Sure. This friend will also take a look.”

When Yoo-hyun pointed at Nadoha, Brian Chesky raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, is this the friend you mentioned, Doha?”

“Hello. I’m Nadoha.”

Nadoha didn’t speak English, but he had a sense.

He greeted them loudly, and Brian Chesky forced a smile.

“Nice to meet you. Let’s go in. Joe and Nathan will be here soon.”

But Brian Chesky’s face still looked exhausted.

Anderson Horowitz was notorious for being strict with the evaluation, as they invested a large amount.

To pass the evaluation, it was basic to present a concrete plan for using the investment money.

To prepare for this, they needed to build a system in advance for visualization.

The most important thing was whether they had a hopeful vision that could satisfy the investors’ demands.

Click.

Joe Gebbia pressed the button and displayed the changed vision of Airbnb on the screen.

-Travel is living.

A single line of text caught Yoo-hyun’s eye.

Before Yoo-hyun could comment, Joe Gebbia explained this part.

“I changed the slogan to make it simpler to match the globalization. The point is to make people feel like they want to live anywhere in the world, rather than just ‘go’.”

“That’s good. It clearly shows the differentiation point of Airbnb.”

Yoo-hyun nodded and looked over the business plan that Joe Gebbia had written.

Crack.

It was different from the past, which was clumsy.

Maybe it was because they had been trained in the field.

It was a well-written report, even if he looked at it coldly.

The most eye-catching thing was the detailed breakdown of the expected use of the investment money.

Brian Chesky, who had organized this part, opened his mouth.

“The budget for globalization is tailored to each region…”

The newly introduced super host system, education and incentives, localization strategies, legal issues of shared accommodation, and so on flowed quickly.

It was a bit complicated and required a lot of budget, but it was convincing.

If they could do this, wouldn’t it work even in countries where the concept of shared accommodation was unfamiliar?

If they could grow the market, the potential of Airbnb was limitless.

Yoo-hyun, who had carefully examined it, agreed with the overall tone.

“They can’t argue much with the test cases. It’s also good that you’ve already built and operated the system.”

“That’s what we prepared. The problem is, as I said, the premiumization.”

It was when Brian Chesky answered.

“Ah-ha!”

Suddenly, an exclamation came, and everyone turned their heads.

There was Nadoha, who had been fiddling with the laptop.

“Sorry.”

Nadoha, who took a bowing posture, soon put his hands back on the laptop keyboard.

He was playing with it like a precious toy.

Was it that fun to look at the code?

Yoo-hyun chuckled and apologized to Nathan Blecharczyk, who had given him the laptop.

“Are you sure he won’t mess it up?”

“Let him play with it. It’s all backed up, anyway. But is this friend a software engineer?”

“Yeah. He’s just curious. I wanted him to listen to your presentation, but he went off the track.”

“Let him do what he likes when he’s young. I’ll teach him later.”

“That would be nice.”

Yoo-hyun gave Nathan Blecharczyk a thumbs up and looked at Brian Chesky.

He still looked tired, but he was trying not to lose his concentration.

Yoo-hyun tried to resume the interrupted flow.

“Brian, you were talking about the premiumization part.”

“Yeah. The idea is to go beyond the hotel area with premiumization, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

“What’s the difficulty?”

“First of all, penthouses and luxury mansions are limited. And the people who own them value their privacy, so they don’t want to share their rooms easily.”

As Brian Chesky answered, Joe Gebbia also chimed in.

“It’s also hard to match the price range. They want to charge more for the sacrifice, but the guests don’t accept it easily.”

“Hmm.”

Yoo-hyun sympathized with their concerns, but he thought differently.

If they expanded the perspective of Airbnb, this problem could be solved.

He quickly organized his thoughts and opened his mouth.

“What if you rent out the whole house instead of just part of the room?”

“The whole house? Then where does the host live?”

“For example, a private villa that you only visit on vacation. You rent it out completely during the break. Then there’s no privacy issue.”

Yoo-hyun’s continued explanation made Brian Chesky tilt his head.

“Then what about the management?”

“You can have a caretaker, or you can leave it to yourself. That’s up to the host.”

“Then there’s no contact between the host and the guest. How do you serve breakfast?”

“Do you have to serve breakfast? I don’t think the host and the guest have to meet like before.”

“Well, that’s true…”

Yoo-hyun’s opinion was somewhat contradictory to the basic concept of Airbnb.

Brian Chesky seemed reluctant to accept it, but Joe Gebbia was not.

He seemed to understand Yoo-hyun’s intention and asked.

“Steve, is your idea of premiumization to make landlords into hosts?”

“That’s right. I used a villa as an example, but it could be a house too. If running an Airbnb is better than paying rent, there’s no reason not to do it.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?”

“The strength of Airbnb is the system that millions of people use right now. You can fill the vacancy with a few clicks by tomorrow, why wouldn’t you do it?”

It was the moment when Yoo-hyun spit out the idea he had brought.

Clap!

Joe Gebbia, who clapped his hands, spoke quickly with a somewhat excited expression.

“Exactly! It’s better to rent it out for a month or two than to let the house sit idle. There’s no contract problem, so the hosts will be free too.”

“Then won’t our color of living in the house be buried?”

Brian Chesky’s question was also answered by Joe Gebbia.

“Rather, they will decorate the house more uniquely. To compete with countless hosts, the landlords will have to change too.”

“Joe, from that perspective, the operators who run hotels or other accommodations can also become Airbnb hosts, right?”

“Right, Brian. It means that we can become hotels ourselves, not compete with them.”

“Wow, the scale is getting bigger, huh? As expected. Steve’s vision is different.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

Yoo-hyun smiled as he looked at Brian Chesky, who was shining his eyes.

What Yoo-hyun gave was just a seed idea, and they were the ones who expanded it.

As if to prove this, the two started to find the answer while being immersed.

“Joe, to apply this, we need to categorize and…”

“In my opinion, we need to build a system that automatically calculates the price…”

They didn’t just stop at finding the answer, but tried to connect it to the business.

There was no place for Yoo-hyun to intervene.

On the other hand, there was someone whose expression darkened as the two found the answer.

It was Nathan Blecharczyk.

He, who had been listening quietly, stretched out his palm and stopped the endless conversation.

“Wait a minute. You know that our investment evaluation is right around the corner, right?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“But how are you going to implement all that?”

Nathan Blecharczyk asked with a puzzled look, and Brian Chesky answered easily.

“Maybe a demo level would be enough? I think it would be fine if we meet the schedule.”

“Showing is not the problem, executing is the problem. You’ve gone beyond the level that you can implement according to the proposal.”

“That much?”

“Yeah, Brian. Let me show you what the problem is.”

Nathan Blecharczyk got his laptop after asking Nadoha for permission.

He connected the screen to the laptop and organized the screen.

Nadoha, who had nothing to see, came to Yoo-hyun’s side.

Yoo-hyun gave him a chocolate.

“Bored?”

“No. It was interesting. The code was pretty sophisticated.”

“He’s good. He built the whole Airbnb system.”

“Oh, I see. He seemed like a perfectionist.”

“Right. Could you tell by looking at the code?”

“Yes. He tried to control everything. But then it loses scalability…”

Yoo-hyun tilted his head as he muttered.

Nathan Blecharczyk displayed the current progress on the screen.

The main issues and the beta version of the web page and mobile app screen popped up.

It was the system they had built in advance for this investment evaluation.

Nathan Blecharczyk pointed out the difficult parts one by one while looking at the screen.

“First of all, to globalize, we had to apply different languages for each country…”

The difference between the web and mobile app environment, the problem between Android OS and Apple OS in the mobile app, the issue of supporting various versions, and so on.

There were a lot of technical terms, so Yoo-hyun couldn’t understand everything.

He just understood that it took too much work to change one thing.

A lot of people were working on this, but it still looked hard to meet the deadline.

The various indicators on the screen showed that Yoo-hyun’s thought was right.

Then, Nadoha, who was next to him, said a word.

“You can integrate them into one.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Right now, the web and the app are separate. They did that to optimize for each environment, but the internet speed is fast these days, so you don’t have to do that much.”

Nadoha seemed to understand the rough issue through the screen.

Of course, his words might not fit the big service like Airbnb.

Yoo-hyun didn’t ignore Nadoha’s opinion.

When he translated and explained it, Nathan Blecharczyk shook his head.

“It sounds like he wants to display the mobile web screen on the app, but that’s too slow. The characteristics are different, so it takes more time to optimize.”

“I see. Wait a minute.”

Yoo-hyun relayed this part again, and Nadoha scratched his head.

“That’s not it.”

Then he got up from his seat and approached Nathan Blecharczyk.

Without asking Yoo-hyun, he reached out his palm and asked for permission.

“Five minutes. Five minutes, okay?”

Nathan Blecharczyk blinked his eyes at the sudden action.

“What? Steve, what should we do?”

“Let’s see what he’s doing.”

“Okay, whatever.”

Nathan Blecharczyk gave him the chair and came to Yoo-hyun.

He tried to explain without looking at the screen, but he couldn’t.

Tap tap tap.

It was because of the sound of the keyboard and the changing screen.

He tilted his head as he sat down.

“What is he doing, making an app sample in five minutes?”

“Who knows.”

Nathan Blecharczyk, who was an IT expert, didn’t know, and neither did Yoo-hyun.

It was the same for Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia.

They just watched the changing screen with interest.

It looked like a scene from a spy movie.

When he thought so, Nathan Blecharczyk was shocked.

“What? He just made an app sample?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here, wait a minute.”

He left Yoo-hyun’s question behind and went to Nadoha.

“Wow.”

He couldn’t close his mouth as he looked at the various windows on the laptop screen.

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