Brian Chesky Bio, Early Life, Career, Girlfriend, Net Worth

Brian Joseph Chesky is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded the peer-to-peer hosting company Airbnb. Chesky is the company’s CEO, and was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2015.

BRIAN CHESKY: EARLY CHILDHOOD, EDUCATION AND FAMILY

Brian Chesky was born in Niskayuna, New York on August 29, 1981. He is the son of Deborah and Robert H. Likewise, Chesky’s father is of Polish descent and his mother is of Italian descent. Chesky’s parents were both social workers. And he has a younger sister, Allison. Also, Chesky was a child in art, drawing replicas of paintings and designing, redesigning shoes and toys. Later he became interested in architecture and landscape design.

Chesky began attending the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999. In 2004, he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design. Chesky met Joe Gebbia, who would later become one of Airbnb’s co-founders, during his time at RISD.

BRIAN CHESKY: CAREER AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Chesky had worked as an industrial designer and strategist at 3DID, Inc. in Los Angeles after attending college. He then moved to San Francisco, where he and Gebbia shared an apartment. The Industrial Designers Society of America hosted a conference in San Francisco in October 2007 and booked all hotel rooms. The couple couldn’t afford the month’s rent, so they decided to rent out their apartment for cash. They bought three airbeds and marketed the idea as “airbed and breakfast” with three guests staying the first night.

Similarly, in February 2008, Airbnb’s third co-founder was Harvard graduate and technical architect Nathan Blecharczyk. As Chesky became leader and CEO, each co-founder took on a role within the new company. To receive funding, Chesky and his co-founders created special-edition cereals called ‘Obama O’s’ and ‘Cap’n McCains’, based on presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Y Combinator, intrigued by cereal boxes, welcomed Airbnb into its seed funding program.

In addition, the company began to internationalize in its first year and opened several offices in Europe. In 2011, Chesky wrote a letter on behalf of the company advertising a 24-hour hotline, additional staff support, and theft or vandalism coverage to handle a resident complaint about tenant vandalism. Similarly, Chesky announced in 2015 that Airbnb was an official sponsor of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, he said more than 120,000 people stayed in Airbnb homes. In March 2015, Airbnb had a valuation of $20 billion.

In April 2017, he was featured among other successful business members such as Mark Zuckerberg, John Elkann and Diane Green as the first protagonists of Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale podcast series. Here he talked about Airbnb’s scaling strategy.

BRIAN CHESKY: PERSONAL LIFE AND GIRLFRIEND

Chesky is currently dating “Elissa Patel”. The pair met on Tinder. As an artist, she works in her company Eastdarjeeling, where she designs floral headdresses. Previously, Elissa worked in various technology companies including Frontback, Wepay, Intel Corporation, United Nations, etc. She currently founded a new startup in New York, USA called EastDarjeeling

Likewise, on June 1, 2016, Chesky joined Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ “The Giving Pledge,” a select group of billionaires determined to give away most of their wealth.

BRIAN CHESKY: FORTUNE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

According to Forbes, the 37-year-old co-founder and CEO of Airbnb is worth around $4.2 billion. The tech enthusiast leads a relatively modest life despite his wealth. Similarly, in previous interviews, Chesky said he rented his own apartment in San Francisco on Airbnb, doing weekly yoga with his girlfriend.