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How Airbnb Sets Goals That Keep It Resilient And Help It Escape The Tech Backlash

Author: Jack Le4 yearsago 0 Comments 1.8k Views

Being considered as an online marketplace for offering lodging, primarily homestays, and tourism experiences, Airbnb has served more than 400 million guests since 2008. In the beginning, Airbnb just created the ramen-profitability. But after that, Nathan Blecharczyk and his two co-founders, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky grew their homestay app into a $31 billion company in just over 10 years. This led to tech being barraged by controversy on issues ranging from climate change to data privacy while technology was still seen as a force for good.

The fallout could have consequences for companies hiring the next generation of engineers, designers, and product managers. College students were not as interested in applying for Big Tech jobs as they once were, according to a trend detailed in a recent article in The New York Times.

In a fireside chat with professor Arun Sundararajan at New York University Stern School of Business on Tuesday night, Blecharczyk shared that Airbnb was started to change the way it sets goals to factor in its effect on the world. It was a strategy that could avoid the backlash against other tech businesses.

“A lot of entrepreneurs aspire to do good things, but as you become a bigger company and you have thousands of employees who own their own goals, it is very easy to become narrow in your thinking,” Blecharczyk said at the event.

Nathan Blecharczyk is a co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Airbnb

Here is how Airbnb’s leadership sets goals for the company

1. Identify two to three principles for each of its five stakeholder groups

In the past, the company set an agenda for the year that answered the question, “50 years from now, what do we want to be remembered for?” Blecharczyk said. And the problem was that its goals, such as creating millions of entrepreneurs or billions of friendships, were vague and difficult to measure, he explained.

According to Blecharczyk, we should think about five stakeholders in our world such as guests, hosts, employees, the communities in which we operate, and shareholders. We have a duty to serve the interests of all five instead of just serving the interests of the shareholders.

On top of that, we should identify two to three principles for things and be accountable for the safety of our guests. If we desire to promote diversity in our workforce, do not stop there. In an objective way, we need to come up with one to three metrics for each of those principles so that we can understand each year if we are getting better or not and quantify our progress.

2. The new goal-setting strategy is meant to encourage employees to make decisions with stakeholders in mind.

At Airbnb, each team has at least one goal around creating value for a stakeholder. Blecharczyk said the strategy is meant to inspire employees to consider the ramifications of their decisions on the company’s goals, as well as their own.

3. “You have to do well by all the folks in the ecosystem,” Blecharczyk said.

“Our long-term success is completely dependent on the success of all of our stakeholders,” he added. “You have to do well by all the folks in the ecosystem.”

Summary

From a relatively modest position in Vietnam only 10 years ago, Airbnb has soared spectacularly with a brand value of up to 31 billion USD. Airbnb has pointed out that changing how to set goals for the benefit of your business is one of the effective strategies that businesses can apply, especially in the context of sharing room service Airbnb. compete directly with the traditional model. This approach has helped three guys Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia maintain this model over many years and have brought great success for this brand, helping meet the needs of various visitors.

Defining the targets specifically helps businesses know where they are going and how to get there. In addition, stakeholders play extremely important roles in organizations. They are the ones who directly influence the decision and success or failure of a project. Through this article, we hope to inspire businesses and give suggestions for setting goals together with express interests in stakeholders. Good luck to you.