The Search for Cultural DNA
Before Airbnb even hired its first official employee, its founders were thinking about culture. Inspired by a visit to Zappos, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia decided to establish their core values before building out their team. For Chesky, the first hires
weren't just staff; they were the genetic building blocks of the company. He famously spent months searching for the company's first engineer, looking through thousands of applications and interviewing hundreds of candidates. His reasoning was profound: "If we were successful, there were going to be 1,000 people just like him or her in the company," he explained. The central question wasn't about immediate technical skills, but rather, "Do I want to work with 1,000 more people like this?" This painstaking process established a principle that would guide Airbnb for years: every new hire was a co-author of the company’s future.
Hiring Builders, Not Just Employees
Chesky, along with co-founders Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, came from design and engineering backgrounds. They were builders. This fundamentally shaped their hiring philosophy. They prioritized people who could do the work over those who would simply manage it. The first employee, engineer Nick Grandy, was chosen because he shared the founders' vision and work ethic. This focus on “builders” ensured that the early team was deeply involved in the product and its evolution. Chesky personally interviewed the first few hundred employees to ensure they aligned with this hands-on, passionate mindset. This wasn't micromanagement; it was a deliberate strategy to ensure the company's core values were lived, not just laminated on a wall. It was about finding people who were obsessed with curiosity and solving problems from the ground up.
Don't Mess Up the Culture
In 2012, after a major investment from Peter Thiel, Chesky asked the famous venture capitalist for his single most important piece of advice. Thiel's answer was blunt: "Don't f*ck up the culture." This advice became a mantra within Airbnb. Chesky took it to heart, viewing culture as the company's primary operating system. A strong culture, he argued, reduces the need for cumbersome corporate processes because you can trust everyone to do the right thing. This belief was tested when a German clone of Airbnb, Wimdu, launched with 400 employees hired almost overnight. While the competitive threat was immense, Chesky and his team decided against acquiring the rival, believing their toxic, rapid-growth culture would destroy what made Airbnb special. They chose cultural integrity over a seemingly easy market grab, a decision that cemented the importance of their deliberate hiring strategy.
The Lasting Blueprint
Chesky’s early, methodical approach to hiring has had a lasting impact. It created a foundation of shared values and mission-driven purpose that helped the company scale without completely diluting its essence. He believes that culture is built through a thousand small actions, from hiring decisions to the emails you write. Even today, Chesky reportedly spends a significant portion of his time on recruiting, viewing it as a CEO's most critical function. His theory, honed over years, is that time invested in hiring the right people drastically reduces the time needed for managing them later. By treating his first hires as the DNA of a company he hoped would last for a century, Chesky didn't just fill seats—he built a resilient, design-led, and culture-obsessed organization from the inside out.
