Brian Chesky
/SOURCE OF WEALTH: Airbnb
FUNDING AREAS: Humanitarian & Disaster Relief, TBD
OVERVIEW: In 2016, the co-founders of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, Joseph Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk, joined the Giving Pledge and committed to giving away the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.
BACKGROUND: Born in 1981, Brian Chesky is the son of two social workers. He attended Rhode Island School of Design and worked as an industrial engineer in Los Angeles. Chesky co-founded Airbnb and serves as CEO.
ISSUES:
HUMANITARIAN & DISASTER RELIEF: Airbnb supports the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) through its campaign BelongAnywhere, which seeks to draw attention to and provide financial support to refugees globally as they integrate into new communities. In 2012, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Chesky helped establish an Airbnb portal for the public to provide free housing for hurricane victims. Chesky, along with Gebbia and Blecharczyk, pledged to match up to $10 million in contributions to Airbnb.org, to support their company’s efforts to provide free short-term housing to refugees from Ukraine.
HIGHER EDUCATION: Chesky donated $100 million to the Obama Foundation to establish the Voyager Scholarship to support college students pursuing careers in public service.
LOOKING FORWARD: Chesky has said that he wants to show more young people what entrepreneurship looks like. “My parents exposed me to a lot of things, but the one thing I wasn’t exposed to was entrepreneurism," he said. "I never met a CEO and I didn’t think that was possible.” While Chesky has made an early commitment to giving away the majority of his wealth, don't expect money to move immediately. As he puts it, "The commitment is not made slowly—we’re ready—but how we want to give is something we want to be careful about. It’s a huge responsibility. You want to make sure you’ve thought it through.”
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