Brian Chesky is an American Internet entrepreneur who has a net worth of $11 billion. He is best-known for being a co-founder and CEO of hospitality exchange service Airbnb.
Brian Chesky was born in Niskayuna, New York in August 1981. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design where he met future co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia.
Chesky and Gebbia moved to San Francisco, California in 2008. They found many hotels to be overbooked while planning to attend a conference and purchased three air beds to rent out their place and make some money. The subsequently created the website Air Bed and Breakfast which eventually grew into Airbnb. The company utilized the SXSW festival and now has over 50,000 people using it each day. In March 2015 Airbnb was valued at $20 billion. By December 2020 Airbnb was valued at $100 billion.
IPO: Airbnb made its IPO debut on December 10, 2020. On December 9, the company’s expected market cap was a little under $50 billion. By the morning of December 10, the company’s market cap had exploded to $100 billion. At that level, Nathan, Brian and Joe were each worth around $11 billion on paper. When the company finally went public, it started trading out of the gate at $147 per share, indeed a market cap of $100 billion.
They also each sold $100 million worth of their personal shares on the IPO day. Even after that sale Brian owns around 77 million shares of Airbnb.
At the height of the COVID pandemic in April 2020, Brian was awarded 12 million additional options in Uber as a retention package. The grant was pegged to various share price milestones. He surpassed several milestones on the company’s IPO day. On the IPO day – a mere nine months later – that one-time grant had a total future potential value of $1.8 billion, on top of his additional $11.4 billion other stake. He needs Airbnb’s stock price to increase above $485 to receive the entire grant.
All three founders are members of The Giving Pledge, which means they intend to eventually donate at least half of their fortunes to charity.
| Net Worth: | $11 Billion |
| Date of Birth: | Aug 29, 1981 (40 years old) |
| Gender: | Male |
| Profession: | Businessperson |