Airbnb的可控性高速發展

????不管按照哪種衡量標準，房屋租賃網站Airbnb的發展速度都顯得太快了些。短短4年間，這家公司已經新增了約500名員工，估值達到13億美元，在全球各地都開設了辦事處。不久前Airbnb又在舊金山開設了新的辦事處，還需要再招募700名員工。但最令人印象深刻的是人們使用這一服務的盛況：每晚都有5萬人住在通過Airbnb網站預訂的房間里。因此，對該公司聯合創始人兼CEO布萊恩?切斯基來說，最重要的教訓似乎是告訴自己，該踩剎車了。

????偶然成為CEO的切斯基畢業于羅德島設計學院（Rhode Island School of Design），來到硅谷時，他坦承自己是個新手。正如他在《財富》雜志（Fortune）舉辦的技術頭腦風暴大會（Brainstorm Tech）上對觀眾所言，他得到的最好的一些商業建議來自于沃倫?巴菲特。當他與巴菲特和亞馬遜（Amazon）CEO杰夫?貝佐斯坐在一起時，這位著名投資家對他說：“創富要慢慢來?！?/p>

????另一個教訓更加難得，但奧馬哈先知的智慧早就提到了這一點。2009年，Airbnb的用戶和員工數量在短短幾個月里增加了一倍，這時切斯基開始與房地產管理公司合作出租房屋。對一家飛速發展的公司來說，這個舉措合情合理：房地產管理公司擁有大量的出租房，難道還有比他們更合適的合作伙伴嗎？但切斯基說：“這些有實力的賣家沒有自豪可言。我們的工程師花費了6個月為錯誤的人研發工具?！?/p>

????一次巴黎之旅使這位30歲的CEO有了正確的認識。當時，他在Airbnb的兩間出租房里留宿，一間由房地產管理公司管理，另一間屬于一對巴黎夫婦。他對聽眾說，前一間出租房就像是酒店，干凈整潔而且有備用物品。但那對夫婦帶著切斯基在巴黎四處游覽，要是沒有住在他們的出租房里，就不會有這樣的經歷。他認為，這些人才是Airbnb需要依靠的人，而不是房地產經理。

????那么，Airbnb最終能變得多大呢？非常大，按照切斯基（有傾向性）的觀點：“我們即將迎來互聯網新一輪的發展浪潮。似乎無可避免的是，人們將停止上網，走進真實世界。而我們就是在現實世界里在現人們在Facebook上的活動?！?/p>

????譯者：千牛絮

????By any metric Airbnb -- the social vacation rental website -- has expanded extremely quickly. In just four years, it has added about 500 employees, been valued at $1.3 billion, and opened offices around the world. It just moved into new digs in San Francisco, which will allow for another 700 employees. Most impressive, though, is the fact that people are using the service: on any given night, 50,000 people stay in a space they booked on Airbnb. So it's ironic that the most important lessons for Brian Chesky, the company's co-founder and CEO, seem to be telling him to hit the brakes.

????As he related to the audience today at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech, some of the best business advice the accidental CEO ever received (Chesky is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and was a self-admitted Silicon Valley neophyte when he arrived) was from Warren Buffet: "Get rich slow," the famed investor told Chesky when he sat down with Buffet and Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos.

????The other lesson was harder earned, but echoed the Oracle of Omaha's bit of wisdom. In 2009, when Airbnb was doubling its user base and employees over the course of a few months, Chesky began working with property management groups to rent out properties. For a fast growing company, the move made sense: who else to better keep pace than other companies offering dozens of rooms for rent? But, Chesky said, "They had no pride, these power sellers, and our engineers spent six months developing tools for the wrong kind of person."

????It was a trip to Paris that put things in perspective for the 30-year-old CEO. He stayed at two Airbnb properties: one run by a management company, the other by a Parisian couple. The former, he told the audience, felt like a hotel—sanitized, spare. The couple, however, toured Chesky around the city and gave him an experience he wouldn't have had otherwise. These people, he thought, were the one's Airbnb needed to court, not property managers.

????So how big can Airbnb get? Very big, in Chesky's (biased) opinion: "We are about to enter the next wave of the Internet. It seems so inevitable that people are going to want to come off [online] and enter the real world. We are the physical manifestation of what people do on Facebook (FB)."