8 lessons from my 8 years with Airbnb

As I write this post, the sun is setting over Amsterdam. I landed here after years of traveling and living abroad and I recently decided to settle here for real. After 8 years at the best job I’ve ever had, I decided to focus on other things in life. My six-year-old just came into the room to ask if you can catch a sound, hold it in your hands and store it in a cup (making sure to keep your hand on top as a lid of course). I love her thinking but I am not sure you can. And this is a good metaphor for my next step and one of our Airbnb values: embrace the adventure. From tomorrow on, I’ll spend my time as an activist, investor, student and board member. Before I go, I wanted to share some lessons I learned during my tenure at Airbnb.

Wadi Rum, Jordan, one of my favorite places.

And what an amazing run it has been! This truly was the job of a lifetime for me. I am forever indebted to Brian, Nate and Joe and to Belinda and Aoife for hiring me back in 2013. Airbnb is a fantastic place for lawyers who love to travel and want to change the world but are not into business suits. I am incredibly proud of the great things we’ve done together. To me, Airbnb always felt like home. And that was thanks to my whip-smart and kind colleagues and a unique company culture. Here is a small sample of lessons I learned and that I found valuable. There is so much more to share that I could write a book, but here's a start.

1. Be a good host. Be nice to yourself and to others because you never know what someone else is going through. Ask for help and assume good intent (unless the other person is your legal opponent). Your destiny is in your own hands and others cannot read your mind (unless they’re psychics and then it’s a bit creepy). Pick your battles and keep a sense of humor. Don’t sweat the small stuff, just let it go. Take responsibility for what you do but don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t take things too personally.

2. We are all leaders, no matter what level you’re at. Own completely and take your responsibility. Each of us can have a real impact. We are not helpless cogs in a system, we make the world and each of us can lead by example and make a real difference. Go beyond your job description. Lead by example.

3. When you’re at a start-up or a scale-up, think about scale and the future early on. Think about the big picture, unintended consequences and slippery slopes early on to make sure the solutions or processes you put in place will still be fit for a larger-scale context. This will obviously save you lots of time down the road. Block time to think about and prepare for the future (what will the world around us look like, what will our company and community look like, are we ready for the next challenges, do we have the right resources, the right business model and product features)? Invest time in creating playbooks, templates, protocols, strategic overviews. And be strategic about how you use your resources. Use the 80/20 rule. To make sure that you focus and use your time for things that have an impact, write down your key priorities and only do things that fit within these priorities.

4. Intellectual rigor is crucial. Don’t be lazy (or said more nicely: It’s gratifying when you unleash your formidable intelligence and creativity!). Don’t make assumptions, ask lots of questions if something is unclear and always think things through but focus on the things that matter. Be your own Socrates. And for the lawyers among you: providing high-quality legal advice is like playing a game of chess, you always have to think about the next moves your opponent may make. When the stakes are high, being thorough allows you to sleep at night because you know you did everything humanly possible to get the best possible outcome for the company. The rest is not in your own hands.

5. Clear communication is key to success. Communicate to be understood and not to show off. Your message and call-to-action should be clear and easy to understand. Only sleuths love reading through long email threads to find the relevant information. Be concise and to the point. Kill your darlings. Proactively answer questions the reader may have so you don’t need to start an email ping-pong. The same goes for oral communication. Speak to be understood, actively listen to truly understand the other person. Don’t interrupt others (or at least as little as possible). Practice presentations in front of a mirror, or even better (and scarier) record your dry run. It will give you an oh-wow-is-that-what-I-look-like moment but you’re doing it for a reason: it truly helps you to improve your public speaking.

6. Empower. Ask empowering questions (don’t say “Why is this such a mess?” but “What do you think is best to resolve this situation? What is your back-up plan? What are the different scenarios we can think of here? What would you do differently next time”) and delegate. Don’t be that dreaded micro-manager everyone runs away from.

7. Learn to receive and give feedback. Praise in public, give feedback in private. Use the sandwich method when giving feedback: praise and be very specific about what the employee did well or improved on; explain very concretely what can be improved; praise and describe the growth or improvements you noticed. Be as specific as you can and use lots of examples.

8. Use your imagination. Maybe you cán catch a song with your hands.

I would love to stay in touch with everyone I met across the globe throughout my 8 years with Airbnb. Please don’t hesitate to reach out or to come visit me in Amsterdam.


With immense gratitude,


Tanja



Book recommendations

• The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin
• First Love, Ivan Turgenev
• We and I, Saskia de Coster
• Huis Clos, Jean-Paul Sartre
• Le Consentement, Vanessa Springora
• The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy
• Freedom, An Unruly History, Annelien de Dijn
• The Tree and The Vine, Dola de Jong
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong
• 1967, Israel, the War and the Year that Transformed the Middle East, Tom Segev
• Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter