Brian Chesky Talks About Why Airbnb Didn’t Acquire European Clone Wimdu, Global Growth And More

Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky and Sequoia Capital partner, Airbnb board member, and former Zappos COO Alfred Lin joined us in the TechCrunch TV studio for a special three-part series on how Chesky and Lin work together on retaining culture, expanding internationally, and maintaining customer service.

The first part of the series focused on the importance of developing and maintaining culture at a company, in the second segment Chesky and Lin share their thoughts on how to approach customer support, and in this final chapter, we talk about the company’s strategy and challenges in expanding to international markets.

Over the past four years, Airbnb has evolved into an international giant in the apartment and home rentals space, reportedly valued at $2.5 billion during its last funding round. To date, Airbnb has helped service over 8.5 million guests, and has more than 500,000 listings in 33,000 cities and 192 countries.

But there are challenges associated with this growth and expansion. The company recently shifted its international strategy, creating a new hub for its global operations in Dublin.

In the video above, Chesky talks candidly about how the company considered buying European rival and clone Wimdu two years ago, even traveling to Germany to visit the European startup. Check out the video above for more on Airbnb’s international plans.