Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky plans to back a new AI lab of his own, according to Bloomberg and confirmed to TechCrunch by a person familiar with the situation. Chesky has had enough of merely being an artificial intelligence kingmaker. The news marks Chesky as one of many Silicon Valley moguls who are unsatisfied with models coming out of frontier labs. While Airbnb has adopted AI coding tools, Chesky said last year it had not struck an LLM partnership because existing products were not quite ready.
Chesky Helped Broker Altman’s Return To OpenAI
Chesky met Sam Altman in 2006 through Y Combinator, which incubated Airbnb, and stayed in touch. When OpenAI took off, Chesky began meeting regularly with Altman to offer advice about managing a hypergrowth tech company. Chesky was reportedly considered a potential OpenAI board member. He helped broker Altman’s return to power after OpenAI’s board of directors fired the CEO for lack of candor. Chesky advised Altman on public relations and rallied support for him among Silicon Valley bigwigs. Now he appears to be entering competition with his mentee’s company.
Focus Likely On User Interaction And Design, But Chesky Will Not Lead Lab
It is not clear what the focus of Chesky’s new AI lab will be, although the Bloomberg article mentions user interaction and design, areas he has emphasized at Airbnb. That is similar to what Brett Adcock is doing at Hark, the AI lab he launched late last year to develop a novel user interface for an AI assistant, though Hark is also emphasizing hardware products. Chesky will not be going into “founder mode” at this operation. A person familiar with the situation says he will remain as Airbnb’s CEO and not lead the new lab himself. Bloomberg’s report provided the initial details. Whoever gets the job will have to contend not only with other AI labs but also with a founding chair known as a micromanager.
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