Vlad Loktev: belief

Transcript context

…Thanks, man. Is there an example of maybe working with Brian where you poked Brian and like, "No?" Yeah, absolutely. I've poked the bear many times. And by the way, I've been humbled many times. It's not like I poked the bear and I rightfully poked the bear. Sometimes I learn stuff and I realize I was wrong. A couple of examples that come to mind. One, I remember having these debates with all basically senior leaders at Airbnb, just about every couple of years actually, around how much supply should we have on the platform and what kind of supply should be on the platform. And there was one school of thought where we needed basically... That school of thought represented the view that we needed all supply out there to be on our platform, regardless of if it was a person hosting, it was a vacation rental, it was a hotel. We just needed all supply on the platform. I came at it from a very different perspective where I felt like that wasn't actually our mission from the very beginning. And although I understood that in the short term, the numbers probably would go up and you would choose growth, but at the same time that wouldn't in the long run be a point of differentiation for us. And so I had a very different point of view, and it was very hard in that conversation. Everyone's excited. Everyone seems to be aligning around the point of view to be the voice that's poking. And this is like, "Nope, let me share why I think maybe we should go in a different direction. " And it's when I remember telling myself that I am here to surface and share information that will help the group make a decision, that's what gave me peace of mind to actually poke the bear and be able to surface the things that I've seen. The other thing is when we were working on the Instant Book, change from Request to Book to Instant Book for the entire marketplace, that was very challenging. And I remember getting up on stage in front of the entire company and explaining why this is actually good for humanity. Literally, those words. Many people disagreed, and it was not an easy thing to do, but had to be done. And one thread that I've noticed across all these things, and noticed working with you, is it's not like just making a case for something you could disagree with. It's showing the data that will convince them they are wrong, or here's what they're missing. It's not like a speech. It's, "Here's the data," and asking them, "What data would you want to see to convince you this might be not as you-"…

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