Airbnb CEO says chief executives should pick favorites

Fortune Next to Lead editor Ruth Umoh sits down with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.

Transcript

00:00Who's your favorite at Airbnb right now?

00:02Favorite what?

00:02You said you pick favorites. Who's your number one?

00:05Oh, I have so many favorites.

00:06That's such a political answer. That's a politician's answer.

00:09I mean, I don't even know if I have a single favorite.

00:14You've repeatedly said you tried to emulate how Steve Jobs ran Apple.

00:19He had a predilection for hosting about 100 of the most important people at Apple,

00:24and those selected were hierarchy agnostic.

00:27Would you ever replicate this at Airbnb?

00:29I did, and I do it twice a year.

00:31You do?

00:32I don't call it top 100.

00:33Okay. Why is that?

00:35Well, I think top 100 quite literally means these are the most important 100 people in the company.

00:40At most companies, there'd be a protest if the CEO picked people,

00:45because they would be considered their favorites,

00:47and it would be considered unfair and not systematic.

00:51And I think ultimately, the CEO should have favorites.

00:55The favorites have to be unfair criteria.

00:58But if you can't have favorites, if you can't say this is a high performer,

01:02and this is what excellence looks like,

01:04then you're going to be in big, big trouble.

01:06That is just not good leadership.

01:07Now, it can be fair criteria.

01:09You can have people making sure there's not unconscious bias,

01:13people keeping you honest, looking for disparate impact inside the organization.

01:17You can do a lot of surveys, and you can use that to reinforce your assumptions.

01:24But the notion that a CEO should not have discretion in decision making of who should be in a room,

01:30like the President of the United States would pick, we should pick too.

01:34It doesn't matter what level you're at.