Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

by Thomas L. Friedman

Chesky got to town, in early October 2007, San Francisco was hosting the Industrial Designers Society of America, and all the hotel rooms on the conference website were sold out. So Chesky and Gebbia thought: Why not turn their house into a bed and breakfast for attendees? The problem was, they had no beds, but Gebbia did have three air mattresses. “So we inflated them and called ourselves ‘Airbed and Breakfast.’ Three people stayed with us, and we charged them eighty dollars a night. We also made breakfast for them and became their local guides,” Chesky, thirty-four, explained. In the process, they made enough money to cover the rent. More important, though, they discovered a bigger idea that has since blossomed into a multibillion-dollar company, a whole new way for people to make money and tour the world.