Rosanne Somerson: Since you stood at this podium—watch out Emily—to speak to fel­low grad­u­ates and your own com­mence­ment cer­e­mo­ny, the world looks very dif­fer­ent, thanks in part to inno­v­a­tive entre­pre­neurs like you. Working with your friend and busi­ness part­ner Joe Gebbia, you cooked up an idea for help­ing peo­ple to both save and make mon­ey by open­ing pri­vate homes for trav­el­ers look­ing for alter­na­tives to hotels and motels. It was an idea that seemed implau­si­ble, even ill-advised, at the time, espe­cial­ly giv­en the econ­o­my in 2008. And yet, using much that you learned at RISD, togeth­er you took risks, will­ing to fail, and demon­strat­ed that those are key ingre­di­ents of true inno­va­tion. With your recent expan­sion into curat­ed expe­ri­ences, and more inno­va­tions on the hori­zon, we are proud of how you are con­nect­ing peo­ple across the globe. 

Brian, we are so pleased and proud to wel­come you home to RISD, and in recog­ni­tion of your ongo­ing work to bring the world togeth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty we present you with this hon­orary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design. 

It is now my plea­sure to invite Brian Chesky to address this year’s grad­u­ates, their fam­i­lies and loved ones, and every­one here with us on this spe­cial occa­sion. Please wel­come our com­mence­ment speak­er, Brian Ches—uh, Dr. Brian Chesky. 

Brian Chesky: Thank you, President Somerson. Class of 2017, con­grat­u­la­tions. Let’s hear it for you. 

I am hon­ored to speak here today. Thirteen years ago, I sat where you’re sit­ting right now. And I had a lot of ques­tions rac­ing through my mind. Would I be able to find a job. And would I do any­thing sig­nif­i­cant with my life. My par­ents had those same questions. 

I had no sense of what I want­ed to do. And I don’t think any­one expect­ed too much of me. Outside of cam­pus, many peo­ple are sur­prised to learn that I attend­ed art school here at RISD. They say how could an art stu­dent build a large com­pa­ny? Well it’s actu­al­ly, I think, because of what I learned here at RISD that allowed me to do this. 

Now today I want­ed to share three lessons with you. The first les­son I learned from the Nads. In 1999 I came to RISD. My par­ents are social work­ers, and my dad was a hock­ey fanat­ic who got me inter­est­ed in hock­ey. But I was actu­al­ly more inter­est­ed in art than hock­ey. So I decid­ed to attend RISD. 

Then, I found out that RISD had a hock­ey team called the Nads. Apparently, it was cre­at­ed by some stu­dents in 1963 who named the team the Nads as a joke, so that when you cheered, you chant­ed, ​“Go Nads!” And that’s when I knew RISD was the per­fect school for me. 

I joined the team my fresh­man year, and we took over the Nads. We had the biggest chal­lenge ever: How do you get art stu­dents to attend a sports game? We had to reimag­ine a sports team to do it. 

Now, we weren’t allowed in any leagues. So we had to cre­ate our own league. And we played for the Supportive Cup. We cre­at­ed a coed cheer­lead­ing team called the Jockstraps, because they sup­port­ed the Nads. 

But, some­thing was miss­ing. We need­ed a mas­cot. One day, I was in the Met cafe­te­ria. And I’m at a table. And I asked a group of peo­ple from our team, ​“What should our mas­cot be called?” Our goalie replied with a name that I think is now some­thing of a leg­end on cam­pus. So par­ents, that is why your child goes to a school with a skat­ing penis. 

The week­end we unveiled the mas­cot was par­ents’ week­end. And my par­ents decid­ed to vis­it me because they want­ed to see what kin­da edu­ca­tion I was get­ting. And you should’ve seen the look on their faces. 

Now, we reimag­ined a sports team, and in the process I had to learn how to build and run a large orga­ni­za­tion. I had to recruit vol­un­teers. I had to get them excit­ed. I had to fol­low a vision. I learned how to man­age a bud­get, raise mon­ey for the team. And I learned to not always ask for per­mis­sion. I nev­er thought I could run a hock­ey team, but this expe­ri­ence was the cat­a­lyst that showed me that I actu­al­ly loved run­ning things. And that I could maybe be good at it. 

Now, a ratio­nal per­son would­n’t expect that I could be capa­ble of run­ning Airbnb. Imagine going to RISD as a fresh­man, and then hav­ing to run the school your senior year. That’s what it felt like at Airbnb. Now, there’s this illu­sion in life that we hold on to that peo­ple ahead of us, peo­ple at the top of their field, are not like us. But at one point, they were us. This illu­sion pro­tects us from a sim­ple truth. And that truth is that we can do any­thing if only we try. I learned this from the Nads. 

The sec­ond les­son I learned from a toi­let seat. When I grad­u­at­ed, I did­n’t know what to do in my life. So after RISD, with nowhere else to turn, I found myself mov­ing back home with my par­ents. My child­hood bed­room had nev­er felt so small. I’d wake up every morn­ing, look at my old Jim Morrison poster on the wall, and I’d won­der, ​“How did I end up back here?” Another friend from RISD, Lee Sauter, was also liv­ing at home in Philadelphia. And we swore an oath to escape togeth­er. The moment I final­ly land­ed a full-time posi­tion in Los Angeles, we moved out west together. 

Now, I was pret­ty excit­ed for my first job. It was a small design com­pa­ny that served small com­pa­nies and small entre­pre­neurs who could­n’t afford the large brand name design firms. People lit­er­al­ly came to us with all sorts of ideas. 

One day, a magi­cian walked into our office with an idea for a toi­let seat that could fil­ter the air when you flushed it. He called it the ​“Pureflush.” My boss looked at me and he said, ​“You are per­fect for this project.” That did not feel like a compliment. 

What I did not know was that the magi­cian was actu­al­ly a con­tes­tant on a real­i­ty tele­vi­sion show. So I would have to not only design the Pureflush, but I’d have to present it on the show, on nation­al tele­vi­sion. It turned out he hat­ed my design, so I got yelled at, by a magi­cian, in front of mil­lions of peo­ple. And all that work went down the drain.

Now in life, you will have to make a toi­let seat at some point. This is the ​“real world.” But I say this to you: Forget the real world. The real world to me real­ly just rep­re­sents wher­ev­er you think is a safe path in life. But you came to RISD. You already have cho­sen not to take the safe path. If it had­n’t been for RISD, I prob­a­bly would have stayed in that job. But RISD taught me not to com­pro­mise. And to nev­er take the safe path. 

You see, the safe path rarely leads to the mag­i­cal world that you want to live in. And the prob­lem with the safe path is that it’s not actu­al­ly safe. Because you end up pur­su­ing some­thing that you’re not pas­sion­ate about. And there­fore you’re not as good at it. And then one day, you wake up and you’re mak­ing toi­let seats. 

My last les­son I learned from an airbed. One day, I was sit­ting in a cubi­cle at work, and I received a mys­te­ri­ous pack­age in the mail. It was from one of my friends at RISD who was liv­ing in San Francisco, name Joe Gebbia. Inside was a seat cush­ion that he had designed and man­u­fac­tured. And with it was a note. I opened the note and I read it. And it said, ​“Come to San Francisco.”

In each of your lives, you will be con­front­ed with a deci­sion like this. What do you do? Joe described some­thing mag­i­cal to me that was hap­pen­ing in San Francisco. People were start­ing com­pa­nies, tak­ing big risks, and chas­ing their dreams. So I agreed I would move in with him. I gath­ered my things, I quit my job, and I drove my Honda Civic to San Francisco. 

Now there was one catch. My share of the rent was $1,150. Which was more mon­ey than I had in the bank. We brain­stormed solu­tions, and it turned out that that week­end an inter­na­tion­al design con­fer­ence was com­ing to San Francisco. All of the hotels that they rec­om­mend­ed were sold out. 

So Joe rec­om­mend­ed, well why don’t we just cre­ate a bed and break­fast for the design con­fer­ence. The prob­lem was we did­n’t have any beds. And I slept on a piece of foam rolled in duct tape, and I thought that would not suffice. 

Now luck­i­ly Joe brought an airbed with him from RISD. We pulled it out of the clos­et. We bought two more, and we inflat­ed them. And that’s when we called it the airbed and break­fast. Yeah… Three design­ers stayed with us that week­end, and we made enough mon­ey to pay our rent. With that, Airbnb was born. 

You know, Joe and I nev­er set out to build a com­pa­ny. We were mere­ly try­ing to rent three airbeds one week­end to pay rent. And this is some­thing I learned from RISD. When you have a prob­lem, no mat­ter how chal­leng­ing it sounds, just take the first step. So in this way, Airbnb was like a giant RISD project. 

Albert Einstein once said, Life is like rid­ing a bicy­cle. To keep your bal­ance you must keep mov­ing. It’s easy to get stuck, or intim­i­dat­ed, and not take that first step. But the first step can be a small step. Like inflat­ing an airbed. And once you take that small step, you can dream a lit­tle big­ger. Take enough of these steps, and any­thing in life is possible. 

Now, the day of my grad­u­a­tion thir­teen years ago, I stayed back in Providence for the sum­mer. I remem­ber help­ing my friends pack their bags. And then I watched them leave. That night I walked to Thayer Street and I ate at a restau­rant alone, and I cried. And I had for­got­ten that moment until a cou­ple days ago when I was walk­ing around cam­pus. And I now I remem­ber why I felt this way. It was because I was home here. And grow­ing up I did­n’t real­ly fit in. But I felt like I belonged here at RISD. And since we left RISD, I think Joe and I in a sense have been try­ing to recre­ate this mag­i­cal world that we felt here. 

And this leads to the biggest les­son of all. When you leave College Hill today, you are going to enter world with some rather large prob­lems. But if this school has taught you any­thing, it’s that you can make any­thing. You can design the world that you want to live in. People before you have cre­at­ed this world. So now, it’s time for you to cre­ate your own. Thank you grad­u­at­ing class of 2017, and go Nads!