Chip Conley, 54, entrepreneur, Burning Man enthusiast and Airbnb honcho says the company that makes billions by monetizing couch-surfing deserves much more — namely, a Nobel Peace Prize.
In an interview with Fortune magazine, the Global Head of Hospitality for Airbnb credited the company with improving cross-cultural understanding, one apartment rental at a time.
“We tend to villainize the other,” Conley said to Fortune.
“But when people are traveling, getting to know others and turning strangers into friends, we create a world where there are a lot fewer people who seem alien to us,” he added.
That was his rationale for the lofty ambition he expressed at an Airbnb retreat in Sonoma, Calif., earlier this year.
Asked by the startup’s founder, Brian Chesky, where he saw the company in 10 years, Conley’s straight-faced response was that he’d “love to see us win the Nobel Peace Prize,” Fortune reported.
A hotel industry vet, Conley was just 26 when he started his own brand of boutique hotels, Joie de Vivre, in 1987.
His self-described mission back then was to “create joy,” not world peace.
But it may be that his many years of backing Nevada’s drug-fueled Burning Man art fests brought him additional enlightenment.
Now Conley’s convinced that Airbnb’s “community marketplace” qualifies it for the celebrated award. The company connects travelers with lodging — from apartments to castles for any length of time — in more than 34,000 cities, according to its website.
In New York City, it is illegal to rent out an apartment for fewer than 30 consecutive days — though it’s being done through Airbnb and other home-sharing sites.
Winning the peace prize would be quite a coup for the $10 billion company.
In the 100-year history of the Nobel Peace Prize, only a handful of organizations have been lauded — and none was a for-profit startup.
They included charities and government groups like Amnesty International, the U.N. peacekeeping forces, Doctors Without Borders, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Red Cross.
