Brian Chesky’s audacity is fabulous. He dares to believe that we shouldn’t be strangers, that we can have a sense of true belonging whenever, wherever we travel.

With his remarkable startup, Airbnb, he saw a new way to build community through people’s innate desire to connect with the world around them. The service that Brian and his partners imagined is soaringly ambitious and utterly practical.

As a designer (he graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design), his obsession with detail and practicality doesn’t confine or compromise his dreaming but rather makes what could so easily be noble but abstract ideas functional and real.

Staying in someone else’s home is an intimate experience. It requires trust. Brian collaborates with designers, artists, architects, illustrators and engineers to take guests and hosts on a gentle but exhilarating journey, enabled by a site that is as beautiful as it is functional.

Bringing people together is something of a passion for Brian, and with Airbnb he’s helped create millions of personal connections. That’s an achievement that even the best hotels in the world should envy.

Ive is the senior vice president of design at Apple

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