Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk: How the self-taught engineer helped build lodging industry disrupter

Exclusive: During his freshman year at Harvard University, Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk came to a crossroads. It was one a handful that others at his alma mater faced before him: Quit one of the most prestigious schools in the country and pursue a business venture, or continue with a degree. 

Blecharczyk, a then 19-year-old self-taught engineer, already raked in $1 million from the software business he developed in high school. From as young as 14, he started attracting clients from all over the world who sought his help in writing computer programs. 

“The first year [at Harvard] I was able to thread the needle and run this business and do the college thing. But by the second year, it was becoming too much to try to balance that,” Blecharczyk told FOX Business. 

Drawing on the confidence that his father instilled in him at a very young age, he shut down his business knowing “that there would be other opportunities in the future.” 

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Finishing out his education – a path tech industry icons such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg opted against – allowed him “to expand my skill set and round me out as an individual by being surrounded by people who are very well-rounded or at least different than I was,” Blecharczyk explained.

Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Airbnb, on stage during Web Summit 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal. (Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images) / Getty Images)

“I firmly believe that the people you surround yourself with make you better,” he added.

In 2005, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, which helped him not only build the technological underpinnings for Airbnb but negotiate with policymakers in communities around the world to enable the company’s expansion. 

After co-founding what would become Airbnb during one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression with designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, Blecharczyk went on to form the company’s engineering, data science, payments and performance marketing teams. 

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As the team grew, he kept putting himself out of a job, Blecharczyk said with a chuckle. But it freed him up to tackle any challenges or opportunities that arose, Blecharczyk said. He had been dubbed the company’s “wild card” for that very reason. 

Airbnb co-founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk at Y Combinator. (Airbnb)

“It’s OK if I don’t know how to do something. You can reason through it,” he said. “You take something big, and you just break it down into smaller pieces to build your understanding.” 

It was a lesson he traced back to his childhood. He vividly recalled watching his father lug home old Xerox and soda machines to their Boston home and encouraged him to take them apart. 

“He taught me to be curious really by tinkering with things,” he said. “These are little things that as a one-off seem silly, but when done repeatedly for many years… sinks into you.” 

His father also had a mantra: there was “no task too big or too small for P.B. [Paul Blecharczyk] and Sons.” 

It stuck with him and “set the stage for what happened next, which was a pretty pivotal moment,” he said. 

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At 12 years old, he became curious about computers and “devoured” a 500-page book on how to program within a month, Blecharczyk recalled. He read several of them from cover to cover after school and on the weekends while balancing his school work. 

Nathan Blecharczyk on stage during Web Summit 2022 ain Lisbon. (Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile for Web Summit via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Eventually, he started advertising that he would build programs for anyone on the internet in exchange for $5. His first offer rolled in two years later when someone insisted on paying him $1,000 in exchange for his services. He laughed off his dad’s skepticism and took the job. 

From there, he was introduced to many people who needed similar services. Eventually, Blecharczyk figured out a way to streamline the process. Rather than recreating the wheel every time for every person, he created a software product and sold licenses to it throughout high school. 

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Before he knew it, checks were piling up from clients in more than a dozen countries. However, he said the most powerful thing about this experience wasn’t the money at all. It was the realization that he could teach himself all the necessary skills to build things that people valued.

Airbnb co-founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk (Airbnb)

“I just knew that if I applied myself and I tinkered… kind of going back to the lessons I learned when I was much younger, I could figure out how things worked,” he said. “Once you know how things work, you can build things.” 

He developed a sense of confidence from his success at such a young age. That, coupled with his education, helped him persevere while trying to convince investors to believe in the vision that would become Airbnb. 

Today, Airbnb is seen as a disrupter in the lodging industry with a market cap of around $74 billion, outpacing hotel giants Marriott and Hilton. It has 6.6 million active listings and more than 4 million hosts in over 220 countries. 

Airbnb co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Nathan Blecharczyk. (Airbnb)

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When Blecharczyk isn’t traveling around the world coordinating with local governments and communities to foster a strong dynamic between travelers and cities, he’s spearheading initiatives such as Airbnb-friendly apartments, which allow renters to host guests without violating their leases; Airbnb City Portal, a software solution that addresses the needs of cities relating to short-term rentals; and Airbnb’s reservation screening technology, which helps identify high-risk reservations.

“It would have been easier to simply re-sell hotels… but that wouldn’t have been differentiated,” he said. “We took a very different approach and that allowed for a different kind of business potential to emerge over time… air beds could become private rooms and private rooms become entire homes and entire homes could become castles and tree houses.”