{"id":279415,"date":"2026-02-07T19:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T19:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/279415\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T19:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T19:10:09","slug":"airbnbs-brian-chesky-says-ceos-dont-have-to-be-miserable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/279415\/","title":{"rendered":"Airbnb\u2019s Brian Chesky says CEOs don’t have to be ‘miserable’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \u2018grindset\u2019 routine of 3 a.m. wake-ups<\/a>, cold plunges, and strict adherence to the corporate playbook has become normalized as the path to success. But Airbnb<\/a> CEO Brian Chesky has been unapologetically doing things differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t apologize for how you want to run your company,\u201d Chesky told<\/a> The Wall Street Journal last year. For the $74 billion short-term rental boss, that looks like staying up late and cutting down on traditional but tedious duties.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Emailing] was the thing about my job that I hated the most before the pandemic,\u201d Chesky said. Although much of the corporate world has returned to what it was like in 2019\u2014with five days in office, team bonding activities, and watercooler gossip<\/a>\u2014emailing is one thing that hasn\u2019t made a comeback with the CEO.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chesky no longer bothers with pesky emails; they were a huge annoyance, and he rarely touches them anymore.\u00a0Instead, Chesky communicates while he\u2019s on the clock and prefers to call and text, the WSJ reported. And that\u2019s not the only office tradition he\u2019s done away with. For Chesky, 9 a.m. meetings are a thing of the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As someone who hits productivity strides in the wee hours of the morning, Chesky pushes early meetings back to 10 a.m.\u2014and no earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re CEO,\u201d Chesky said, \u201cyou can decide when the first meeting of the day is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chesky didn\u2019t immediately respond to Fortune\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n

The Airbnb CEO\u2019s 5-to-9 after his 9-to-5<\/p>\n

The 44-year-old Airbnb co-founder also doesn\u2019t believe the early bird catches the worm\u2014he gets his energy in the nighttime, after his workout routine that wraps up around 9:30 p.m. He hits his peak productivity at 10 p.m., lasting until he falls asleep around 2:30 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had a girlfriend, that would probably change,\u201d Chesky explained. \u201cBut I don\u2019t, so I\u2019ll enjoy this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 2:30 a.m. bedtime means no meetings at the crack of dawn the next day\u201410 a.m. is the earliest he\u2019ll go. And Chesky isn\u2019t the only high-power leader isn\u2019t the only one who works late hours in striving for success. Fortune has interviewed dozens of CEOs<\/a> who are rejecting the 5 a.m. club, and making their sleep pattern work with a high-flying career.<\/p>\n

For one, musician and entrepreneur Will.i.am runs his tech venture between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but then jumps back into the grind to work on his creative business until 9 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWork-life balance is not for the architects that are pulling visions into reality,\u201d Will.i.am told Fortune<\/a> last year. \u201cThose words don\u2019t compute to the mindset of the materializers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other CEOs shaping their role to fit their lifestyle<\/p>\n

This type of executive behavior would shock other tech leaders, but some are finding inspiration in the way he moves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[Chesky] always said to me that being a public-company CEO doesn\u2019t have to be miserable,\u201d Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble, told <\/a>WSJ last year. \u201cAnd I thought he was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chesky\u2019s philosophy stuck with her, and in her return to Bumble, she felt ready to take on the task: \u201cHe really taught me how to be a CEO again.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a growing number of leaders writing their own rules and going against the grindset grain.<\/p>\n

Nvidia<\/a> CEO Jensen Huang is running a $4.5 trillion<\/a> chip company, but despises the idea of corporate hierarchy. That\u2019s why he\u2019s totally scrapped<\/a> one-on-one meetings, and only gathers for large conversations with the rest of leadership. Huang wants everyone to be on the same page and collaborate for the best business outcomes. It\u2019s a breather from the rigid structure of most corporations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that way, our company was designed for agility. For information to flow as quickly as possible. For people to be empowered by what they are able to do, not what they know,\u201d the tech entrepreneur said <\/a>in 2024<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel also balances<\/a> his intense schedule of incessant meetings and travel by using all of his paid time off. While most executives always feel the need to be at the helm, he drives home the importance of rest and relaxation. If someone doesn\u2019t take their hard-earned days off, Beuchel believes that can be destructive to mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI highly prioritize PTO,\u201d Buechel told Fortune<\/a> in 2024. \u201cSo I do use all of my allocation each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on May 15, 2025.<\/p>\n

More on CEO work-life balance:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u2018grindset\u2019 routine of 3 a.m. wake-ups, cold plunges, and strict adherence to the corporate playbook has become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17108,61392,22154,114,6373,10325,4817,9197,110272,30435,11542,9016,163,85,46,11712,231,100457,4136,1686,6593,4788,143774,65990,143775,8985],"class_list":["post-279415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-airbnb","tag-brian-chesky","tag-bumble","tag-business","tag-careers","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-email","tag-emotions","tag-evergreen-refresh","tag-executives","tag-founders","tag-habits","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-jensen-huang","tag-lifestyle","tag-morning-routine","tag-nvidia","tag-productivity","tag-silicon-valley","tag-sleep","tag-whitney-wolfe-herd","tag-whole-foods","tag-will-i-am","tag-work-life-balance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}