Srin Madipalli (Airbnb) - The Future is Accessible

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

Stanford eCorner

Journey, Startups, Education, Stanford, Culture, Strategy, Stanford University, Entrepreneurship, Business, Life Lessons, Thought Leadership, Creativity, Etl, Challenges, Leadership, Innovation, Founders

4.4 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While earning his MBA at the University of Oxford’s Said Business School and teaching himself to code, Srin Madipalli found himself compelled by the power of technology to transform the lives of people with disabilities. He soon co-founded Accomable, a web app that grew to list accessible accomodations in 60 countries around the world. In November of 2017, Accomable was acquired by Airbnb, and Madipalli joined Airbnb as its accessibility product and program manager. There, he has overseen the addition of new consumer-facing accessibility filters and features, while also exploring how Airbnb can make its hiring and management practices more inclusive for job candidates and employees living with disabilities. He describes how Accomable grew from a side-project into a fast-growing company that landed at Airbnb, and points out how focusing on accessibility can provide companies with a massive opportunity to engage with the disability community.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Who you are defines how you build.
0:06.7	This is the Entrepreneural Thought Leaders series.
0:10.6	Brought to you by Stanford E-Corner.
0:13.6	On this episode, we're joined by Srin Matapali, product manager at Airbnb and co-founder of Acomable,
0:20.6	a web app that listed accessible accommodations in 60 countries around the world.
0:25.6	In 2017, Accomable was acquired by Airbnb,
0:30.6	and Sren has overseen the addition of 21 new accessibility features for the platform.
0:36.6	Here's Smyndt.
0:38.3	Well, hi everyone.
0:41.3	Thank you so, so much for having me over today
0:44.3	and giving me the chance to share my story and background
0:49.3	and the work that I've done today in order to help people with disabilities using tech.
0:55.0	So today I just want to give a bit of a whistle stop tour of the story behind the Commonwealth
1:01.0	and how we ended up at Airbnb, but also hopefully leave you with some take-home messages about how
1:07.0	investing in accessibility can be really valuable from both just in terms of inclusion but also as a business opportunity and give you all something to think about as hopefully one day you'll end up building building products yourself so as mentioned my name is shwin I share this photo for two reasons one One to prove that I once had, I once had hair and good
1:30.7	looks. The second reason is this photo was taken about a week before I was diagnosed with a condition
1:38.7	called spinal muscular atrophy. So it's a neuromuscular condition that means I don't really have much movement in my arms and
1:46.1	legs. And since I can remember, I have used a wheelchair for mobility. I have a team of carers and
1:53.8	nurses that support me around the clock. And I've sort of used assistive technology since day one.
2:00.4	You know, I think I learned to type on a computer or use voice activation before I even knew how to hold a pen.
2:06.6	So for me, technology, not just on the business side, has had sort of a transformational impact to allow me to live my life since day one.
2:15.6	And as you can see today, you know, I'm sitting in a pretty high-tech
	...

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