This TED Talk features hospitality entrepreneur and author Chip Conley recorded live at TED Salon Verizon 2018.

It was my third day on the job at a hot Silicon Valley startup in early 2013.

I was twice the age of the dozen engineers in the room. I'd been brought into the company

because I was a seasoned expert in my field, but in this particular room, I felt like a

newbie amongst the tech geniuses. I was listening to them talk and thinking that the best

thing I could do was be invisible.

And then suddenly, the 25-year-old wizard leading the meeting stared at me and asked,

if you shipped a feature and no one used it, did it really ship?

Ship a feature.

In that moment, Chip knew he was in deep ship.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

I just sat there awkwardly, and mercifully he moved on to someone else.

I slid down in my chair, and I couldn't wait for that meeting to end.

That was my introduction to Airbnb. I was asked and invited by the three millennial co-founders

to join their company to help them take their fast-growing tech startup and turn it into a global

hospitality brand, as well as to be

the in-house mentor for CEO Brian Chesky. Now, I'd spent from age 26 to 52 being a boutique

hotel entrepreneur, and so I guess I'd learned a few things along the way and accumulated some

hospitality knowledge. But after my first week, I realized that the brave new home sharing world

didn't need much of my old school bricks and mortar hotel insights.

A stark reality rocked me.

What do I have to offer?

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