Fast company february 2016

Airbnb Wants
To Share
Your Bed.
Are You In?
Why 70 million
guests in
191 countries
isn’t enough
for CEO Brian
Chesky

RULE BREAKERS
How Warby Parker,
Instagram, and 23andMe
“Think Crazy”

57 LESSONS OF
I N N O VAT I O N
Insights from Apple, Nike,
Facebook, Google, and more

TINDER LOVE
On top or in trouble?

His business
is worth
$25 billion,
but Chesky
still rents out
his couch for
$40 a night.

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CALL FOR ENTRIES

THE 2016
INNOVATION BY DESIGN AWARDS
Submissions Open February 9
FastCompany.com/IBD


February 2016

Contents
ABCs of change
“I had to get out
of Silicon Valley to
gain perspective
and see the world in
a different way,”
says Nest CEO Tony
Fadell. (page 58)

SPECIAL REPORT

Lessons of
leadership
Fifty-one of the smartest
thinkers we know—hailing
from Warby Parker to the
White House—share their
insights on what matters
most in a business world that
never stands still.

Cover: Grooming: Julie Dy; styling: Danny O’Neil at Artist Untied; set design: James Whitney at Artist Untied

Begins on page 54

On the cover:
Photograph by
João Canziani
This page:

Photograph by
Samantha Casolari

February 2016 FastCompany.com 7




Contents

Younger and wiser
“I think it’s important to
follow your instincts of
what pleases you,” says
Hollywood costume
designer Patricia Field.

LESSONS OF
LEADERSHIP

“ I t ’s a b o u t l o o k i n g a t t h e w o r l d
in a different way”
58 Nest CEO Tony Fadell and Oscar-

winning actor Jared Leto on creativity,
technology, and invention.

“ F i r s t o f a l l , j u s t l i s t e n a n d l e a r n”
62 Apple senior vice president of retail

Angela Ahrendts on why the tech company’s culture is its greatest strength.

“ P r e s s u r e i s a p r i v i l e g e”
68 Nike CEO Mark Parker and tennis

powerhouse Serena Williams on what it
takes to stay on top.

“Think crazy”
72 CEO Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe

discusses the science of risk taking and
breaking the mold.

10 FastCompany.com February 2016

Photograph by Melissa Golden


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Contents

One rad app
Tinder boasts 9.6 million
daily active users and
1.4 billion swipes per
day. (page 84)

Hair: Katsumi Matsuo at Artmix Creative; makeup: Yuko Mizuno at Rona Represents

FEATURES

A i r b n b’s $ 2 5 b i l l i o n c u l t u r e w a r
76 CEO Brian Chesky has an audacious

plan to remake cities, the hospitality
industry, and our definition of sharing.
Forty million guests in 191 countries
are currently cheering him on.
By Max Chafkin

T i n d e r ’s c u r s e
84 How CEO Sean Rad’s outsize
personality has spurred the dating
app’s amazing boom—and undercut
its credibility.
By Austin Carr

12 FastCompany.com February 2016

Photograph by ioulex


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Contents

16 From the Editor

NEXT

Most Creative People

42 Dulse, a seaweed that

tastes like bacon, may be the
next superfood.

18 Former Spotify exec

Ken Parks on leaving
music for video streaming.

M o v e o v e r, k a l e

The business of beauty

Paying it forward

27 YouTube star turned entrepre-

44 Toms founder Blake Mycoskie

turns a windfall into the next generation of social-good companies.

Dropbox drops off, and more.

neur Michelle Phan is disrupting a
multibillion-dollar industry with her
beauty brand, Ipsy.

The Recommender

A new plan for gun safety

22 From a subscription ser vice

30 Identilock’s fingerprint technol-

for kids to on-demand shoe repair,
what we’re loving right now.

ogy pairs a gun with its owner—and
no one else.

One More Thing

Microsoft finds magic

100 In his final column (for now),

32 Inside the sotware giant’s radi-

Baratunde Thurston shares his
hopes for the future of tech.

cal embrace of inclusive design.

M o s t I n n o va t i v e C o m p a n i e s
20 Snøhetta sets a record,

Bumper crop
When fried, dulse develops a strong umami
flavor. “It disappears
in your mouth,” says
Portland, Oregon, chef
Vitaly Paley. (page 42)

Gatorade plays the data game
48 A fuel-pod engine. A turbine.

Embedded computer chips. Energy
drinks are going high-tech.

Unbreakable
52 Snowe is the latest in a wave of
appealing housewares startups.

Indie power!
36 How A24 is shaking up the staid

world of film distribution.

14 FastCompany.com February 2016

Photograph by Clayton Cotterell


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From the Editor

Embrace
the unexpected

“We came all the way
from Bangkok for this,
and was it worth it? Hell
yeah!!” So wrote Katherine Amatavivadhana,
one of 3,000 attendees at
our inaugural Fast Company Innovation Festival
in New York City. “It was
a visit to a future world
that is already here,”

another attendee from
Bosnia expressed in a
blog post. “During five
days, at a hundred different events, you could
hear about innovation
from the business innovators themselves, from
Hollywood stars, who are
increasingly becoming

What we learned
at the Fast Company
Innovation Festival

2

business people, and from
entrepreneurs, who are
increasingly becoming
media stars.”
We set out to bring
Fast Company’s pages to
life—nearly two dozen
of our cover subjects
joined us, including Nike
CEO Mark Parker and
Apple retail chief Angela
Ahrendts—and in the process something magical
happened: By juxtaposing
perspectives and industries, talents and ideas,
we unlocked a swarm of

insights and inspiration.
Participants connected
in ways we hadn’t anticipated. Who knew that

3

Facebook VP of global
marketing Carolyn Everson was a superfan of Rent
the Runway and would
turn giddy at meeting its
CEO, Jennifer Hyman? Or
that Saint Laurent North
America president Brant
Cryder would be dumbstruck at meeting GE vice
chair Beth Comstock?
Or that ad agency 72andSunny would invite attendees to brainstorm for a
real client? Or that science
guy Bill Nye would bring
down the house when he
shed his bow tie and put it
on DJ Steve Aoki?
“Lessons of Leadership,” beginning on page

4

1

6

5

16 FastCompany.com February 2016

Adriana C. Sánchez (1, 2, 7); Maja Saphir (3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10); Joel Arbaje (8); Celine Grouard (11)

Eat, play...
1. An enthusiastic
foodie enjoys
the Lower East Side
dumpling tour.
2. Makeup mavens
build their own
Birchboxes at its
flagship store.
3. Vanmoof shows off
its new smart bike.
4. The Wild Feathers
perform their countryinfused rock at
Spotify’s New York HQ.
5. Attendees
make music using
littleBits computer
components.
6. Creatives prowl
the catwalk at the
BF+DA fashion show.


54, highlights a selection
of memorable exchanges
from the festival—with

terrific portraits thanks
to a team led by photo director Sarah Filippi—yet
it only approximates the
energy and dizzying array of activities on display.
(Dumpling tour? Fashion
show? Policy hackathon?
Yes, yes, and yes.) We’d initially planned that the festival would be a onetime
occurrence, but the enthusiasm of speakers and
attendees was so robust,
we felt compelled not only
to recap the gathering for
our full readership but to
commit to reprising the

event in 2016. We hope
you’ll join us.
Sometimes “the future that is already here”
can seem a very grim
place: climate change,
economic inequality, intolerance. Our culture can
exercise its most extreme
instincts. But there is another strain of cultural
change afoot around the
globe, from Bangkok to
Bosnia, a more inclusive,
optimistic set of values.
The battle between opposing worldviews is real,
and sometimes dangerous. (Max Chafkin’s feature, “Airbnb Opens Up
the World,” beginning on

7

page 76, explores some
of these conflicts, epitomized in part by the terrorist attacks in Paris in
November.) Yet undervaluing the power of positive
change can be as foolhardy as underestimating
the threat of extremism.
What leadership is really about is choice: What
kind of world do we want
to embrace? And what can
each of us contribute to
making that world a reality? Nike’s Mark Parker
talks about the need to
“edit and amplify” as business leaders—that there
is so much change, and so
many possible tactics and

strategies, that we need
to focus in on what really
matters. We believe that
events like the Fast Company Innovation Festival—
and articles like those we
publish each month in the
magazine and each day
online—help encourage
that focus and act as an

accelerator for a richer future for everyone. What’s
certain is that without
these possibilities, we’ll

never stave off the darkness. There’s no better
antidote to fear than community. And the community of Fast Company has
its part to play.

Robert Safian


9

8

... get inspired!
7. A muppet says
hi at Jim Henson’s
Creature Shop.
8. Bea Miller performs
at iHeartMedia.
9. Lomography shows
off its DIY cameras.
10. Fast Company’s
Night at the Natural
History Museum
offers Ben Stiller–level
backstage access.
11. Style icon Iris
Apfel talks collaboration at Story.

11

10

Photographs by Joel Arbaje, Celine Grouard, Adriana C. Sánchez, and Maja Saphir

February 2016 FastCompany.com

17


Most Creative People

A new channel
KEN PARKS
Then
CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER,
SPOTIFY
Now
EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN,
PLUTO TV

Is passive viewing passé? With
TV watchers increasingly ditching
cable for streaming services like
Hulu and Netflix, that old habit of
flipping through random channels
is fading. But while people love the
convenience and control of streaming, many miss the let’s-just-seewhat’s-on aspect of traditional TV.
At least that’s what Ken Parks is
hoping. Last fall, Parks—who previously oversaw all of Spotify’s U.S.
operations—joined two-year-old
video-streaming company Pluto TV,

a free platform offering more than
100 channels of live-running content: everything from old Cheers
episodes to a live feed of the Bloomberg News channel. “Services like
Netflix have achieved remarkable
success and scale, but if you look at
the data and people’s behavior, the
dominant use case for TV is leanback, linear viewing,” says Parks.
“When you actually survey what’s
happening in the space, we think
that is being neglected.”
Though for now all of Pluto’s
content is licensed (the company
makes money via advertising),
Parks is considering adding original
programming, as well as video on
demand and, not surprisingly, a
premium pay tier. “One of the great
things Spotify did was walk people
through a journey from free to paid,”
he says. “Freemium has been vindicated. You’re seeing the same
thing happening with television.”
—Sarah Lawson
18 FastCompany.com February 2016

HOW HE STAYS
PRODUCTIVE
W H AT I N S P I R E S H I M “Opportunities that arise out of change. From all
that I’ve experienced, change happens fast. The world can look
really different in a few years’ time.” B E S T R E C E N T T E C H D E V E L O P M E N T
“What’s happening with health care and gene therapy and very

personalized approaches to treating cancer.” FAVO R IT E T H I N G TO WATCH
ON PLUTO “I love the extreme-sports channels, and I watch the Hockey
Fights channel, which is 24/7 hockey fights. I grew up in Philadelphia in the era of the Broad Street Bullies. I guess that’s just in my
blood.” S W E AT I T O U T “I’m an avid exerciser. I do a round of resistance
training and cardio training five days a week. It helps me think
better and negotiate better.”

“I focus on the goal we’re
trying to achieve maybe six
months out and prioritize
everything attached to that.
Everything that’s not, I try to
clear out of my day.”
Photograph by Victoria Stevens


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