Airbnb announced on Thursday that airline industry veteran Fred Reid has joined the company as global head of transportation to lead an intensive push into transportation.
“We’re going to explore a broad range of ideas and partnerships that can make transportation better. We haven’t settled on exactly what those will look like,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said in a statement.
Back in 2016, Bloomberg reported that Airbnb was developing an air travel booking service, called Flights, which would put it in direct competition with companies like Priceline and Expedia for more of the online travel spending pie. The platform was reportedly due to launch about 18 months later, prior to an initial public offering. Just over two years later, there’s been no word about Flights and an IPO date has not been confirmed. However, Reid joining the company appears to solidify its push into travel.
An Airbnb spokesperson told Cheddar Arbnb wasn’t ruling out an option to book a plane ticket, but emphasized that Reid’s transportation effort will be about much more than just providing a way to buy a ticket.
“I’m not interested in building our own airline or creating just another place on the Internet where you can buy a plane ticket, but there is a tremendous opportunity to improve the transportation experience for everyone,” Chesky said.
Prior to joining Airbnb in January, Reid served in executive roles at Virgin America, Lufthansa German Airlines, Flexjet, and Delta Airlines, where he led the formation of SkyTeam alliance. In his last role as president of Cora Aircraft Program, a division of Kitty Hawk, he oversaw the development of an autonomous electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
Reid’s experience and connections within the industry will be key as Airbnb gets serious about fleshing out its transportation offerings, and forging partnerships that, in Reid’s words, “make travel easier and even fun.”
“Airbnb and its incredible global community have revolutionized where you stay and what you can do when you travel,” Reid said in a statement. “I’m excited to work with them to tackle the third part of the travel experience: how you get there.”
Umbilical cord blood banking platform Anja Health raised $4.5 million dollars in a seed round led by Seven Seven Six, a venture capital firm founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Anja Health offers a personalized, doctor-backed cord blood bank, which lets new parents freeze stem cells from their child's umbilical cord so they can be used to treat diseases in the future. It's a process Anja has called 'Hollywood's best-kept secret,' as celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Serena Williams, and more have all banked their umbilical cord blood. Kathryn Cross, the founder of Anja Health, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Catching you up on what you missed in today's news. Elon Musk has increased his commitment to purchase Twitter to $33.5 billion, Apple is raising its hourly wages for retail stores to compete for talent, and Roblox has announced that it will be partnering with the medically prescribed video game ‘Endeavor’ to help treat patients with ADHD.
After learning that the suspect in the Uvalde school shooting posted about his intentions on Facebook, activists are urging social networks to make changes. Lena Derhally, a licensed psychotherapist and author of "The Facebook Narcissist," joined Cheddar News to discuss the role social media plays in school shootings. "They're not really invested in taking down hateful content," she said about social platforms."In regards to the shooting, it was 15 minutes before that actual threat. It would be pretty hard for a social media company to trace that threat that quickly. But what they can do better is take down threats and hateful content much faster and more than they're doing now."
Esper Bionics CEO Dima Gazda breaks down how they're creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it, and what this innovation means for the future of the prosthetics industry.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: Brightseed Co-Founder breaks down what plant bioactives are, and how they're using the latest technology to study human's biological connections with plants; Esper Bionics CEO breaks down how they re creating a mind-controlled bionic hand that guest smarter the more you use it; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Capturing A Black Hole In Our Milky Way.'
