Biography | Brian Chesky — 888 Brannan, the Factory They Took in 2013

People look for Airbnb in a listing on another continent. The first headquarters that looked like the product sat here. 888 Brannan Street is a five-storey factory of 1917 at Eighth and Brannan in Showplace Square, built to make Eveready batteries. The city listed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. SKS and Vantage bought the foreclosed lot in 2011 and gutted it for offices. In May 2012 Airbnb signed a ten-year lease for about 170,000 square feet, a jump from the Potrero Hill rooms it had just outgrown. Chesky told the San Francisco Chronicle the lease was a commitment to stay in the city and to hire here. The company then employed about 125 people in San Francisco and planned for more than 800 desks. Move-in was planned for February 2013 and completed over that summer. On 5 March 2013 Chesky walked Mayor Ed Lee and Supervisor Jane Kim through the unfinished atrium. Gensler and Interior Design Fair fitted meeting rooms as copies of listings and named the cafeteria AteAteAte after the street number. Wired published the finished rooms that December. The building is still the company's San Francisco home. In October 2024 Airbnb extended the lease through 2037 for more than 250,000 square feet. The Chronicle recorded the renewal as a decision to keep a hometown floor after the firm had already dropped four neighboring buildings. A visitor can stand on Brannan and see the brick factory. The atrium and the copied apartments are inside a working office. Do not treat the sidewalk as a tour of desks. Photo: 888 Brannan, San Francisco, 2016, Dllu, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons. The panorama shows the battery factory that became the headquarters.