Airbnb TED - Part 3. Final test

I want to give you a sense of the [blank_start]flavor of trust[blank_end] that we were aiming to achieve. I've got a 30-second experiment that will push you past your [blank_start]comfort zone[blank_end]. If you're [blank_start]up for[blank_end] it, give me a [blank_start]thumbs-up[blank_end]. OK, I need you to take out your phones. Now that you have your phone out, I'd like you to unlock your phone. Now hand your unlocked phone to the person on your left. 5:48 (Laughter) 6:00 That tiny sense of [blank_start]panic[blank_end] you're feeling right now -- 6:03 (Laughter) 6:05 is exactly how hosts feel the first time they open their home. Because the only thing more personal than your phone is your home. People don't just see your messages, they see your bedroom, your kitchen, your toilet. 6:20 Now, how does it feel holding someone's unlocked phone? Most of us feel really [blank_start]responsible[blank_end]. That's how most guests feel when they stay in a home. And it's because of this that our company can even exist. By the way, who's holding Al Gore's phone? 6:38 (Laughter) 6:41 Would you tell Twitter he's [blank_start]running[blank_end] for President? 6:44 (Laughter) 6:46 (Applause) 6:54 OK, you can hand your phones back now. 7:02 So now that you've experienced the kind of trust [blank_start]challenge[blank_end] we were facing, I'd love to share a few discoveries we've made along the way. What if we changed one small thing about the design of that experiment? What if your neighbor had introduced themselves first, with their name, where they're from, the name of their kids or their dog? Imagine that they had 150 reviews of people saying, "They're great at holding unlocked phones!" 7:28 (Laughter) 7:33 Now how would you feel about handing your phone over? 7:38 It turns out, a [blank_start]well-designed[blank_end] reputation system is key for building trust. And we didn't actually [blank_start]get it right[blank_end] the first time. It's hard for people to leave bad reviews. Eventually, we learned to wait until both guests and hosts left the review before we reveal them. 7:58 Now, here's a discovery we made just last week. We did a joint study with Stanford, where we looked at people's [blank_start]willingness[blank_end] to trust someone based on how similar they are in age, location and geography. The research showed, not surprisingly, we prefer people who are like us. The more different somebody is, the less we trust them. Now, that's a natural [blank_start]social bias[blank_end]. But what's interesting is what happens when you add reputation into the mix, in this case, with reviews. 8:34 Now, if you've got less than three reviews, nothing changes. But if you've got more than 10, everything changes. High reputation [blank_start]beats[blank_end] high similarity. The right design can actually help us overcome one of our most [blank_start]deeply rooted[blank_end] biases. 8:56 Now we also learned that building the right amount of trust takes the right amount of [blank_start]disclosure[blank_end]. This is what happens when a guest first messages a host. If you share too little, like, "Yo," [blank_start]acceptance[blank_end] rates go down. And if you share too much, like, "I'm having issues with my mother," 9:17 (Laughter) 9:18 acceptance rates also go down. But there's a zone that's just right, like, "Love the artwork in your place. Coming for vacation with my family." So how do we design for just the right amount of disclosure? We use the size of the box to suggest the right length, and we guide them with prompts to encourage sharing. 9:40 We bet our whole company on the hope that, with the right design, people would be willing to overcome the stranger-danger bias. What we didn't realize is just how many people were ready and waiting to put the bias [blank_start]aside[blank_end].