Brad Schultes’24 pitched Airbnb (NASDAQ: ABNB) on November 13, 2023. Airbnb operates a global marketplace, where hosts offer guests stays and experiences on their platform. Airbnb is a community based on connection and belonging. They have over 4 million hosts with 7 million listings that have welcomed over 1.5 billion guest arrivals to over 100,000 cities and towns in almost every country and region across the globe. Brad’s investment thesis highlighted Airbnb’s dedication to lifelong customers with its community-centric approach, along with a scalable business model that positions the company as a software-centric entity in the Consumer Discretionary sector. Due to fellow students’ views on business travel recovering to pre-pandemic levels and growing, the class concluded that Booking.com (BKNG) would be better suited for business travel needs. As a result, the class voted not to add ABNB to the portfolio, opting to retain BKNG instead.