No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
00:24:48 · Elad Gil, Glenn Fogel
[00:24:48] S1: Mhmm. Makes a lot of sense. And I think you you folks did something like a record 4,000,000,000 in q one in terms of buybacks and other sort of returns to investors. [00:24:57] S0: You know, I really am very proud of the fact that over the last, let's say, dozen years or so, we've bought back approximately 40% of the outstanding share. That's good. And we offer a dividend. We have a nice dividend. So in the fourth quarter, it was we bought back $3,600,000,000 worth of stock. We gave out approximately, you over 300,000,000 in a a dividend. And in addition, we also were paying for the taxes for the equity grants that vested in the know, paying the taxes to do it by withholding shares that part of the vest. That's another 300,000,000 or A lot of money making sure it's going back to the shareholders if we don't think that we can use it properly ourselves. That's I've I've been really and this got me from an investment banking background, maybe back then or maybe trading, where companies that just build up huge amounts of cash and they're not doing anything with it and they're not giving it back to their shareholders. I'm like, that doesn't seem like the right thing.
00:26:01 · Elad Gil
[00:26:01] S1: I think one last thing that you mentioned earlier, one thing that you mentioned earlier that I thought was really important is just the scale of your business. And I think it's at an enormous scale, and that's kind of underappreciated as an asset. And so as an example, you closed 2025 with what I believe is 8,600,000 alternative accommodation listings. So that's people listing homes or rooms or other things for rentals. It could be a variety of different types of of spots. But that creates a really interesting, I think, durable asset. So, you know, I feel like people overstate sometimes how AI is gonna transform certain businesses. It's obviously gonna be transforming everything. But there are also things that are very hard to build and that are very durable in the long run that if you have an agent that's gonna go and book an alternative accommodation with you because you have all them listed. Right? You have the marketplace built. Are there other aspects of your business that you view as especially durable going into this era?
00:26:53 · Glenn Fogel
[00:26:53] S0: So on that one, it it it is a good point. I think you're right. I think it's underappreciated by some people. Probably, I'd say Americans. Because in the alternative accommodations area, obviously, a big player is someone who invested in very early Airbnb. Congratulations your part. But a lot of people don't recognize that globally, when you look at our amount of listings and you look at Airbnb, it's not that different. And even more so is when you look at our total amount of transactions, our room night for an alternative company, you look at what, you see that we are approximately three quarters the size of Airbnb, and that's just our alternative accommodation. We're the whole much bigger hotel business on top of that. And and, you know, over the last five years, we've been growing for the last five years, we've grown faster than Airbnb in the alternative accommodation area. We do like to like. We've growing faster for the last five years. So it's a great product, great thing. It's going very well. Your question though, does that give us an advantage, so to speak, against somebody who comes in, all they're doing is creating a nice AI, a tentative type system, and how are gonna get the connectivity to these players or not? And I'll say, there is no such thing as a moat. There is no such thing as somewhere you're gonna be protected against innovation. And that's what I try and get across to the team. I've got 25,000 employees. I try and get this across to everybody that every day we've gotta be fighting. And, yeah, today, we have a competitive advantage on areas. Absolutely. But those can go away tomorrow. The only way to wait the only window in the long term is to continue to develop new services, new ways to do things, come up with this agentic travel assistant that I want this university that will make it so much better. That's the only way. Working on the other side, by the way, also very important with the partner to ways that we're helping them a lot. Again, a lot of people understand the complexity involved. It's not just getting the inventory loaded into some database. Anybody can do that. That's nothing. We got thousands of people who are dealing with hotels and other property managers. How can we do your business better? What do you need? Where you need more demand? Where are you hurting? What can we do in terms your systems better?
00:29:17 · Glenn Fogel, Elad Gil
It's so much more complex than I believe many other people who look at this industry from afar and work secondly. This is something really people don't understand. This is the regulatory framework around the world. Dealing with travel is a very highly regulated now it's not a bank. Okay. Got it. And it's not an air claim, you know, airlines such that, or it's, you know, not drug discount, but it is very regulated. And it's complex and you've gotta meet it. And if you wanna be murky of record in travel, you gotta adhere to a whole bunch of rules, etcetera. And by the way, around the world, much more than The US, around the world, those regulations are increasing. Or not saying so exponentially, but let's say they're increasing. That too is something that if you're big at scale, you can afford to deal with that. And if you think you're just gonna come in and do this business and knock away these very big players, I'd say you should really understand what the business is before you decide to commit your capital. [00:30:19] S1: So I guess if you reflect on life or you reflect on things looking forward because, I mean, you've had an incredible run. Right? And the run is by no means over. You know? You still have so much [00:30:30] S0: stuff you're working on and doing. In fact, I think we're just a good start. No. See, this is I tell you, mate. [00:30:35] S1: Yeah. Is the most [00:30:35] S0: exciting time ever, ever because of the ability to build these new things.
00:30:35 · Glenn Fogel, Elad Gil
[00:30:35] S0: exciting time ever, ever because of the ability to build these new things. [00:30:41] S1: Yeah. I agree. I mean, I think this is a transformative moment- Totally. In terms of just technology and the world and society and everything else. And, you know, it's so exciting to be in the middle of all this. And obviously, you all are playing a really prominent role in one aspect of that or a key aspect. You know, you joined Priceline to your point when it was in the hundreds of millions. The stock is now, you know, dollars 130,000,000,000 plus company. It was 180,000,000,000 earlier in the year. I'm sure it'll go back there over time given, you know, all the things we're working on. Fingers crossed. [00:31:06] S0: If we do what we're supposed to do. [00:31:08] S1: How do you think about just like what you hope to accomplish more broadly in life? Or what is the right measure of a person or, you know, of an outcome or of the next few years? Or I'm just sort of curious because, you know, we chatted very briefly earlier, and I felt like you're somebody who's thought deeply about more than just, you know, how will I drive bookings forward? Although, obviously, you think about that quite a bit. I'm just sort of curious, like, you know, what is the right measure in general that you're measuring yourself against or how are you thinking about the next couple of years?
00:31:41 · Glenn Fogel
[00:31:41] S0: Yeah. Well, look, I'm very blessed. I've been very lucky in my life that I'm in a business where I could pretty much do what I'd like to do. And sometimes people ask me, why do you continue to do what you're doing? And I said, because I think part of this is doing something good. And, yeah, we're not curing cancer. I know that. But I think that travel is a very important thing for a lot of people. It really adds to their their lives. You know, we can do it better. Look. Our mission is to make it easier for everybody to experience the world, and I believe that does improve everybody. It improves the world by getting people to travel more, experience other cultures, other people, etcetera. And if we can do it right and make it easier, that's great. I wanna be part. I wanna help do that. I do believe that's adding something. And, that's part of the everybody needs to understand, I believe. Why are you doing what you're doing? You only get one life. You get one life now. Sometimes people don't have choices at all. That's the only job they have. They need to afford to be able to support their family. I got that. Believe that. I know that. But for people who have a little bit of ability to choose, I'd say choose wisely. Choose wisely because you will not get that time back. And some people have different ideas on what will they believe their life should be and that whatever it is, it's long term for going that path. That's great. My biggest fear too much is people who've taken paths that in the end, they're middle aged or later, and they're a little bit wistful about, gee, I wonder if I had done it next. And I'll be perfectly honest and well, hope not to many of my law school classmates, I hope, but I fear that too many of them, they chose going to law school because that was just kind of like a path. Then they became lawyers just because, you know, that's normally what you do when you come out of law school, couple of lawyers. I didn't, but many people did. And then it paid really well and it was easy in their comfort zone. And then later in life, it was kind of like, gee, what did I do? And that's when I think everybody should really think hard about making sure you choose wisely.