In March 2020, Airbnb was nearing an IPO that would cap one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched growth stories. Then global travel stopped.
Within weeks, the company’s business effectively collapsed as borders closed, flights were grounded, and consumers retreated indoors. For Ellie Mertz, now Airbnb’s CFO, it was the kind of corporate crisis that rendered the usual finance playbook almost meaningless. Scenario planning, she recalled in a wide-ranging interview on Fortune Next to Lead, broke down under uncertainty that was “orders of magnitude beyond” what any company would normally prepare for.
That moment became a defining test for Airbnb’s business model and its leadership. Like many companies in the early days of the pandemic, Airbnb faced an immediate tension: Preserve cash to survive, or support the guests and hosts who make the business possible. It chose to support its community.
At the height of the crisis, Airbnb allowed guests to cancel bookings for free, including nonrefundable stays. At the same time, it paid hosts a total of $250 million to help offset their losses from pandemic-related cancellations. It was an expensive decision for a company whose revenue had fallen off a cliff. But Mertz frames it as something larger than a financial calculation. It was a decision about what kind of brand Airbnb wanted to be after the crisis.
In the short run, the more conservative move might have been to defend cash and let market forces prevail. But brands like Airbnb do not thrive on transaction mechanics alone. Their durability is built on trust, especially in moments when customers and partners are vulnerable.
That kind of brand longevity is hard to model neatly in a spreadsheet, but it can shape a company’s trajectory for years. If Airbnb had forced guests to absorb losses on trips they could no longer take, it risked appearing opportunistic at precisely the moment when people were frightened and financially strained. If it had left hosts to shoulder the blow alone, it could have damaged the supply side of its marketplace and weakened the loyalty of the entrepreneurs who underpin the platform. By absorbing pain on both sides, Airbnb was effectively paying to protect future relevance.
That choice says a great deal about how Mertz sees the CFO role today. In many companies, finance is still viewed primarily as a control function, there to set limits, impose discipline, and say no. Mertz rejects that narrow framing. At Airbnb, she sees finance as a strategic partner, charged with protecting the business while also helping it reach its ambitions.
The pandemic made that philosophy real. Airbnb was not simply trying to survive the downturn, she says. It was trying to emerge from it with trust intact and a brand strong enough to recover faster than the industry around it. It also cemented a core lesson for Mertz: In the moments that matter most, a leader’s job is to help decide what is worth protecting beyond the numbers.
Watch the full interview here.
Ruth Umoh
ruth.umoh@fortune.com
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