_edited.jpg)
In the world of startups, productivity is often linked to office culture—are employees coming in early? Are they staying late? Are they logging enough hours? But Brian Chesky, the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, has a completely different take on what truly drives people to work hard.
According to Chesky, it’s not about office mandates, badge scans, or micromanagement—it’s about something far more powerful: ambitious goals and frequent check-ins.
“If you want people to work hard, have a launch deadline, make the thing crazy ambitious, and check every week.”
This idea isn’t just a nice theory—it’s the exact strategy that helped Airbnb go from a struggling startup selling cereal boxes to a $100 billion company. And if you look closely, you’ll see that the world’s greatest innovators, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, have all used this method to push their teams toward extraordinary achievements.
Let’s dive into why this works—and how you can apply it to your own startup, team, or personal projects.
Why Hard Work Needs a Forcing Function
Most projects don’t fail because people are lazy. They fail because there’s no clear forcing function—a pressure mechanism that ensures real progress happens.
Chesky points out that many big projects require 20 different teams to collaborate. But without a strong external driver, nothing moves fast enough.
“If you don’t have a forcing function, there’s no mechanism to drive change.”
A forcing function is something that makes inaction impossible. It’s the difference between a book you plan to write “someday” and a book you must finish because you signed a contract with a publisher. It’s the difference between saying you’ll launch a product “when it’s ready” and setting a public release date that puts pressure on the entire company.
At Airbnb, that forcing function is a big launch. They set an ambitious goal, make it a public event, and check progress every single week. This ensures that work doesn’t just “happen” when people feel like it—it happens because there’s no other choice.
Steve Jobs’ “Stacking the Bricks” Strategy
Brian Chesky learned a key lesson from Steve Jobs that explains why deadlines are so effective:
“Steve Jobs had a concept he called stacking the bricks. He said if you have a pile of bricks and you lay them on the ground, no one will notice the ground. But if you stack them vertically, you create a tower and everyone notices the tower.”
Think about it: when you work on a project bit by bit with no clear end goal, your work is invisible. It’s just another “brick” on the ground. But when you have a launch—something that brings all the work together into a big, visible moment—suddenly, it’s a tower that grabs everyone’s attention.
That’s why Steve Jobs was obsessive about launches. Apple’s legendary keynotes weren’t just about marketing—they were forcing functions that pushed the entire company to deliver something remarkable by a specific date.
Imagine if Apple had taken a slow, incremental approach to launching the iPhone. Instead of a massive, game-changing product unveiled in 2007, we might have seen “iPhone 0.1,” then iPhone 0.2, then iPhone 0.3…” It would have been completely forgettable.
Instead, Jobs made sure that every product launch was a spectacle—a moment that forced his teams to stack their bricks into a visible tower.
How SpaceX Uses Forcing Functions to Make the Impossible Happen
Another master of this strategy? Elon Musk.
If you look at how SpaceX operates, it’s clear that ambitious deadlines and public launches are the secret behind their rapid progress.
In 2017, Musk announced that SpaceX would send people to Mars by 2024—a timeline that seemed impossible.
In 2018, he promised that a Japanese billionaire would take the first private flight around the moon by 2023.
In 2019, he said Tesla would have fully autonomous self-driving cars by the next year.
Now, let’s be real—Musk is notorious for missing deadlines. But that’s not the point. The point is that his deadlines force action. His teams work as hard as the goals are ambitious, just like Chesky described.
“You'll work as hard as the goal is ambitious and the frequency of check-ins.”
By setting extreme targets, Musk ensures that even if his teams fall short, they still achieve something remarkable. If he had played it safe, SpaceX wouldn’t be landing reusable rockets, Tesla wouldn’t be a global leader in EVs, and Neuralink wouldn’t be pushing the boundaries of brain-computer interfaces.
Why This Works: The Psychology of Deadlines and Pressure
There’s a psychological reason why this method works so well.
A study on motivation found that people perform best when they have a challenging but achievable goal—something just outside their comfort zone but not completely out of reach.
If a goal is too easy, people get lazy.
If a goal is too hard, people get discouraged.
But if a goal is ambitious yet possible, people push themselves to new levels of effort.
This is why companies like Amazon set insane Black Friday shipping goals, why Olympic athletes train against the clock, and why Elon Musk gives his teams impossible deadlines. The urgency creates momentum.
How to Apply This to Your Own Work
You don’t need to be running a billion-dollar company to use this strategy. Here’s how you can apply Chesky’s formula to your own projects:
1. Set a Public Launch Deadline
Pick a date and announce it publicly (or at least to your team).
The more people know about it, the stronger the pressure to follow through.
2. Make It Ambitious
Choose a goal that is just outside your comfort zone.
If it doesn’t make you a little nervous, it’s not ambitious enough.
3. Have Frequent Check-Ins
Don’t just set a deadline and forget about it.
Hold weekly reviews to track progress and keep momentum.
4. Create a “Stacking the Bricks” Moment
Instead of small updates, aim for a big reveal—a moment where all your work comes together into something impressive.
5. Use Deadlines as a Forcing Function
If your project is dragging, set a deadline.
If your team isn’t moving fast, set a launch event.
If you want to make real progress, commit publicly and make it impossible to back out.
Final Thoughts: Why This Matters More Than Ever
The world is filled with people who have great ideas but no urgency. They want to start a business “someday,” write a book “when they have time,” or launch a product “when it’s perfect.” But without a forcing function, that day never comes.
Brian Chesky, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk all understood one thing:
Deadlines create pressure, pressure drives action, and action leads to breakthroughs.
So if you want to push yourself (or your team) to do something extraordinary, stop waiting and set the date.
The world doesn’t notice bricks lying on the ground. Stack them into a tower—and make sure everyone sees it.
Ready to supercharge your innovation efforts? Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly insights, tips, and stories to help you stay ahead in the race of innovation!
Watch Brian Chesky's advice:
Comments