All booked

MARKETS

• U.S. markets: They closed at 1 pm yesterday, but not before tech stocks pushed indexes lower. Traders will take a day off today.

TRAVEL

TripAdvisor's CEO Stephen Kaufer on Activism, Google, and Finding Playa del Carmen

It's an interesting time to be a CEO in America.

On one hand, you're probably enjoying the benefits of a tax cut and a strong economy. On the other...you're under increasing pressure from the public to "take a stand" on the divisive political issues of the day: immigration, guns, racism, you name it.

• Speak out, and you risk upsetting customers, portions of your workforce, and your board.
• Don't speak out, and you risk losing your trust as a leader. After all, can you be counted on to make the tough decisions?

But CEO of leading travel site TripAdvisor Stephen Kaufer doesn't let the pressure get to him. In a one-on-one conversation with Morning Brew, he talked about the importance of activism from the C-suite. His No. 1 issue? The refugee crisis.

And the company has followed suit. In 2016, TripAdvisor's charitable foundation pledged at least $5 million over three years to help alleviate the humanitarian disaster.

MB: What was your thought process behind being vocal on this issue?

• SK: "I sit here in the U.S. in an incredibly wealthy country built by immigrants, and we've kind of slammed the door shut. And I was happy under the previous administration that they had done more, but it was still a pittance compared to the need. And then this administration said, ‘We ban people' and we were vocal on the travel ban."

There's also his legacy to think about:
"It sounds very cliche, but at the very end of the day I don't want my kids and grandkids to look at me as an older gentleman and say, ‘Hey dad,' or ‘Hey granddad..what did you do?' And my answer was ‘Oh, I was busy working on a company.' That's a pretty lame excuse."

So with certain executives speaking out about guns, others about immigration...is this a golden age for CEO activism?

• "You do see it more often than before. I think that's a great thing. I believe that leaders, whether they're business leaders, athletes, performers, people who have a platform to share opinions, are entitled to share them. And I hope people who have opinions similar to mine share those opinions...[the same with] everyone who disagrees with me."

Who else does Kaufer have strong opinions about? Google.

You see, TripAdvisor (and Yelp) have a long history battling the search giant. Among other gripes, Kaufer has called Google out for unfairly prioritizing its own ratings while burying his site's reviews. Back in 2013, he told the FT that Google was the "biggest competitive threat" to the company's travel info business.

Fast forward five years. We asked Kaufer: Is Google playing by the rules?

• "No, not at all. Well, I don't think they're playing fair. A lawyer can debate whether they're playing by the rules and by which country's rules. So the EU said ‘Hey, you're not playing fair by our rules.' The U.S. hasn't come to that conclusion by U.S. law yet."

So is the EU going about this the right way? (Context: In 2017, the EU slapped Google with a $2.7 billion antitrust fine).

• "Yeah. It's taking a long time, but the EU, by my understanding, has recognized that Google has a dominant position in search, and therefore, in the interest of consumers, has to treat other sites fairly. And if they do that, great."
• Bottom line: "Look, everyone has to admire Google as an incredibly useful, powerful, valuable search engine. As Google has become a gateway to the internet for so many people, a position they've often earned, there comes with that a responsibility to share all the information."

Kaufer's seen it all. After all...he founded the company back in 2000.

Ah, the year 2000. Not sure how many of our younger readers remember, but planning a vacation back then was a lot different than it is now. Think: cavemen poking around with a stick.

And that lack of quality information is exactly what spurred Kaufer to create TripAdvisor.

Here's how Kaufer described the vacation that started it all (keep in mind how things have changed: this was not even 20 years ago):

• "What did you do when you wanted to plan a trip? Everybody walked in to their local travel agency. Maybe they came with a recommendation from a friend, or like us, they said, ‘Hey we wanted to go somewhere warm for a week.'"
• "And the agent said, ‘How about Playa del Carmen?' And I'm like, ‘Where's that?' The agent said, ‘South of Cancun and it's not quite as crowded.' And I'm like, ‘Sounds good.'"
• "I didn't even know where the place was."

Kaufer and his wife were then presented with three brochures for various resorts: inexpensive, moderately priced, and the luxury option.

• "We went home to think about it. It was the late ‘90s, the internet existed, so I said, ‘Hey, you know, I could look stuff up.' So I typed in the name of one of those resorts. And sure enough, 10,000 hits came along and I'm like, ‘Good let me find out whether people like this place or not.' I spent several hours, gave up. It was completely useless."

He couldn't find any authentic reviews of real people talking about these destinations. But he had a trick up his sleeve. Wouldn't you know it, Kaufer had a computer science degree from Harvard...which he put to good use here.

• "Eventually, using a fancy, complicated Boolean search I found someone's opinion. It was a type of old blog post or personal homepage of someone who had actually been there, who posted a couple of photos..."

And like many entrepreneurs, he turned a problem into an opportunity. When they came back from vacation, his wife encouraged him to build a search engine that would scour the internet for real people's reviews. So he did.

Now? TripAdvisor-branded sites have 455 million average monthly unique visitors.

So what's his advice to those of us trying to achieve that level of success?

• "It sounds really old fashioned, and it's a phrase that's been repeated...‘The harder you work the luckier you get.'"
• "If you take more swings at the bat, if you put in more hours, if you spend that extra time, if you're an engineer learning online how to do this cool new thing instead of watching a rerun of ‘Game of Thrones'...you're going to get further in your career."

Sure, you won't have much downtime, but...

• "Look, there's 24 hours in a day, and you sleep 8. That's 16 left. You work 8...that's 8 left. You have 8 hours to do something. What do you wanna do with it? Do you wanna screw around with it?"
• "Or do you wanna carve two more of those off to pursue your professional growth or pursue your passion, if it's music or you're a fencer or whatever it is that you're driving to excel at. And if you can take some of that downtime and put it to something you really wanna excel at, my opinion is...you'll go further."

Okay, last question, we promise: You've said that Jerusalem is your favorite place to visit. What do you love about the city?

• "I'm a bit of a history buff. I grew up in LA and history was 100 years old, came east and history was 300 years old...and you know, you go to Jerusalem and history is 2,000 or 3,000 years old. And I'm just in awe of the structures, the culture, the vibe. Look, I've had the opportunity to travel to lots of spots, and it's really hard to pick a favorite. But Jerusalem for me has the historical significance, the architectural significance, and it's got a different culture than most places I go."

*The interview has been lightly edited for content, clarity, and brevity.

BREAKROOM

Four Trivia Questions for the Fourth of July

1. What is the record number of hot dogs eaten in 10 minutes at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest?
2. Guesstimate: This July 4th, how much money will be spent on fireworks, beer, and food, respectively?
3. What was the currency instituted in the American colonies to help fund the Revolution?
4. Fill in the blank: According to the American Pyrotechnics Association, 99% of backyard consumer fireworks __________.

(Answer located at bottom of newsletter)

Breakroom Answers

1. 72. Set by Joey Chestnut in 2017.
2. Estimated (fireworks—$825 million), (beer—$1 billion), (food—$6.9 billion). (Source: WalletHub)
3. Continental Currency
4. Come directly from China