Booking Holdings

When Glenn Fogel joined Priceline in 2000, the business was worth a few hundred million dollars. One week later, the Nasdaq peaked, eventually sending its stock down to a dollar a share. But over 25 years later, Booking Holdings has scaled over 1000x into an over $100 billion dollar global travel behemoth. Elad Gil is joined by Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel to discuss his career, from law school and Wall Street to working at Priceline through the dot-com crash, and to helping grow the business into a multifaceted, dynamic travel marketplace in the AI era. Glenn explains how leveraging AI and agents such as Priceline’s ‘Penny’ makes travel planning and customer service better, while emphasizing the importance of preserving some human support for some users. He also talks about Booking’s strategy of reinvesting over $700 million into AI and other technologies while still offering stock buybacks and dividends, the durability of their scale and complexities of dealing with a large portfolio physical properties across the world, and why upskilling is so important for employees amid concerns about AI-driven job displacement. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @bookingcom | @priceline Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 00:05 – Glenn Fogel Introduction 00:41 – Glenn’s Early Career 06:49 – Lessons from the Early Internet 09:24 – Deciding Factors for Exiting 10:56 – Travel Through the Lens of AI 13:30 – Agentic Travel Planning 18:59 – Agents, Token Economics, and ROI 22:46 – Booking’s Capital Investment Philosophy 25:23 – Scale as Durable Asset 29:40 – Purpose and Choosing Wisely 33:18 – AI’s Impact on Jobs 36:38 – Upskilling in the AI Era 38:36 – Public Perception of AI 40:24 – Conclusion

Glenn Fogel

CEO

Booking Holdings

Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, has built a $170B travel empire that includes brands like http://Booking.com, Priceline, Kayak, and OpenTable. Glenn shares insights into how Booking has grown into a global powerhouse, weathering challenges like tsunamis, wars, 9/11, and the COVID-19 pandemic. We dive into the strategy behind the transformative acquisition of http://Booking.com, which now drives 90% of the company’s revenue, and the key lessons Glenn has learned about M&A success. Glenn also discusses how AI could revolutionize travel, from automating customer service to creating seamless traveler-first experiences.   (00:00) Intro (01:37) Overview of Booking Holdings (02:31) Early Days of Priceline and Joining the Company (03:33) Dot-Com Boom and Financial Challenges (07:28) Travel Industry Resilience (07:47) Cultural and Economic Factors in Travel (09:17) Stock Splits and Employee Incentives (13:34) Acquisition of Booking.com and Active Hotels (24:20) Growth and Integration of Acquired Companies (29:11) Artificial Intelligence in Travel (30:57) Future of Travel and AI Integration (38:54) The Greatest Acquirers in History (39:16) Teamwork in Business Acquisitions (40:48) Challenges in M&A and Regulatory Hurdles (41:49) Patterns in Successful and Failed Deals (46:06) Cultural Alignment in Mergers (50:31) Brand Management and Integration (54:14) Regulatory Environment and Smart Regulations (01:00:11) Post-COVID Business Travel Trends (01:08:24) Leadership Through Crises (01:15:33) Technological Advancements in Travel Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow 📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow About the Show Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member. Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.

Glenn Fogel

CEO

Booking Holdings

Today, I’m talking with Glenn Fogel, the CEO of Booking Holdings, which owns a large portfolio of familiar travel brands: OpenTable, Kayak, and Priceline, as well as its largest subsidiary, Booking.com. This episode is pure Decoder bait all the way through — from Booking’s structure, to competition with hotels and airlines increasingly going direct to consumer, even to how European regulation affects competition with Google. Oh, and of course, how Booking is incorporating AI; Glenn has some fascinating thoughts there. Glenn really got into it with me — there’s a lot going on in this space, and it’s interesting because there are so many players and so much competition across so many of the layers, even among Booking’s own subsidiaries. I think we probably could have gone twice as long.  Links:  The oral history of travel’s greatest acquisition | Skift Long-term travel looks like a strong growth industry, says Booking’s Glenn Fogel | CNBC Ryanair wins screen-scraping case against Booking.com | Airways Aggregation Theory | Stratechery A Call for Embracing AI—But With a ‘Human Touch’ | Time Booking.com launches new AI Trip Planner | Booking Priceline releases new AI platform and ‘Penny’ chatbot | Skift Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23976178 Credits:  Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. This episode was edited by Amanda Rose Smith. Our supervising producer is Liam James. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Glenn Fogel

CEO

Booking Holdings

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Vanta. Compliance and security shouldn't be a deal-breaker for startups to win new business. Vanta makes it easy for companies to get a SOC 2 report fast. TWiST listeners can get $1,000 off for a limited time at vanta.com/twist LinkedIn Marketing. To redeem a $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups DevSquad. Most dev agencies only offer developers. Why? Because product management is hard. Get an entire product team for the cost of one US developer plus 10% off at http://devsquad.com/twist. * Today’s show: Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel joins Jason to discuss trends in the travel industry (31:20), healthy M&A environments (24:24), job disruption due to AI (37:22), and much more! * Time stamps: (0:00) Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel joins Jason (2:37) Booking Holdings' companies and their operations (5:30) Shifts in the travel industry (10:52) A look at the ascension of Airbnb (15:25) The impact of alternative accommodations (17:15) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://vanta.com/twist (18:21) AI's influence on user interfaces (20:55) Uber's entry into travel and Uber’s everything app (22:44) Competition in travel (24:24) What makes for healthy M&A in the USA and thoughts on Lina Khan's strategy (28:19) LinkedIn Marketing - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at https://linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups (29:44) Consequences of removing M&A from the table (31:20) Trends in travel over the past two decades (34:14) Advocating for a 32-hour work week in China and the four-day work week debate (37:22) Job disruption due to AI and where will people shift to next (41:01) DevSquad - Get an entire product team for the cost of one US developer plus 10% off at http://devsquad.com/twist (42:19) Traits of generations X, Y, and Z in relation to entrepreneurship and capitalism (45:34) Selecting company leaders and management techniques (48:00) Recovering from COVID-19's impact on the travel industry * Read LAUNCH Fund 4 Deal Memo: https://www.launch.co/fourApply for Funding: https://www.launch.co/apply Buy ANGEL: https://www.angelthebook.com Great recent interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland, PrayingForExits, Jenny Lefcourt Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow Jason: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jason Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

Glenn Fogel

CEO

Booking Holdings