Chip Conley

Hospitality entrepreneur, author
Chip Conley disrupted the hospitality industry — twice.

Why you should listen

New York Times bestselling author and hospitality entrepreneur Chip Conley founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality (JdV) at age 26 and ran it as CEO for two dozen years. Soon thereafter, the young founders of Airbnb invited him to help transform their promising start-up into the world's leading hospitality brand. During that time, he became known as Airbnb's "modern elder," someone as curious as he was wise. This led Conley to write his fifth book, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, which makes a compelling case for intergenerational collaboration.

Conley is the founder and CEO of the world's first "midlife wisdom school," the Modern Elder Academy (MEA), in Baja California Sur, Mexico, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where thousands of mid-lifers globally have made the pilgrimage to learn how to reimagine and repurpose themselves based upon the science of longevity and the art of living. MEA helps its students understand that midlife doesn't have to be a crisis, but instead can be a "chrysalis," a time for shedding and transformation. Conley's seventh book, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better With Age, chronicles what he's learned from serving MEA students from nearly 50 countries.

Conley holds a BA and MBA from Stanford University and an honorary doctorate in psychology from Saybrook University, which is part of the reason he's been called "crossing guard at the congested intersection of psychology and business." He serves on multiple nonprofit boards associated with regenerative living, intergenerational collaboration and arts and culture.

(Photo: Marc Olivier Leblanc)

More news and ideas from Chip Conley

Live from TED2023

Leaping boldly into new global realities: Notes on Session 3 of TED2023

April 18, 2023

From climate change to aging to geopolitics, Session 3 of TED2023 surveyed big issues with worldwide implications. The event: Talks from Session 3 of TED2023: Possibility, hosted by TED current affairs curator Whitney Pennington-Rodgers When and where: Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC, Canada Speakers: Jennifer D. Sciubba, Piyachart Phiromswad, […]

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News

Humanizing our future: A night of talks from TED and Verizon

September 25, 2018

There are moments when the world begins to shift beneath our feet. Sometimes slowly, sometimes dramatically. Now more than ever we are living and working in an era of exponential technological advancement. How we address rapid change, what collaborative relationships we create, how we find our humanity — all this will determine the future we step […]

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Business

Measuring what makes life worthwhile: Chip Conley on TED.com

June 21, 2010

When the dotcom bubble burst, hotelier Chip Conley went in search of a business model based on happiness. In an old friendship with an employee and in the wisdom of a Buddhist king, he learned that success comes from what you count. (Recorded at TED2010, February 2010 in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 17:40) Watch Chip […]

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