I’m Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak and This Is How I Work
In 2004, Orbitz alumnus Steve Hafner co-founded Kayak and fixed the cumbersome plane ticket buying process. As CEO of Kayak, he managed the company through an IPO in 2012 and its $ 2.1 billion acquisition by the Priceline Group in 2013. We asked him how he does his job.
Location: Miami, Florida Current job: CEO, Kayak One word that best describes how you work: Selective Current mobile device: iPhone 7 (just because I flooded my 6 brick with water last week) Current computer: 2015 MacBook Air lacking power
First of all, tell me a little about your past and how you became who you are today.
Like most Americans, I am a mongrel. My mother is Swedish, and my father is German and Irish. I was born in Peru and traveled a lot when I was growing up.
The Internet was created when I was in college and I knew it would revolutionize commerce. After several years of management consulting on bill payment, I left to help open one of the first online travel agencies. We made this company public in 2003 for over $ 1 billion. But I was not satisfied with what we built, so I left and started the kayak.
Since then, Kayak has grown into a global travel company with local websites in 60 countries and over 2 billion consumer requests for information every year. The Priceline Group bought us in 2013 for $ 2.1 billion, but nothing has changed in my role. The world is huge, and people need to see it. Our mission at Kayak is to help with this.
What apps, software or tools can’t you live without?
A kayak is a must, plus Uber and Waze. I travel all the time and FaceTime keeps in touch with my five daughters and fiancé Stacey. For work – Slack, Google Docs and Dropbox. For Game, Netflix, Spotify, Funny and SeatGeek .
I’m also an Amazon Alexa fan. We recently improved your kayaking skill so that you can use your voice to book your hotel room. We’re the first travel company to offer voice-activated hotel reservations, and while this is just the beginning, we’re very excited about where it is headed.
How is your workplace arranged?
Minimalistic. Only a few people at Kayak have offices, and I’m not one of them. I don’t have many things on the table because we change places quite often, so our teams have the opportunity to meet new people. Right now, my place is right outside our kitchen.
What’s your best time-saving shortcut or life hack?
Take a real vacation. My out of office messages tell people that their emails will be automatically deleted while I’m away. If it’s important, they can tell me when I’m back, or they can sort it out themselves. Life is too precious and too short to be always on.
What’s your favorite to-do list manager?
I have a little spiral notebook and I write everything in it – very old-fashioned for a technician. But it’s kind of nice to cross completed items off my list, and it helps me keep a historical record of what I’ve done over time.
What are some of the things you do best in everyday life? What’s your secret?
I play great in almost every game in the bar – pool, cards, cribbage, cornhole, Connect Four, etc. I probably spent too much time in bars during my travels.
What do you listen to while you work?
The news annoys me these days. So most of the time I listen to Lord, Movement or Willie Nelson’s Spotify playlists.
What are you reading now? Or what would you recommend?
My favorite book is Confederation of Doodles, and now I am reading it again. It’s too funny not to come back to it every year. I also recently read a biography of Elon Musk, which inspired me.
How do you replenish? What do you do when you want to forget about work?
I am fortunate to live in Miami Beach and also have a beach house in Roweyton, Connecticut. To relax, I just take my daughters to the beach or to our Chris Craft. I also enjoy training and cross-training.
What’s your favorite side project?
I love handicrafts like yard work and messing around with broken things. I spend so much time with computers and technology that it really feels good to use my hands in the physical world.
What is your sleep pattern? Are you a night owl or get up early?
I aspire to be a night owl, but having two daughters under two years old is very difficult. So I get up early (and often) these days.
Fill in the blank: I would like _________ to answer these same questions.
Paul English, co-founder of Kayak and our former CTO. The best leaders know their strengths and weaknesses and complement the latter with additional talent. Paul is everything that I am not, which was important to our success in the early days.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Be nice. I know it sounds silly. But people have a choice of who to be with, and if you’re cute, they’re more likely to share information and ideas, work better together, and be productive. Kayak’s office culture and environment also reflects this idea. We want our people to have an environment that adds energy to their lives and brings pleasure in coming to work.
Is there anything else you would like to add that might be of interest to the readers?
While I spend most of my time thinking about how to improve Kayak’s travel services and tools, I also think in a broader sense. I am always looking for ways to make life easier. There is so much wasted time, effort and capital in the world.
For example, I can’t wait for self-driving cars and car-sharing fleets to go mainstream. Imagine a world with fewer streets, parking lots, garages and traffic. New York City Might Have Green Pedestrian Streets!