Starwood Hotels

And the design sophistication, the expectations of guests and the brand's responses.

And so you look at, you know, Marriott and then acquiring Starwood and the influence on the design world.

Here you look at...

I found it to be very... encouraging and inspiring that from sort of the bottom up there was this this like elevation of design and I think there's a lot of things that go into that of in here in the United States in particular I think that there's um very highly evolved design cultures in a lot of countries and I think our country has its own sort of pace and ideas about design and I I feel like in our careers here in the duration of our careers, Dan, we've seen that kind of baseline elevate.

That was amazing.

Because.

Again, you're, I also, you know, you talk about this like data-rich, thoughtful, responsive journey that if you think about, I can't even imagine, but I see all the work that Marriott did post-acquisition of Starwood.

And then it's 30-something brands, but all just how Marriott evolved.

So shortly after, as you described, I worked down in Providence, Rhode Island as we were still going to school.

And then I wanted to travel the world, graduated 2006, went and live in Hawaii, in the island of Kauai, worked for Starwood at the time at the beautiful Princeville.

If you've never been there, it's probably one of the most beautiful places in the world.

And then I had a brother that worked at Four Seasons.

I was ultimately the chief marketing officer of Deloitte Worldwide.

And then I went over with a client that was working at Starwood Hotel as the chief marketing officer and head of sales there.

Ultimately, after some entrepreneurial ventures with Mike Milken and a few others, I started my own firm focused predominantly on the power of high impact teams.

to influence transformation of organizations.

Yeah.

Well, interesting.

My first book, Never Eat Alone, was written because somebody came along and said, Keith, how did you become chief marketing officer at Deloitte by the time you were 30? How did you become an officer in a Fortune 500, Starwood Hotels, you know, in the next couple of years after that? It was a chronicle of how relationships have been so crucial in my career that it opened up the doors of opportunity in my life.

And I wanted to share that with the world.

Exactly.

Have you ever wondered why some of the most significant data breaches in history didn't lead to your personal information being sold on the dark web? Why did the stolen data from breaches like Anthem, Starwood Marriott, the OPM breach, and the infamous Equifax breach vanish into the ether, while other breaches see data auctioned off to the highest bidder? Let's talk about these four breaches, since they all have one major things I common.

Oh, I remember some of them.

I know about the Anthem breach.

Okay, tell me about the Marriott breach.

What happened there? Well, there was several.

The hospitality giant Marriott International discovered in 2018 that its subsidiary, Starwood, had been under siege since 2014.

The breach affected approximately 500 million guests, exposing information ranging from contact details to passport numbers.

It's easy to feel like you're on the same team when you stay at Sheraton.

Starwood preferred guests earn star points regardless of what team they root for.

So everybody wins.

Watch the games or check the scores with free internet access and widescreen TVs in the link at Sheraton.

Airbnb's gross bookings last year were 240 million, according to PrivCo.

That's approaching Marriott's 1 billion, Starwood's 2 billion, Hyatt at 2 billion, and Hilton at 4 billion.

That's a big deal.

And Airbnb's growth is at the expense of hotels.

It's an American multinational hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts.

Starwood.

As of 2020, its portfolio includes 6,000 properties, including timeshare properties.

Hilton? Yeah, with 983,465 rooms in 118 countries.