President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Booking Holdings Inc
Travel Through the Lens of AI with with Booking.com CEO Glenn Fogel
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 an...
About Glenn Fogel
Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings, has been discussing the company’s focus on artificial intelligence and its integration into travel services. In interviews and earnings calls, he described the company’s AI-powered agentic tool, Penny, as having doubled its adoption each month, though he noted it remains a small portion of total bookings. Fogel stated that the company is investing in generative AI, fintech, and its “connected trip” vision, which aims to combine multiple travel services into a single, seamless experience. He also highlighted the company’s transformation program, which he said had enabled approximately $550 million in annual run-rate savings by the end of 2025, with plans to reinvest those savings into strategic priorities. Fogel has also addressed broader industry and economic topics. He stated that he does not believe large language models pose an immediate threat to travel platforms, calling that concern “overblown.” He discussed the impact of AI on jobs, saying that while new roles are created, the speed of job displacement and the challenges for displaced workers are significant concerns. Fogel emphasized the company’s responsibility to help employees become “AI literate.” On geopolitical shifts, he noted that Booking Holdings is seeing changes in travel patterns, such as Europeans traveling less to the U.S., but said the company is agnostic to destination and well-diversified globally. He also stated that the company no longer expects to be a major player in China’s domestic or outbound travel market.
Transcript (36 segments)
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Glenn Fogel0:00
There is no such thing as a moat. There is no such thing as somewhere you're going to be protected against innovation. Today we have a competitive advantage on areas absolutely but those can go away tomorrow. The only way to really long term is to continue to develop new services, new ways to do things. How can we do your business better? What do you need? Where you need more demand? Where are you hurting? It's so much more complex if you think you're just going to come in and do this business and knock away these very big players. I say you should really understand what the business is before you decide to commit your capital.
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Host0:43
Today on No Prior, we're talking with Glenn Fogel, the CEO of Booking Holdings, a 20-some year veteran of the company who joined when it was just PriceLine and worth a few hundred million in the year 2000 and has since helped grow it to a hundred billion plus company with multiple massive assets across travel that are now being used in the AI era. We will talk about a variety of topics with Glenn that span everything from the growth and changes that have happened in bookings over time as well as his own career and perspective on AI. So Glenn, thank you so much for joining us today.
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Glenn Fogel1:16
Well, thank you very much for having me.
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Host1:18
Yeah, so you've had a really interesting career. You went to Wharton, you went to Harvard Law, along the way you worked in the MIS program at Morgantown. I'd love to just hear a little about your early background and how that led you eventually to Booking.com and eventually Booking Holdings.
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Glenn Fogel1:37
So, real short, I came out of Wharton with a degree in finance and ended up in the back office in MIS. My first job was putting tapes on a drive in a data center. That's where I started as an operator. Then I became a developer, but I learned that wasn't a career for me. A lot of my undergrad friends went into investment banking and made money, so I thought I should try that, but you can't just jump from one career to another. So I went to law school, ended up on Wall Street as a banker. I did that until 1995, then the bank was bought and they fired most of the bankers, including me. Being fired was a great lesson—I learned what it feels like and it's stuck with me. After that, I was unemployed, my father died, my grandmother died, even the dog died. I decided to write a novel. I got it done and tried to get it published. I met a woman on a blind date who used to work at Random House as an editor; the book never got published, but I married her and we have two great kids. She told me to get a job if the relationship was going to work. A friend from law school got me a trading position at Morgan Stanley. I became head trader for a guy named Barton Biggs, but I didn't like it. Then the internet boom hit, and in 1999 I interviewed at PriceLine. They offered me a corporate development job, but I waited for my bonus in February 2000. I joined right after the NASDAQ peaked. PriceLine's stock went from $30 billion market cap to a few hundred million in months. Our stock traded at a dollar, we did a reverse split to $6. I stayed, and I've been there 27 years.
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Host6:36
Wow.
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Glenn Fogel6:37
Our stock was at a dollar, we did a reverse split to $6. I've been there 27 years, and last summer we came very close to $6,000.
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Host6:54
Wow.
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Glenn Fogel7:03
Over a little more than a quarter of a century, up a thousand times. Market cap was peaking around 180 billion, remember it was a few hundred million.
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Host7:14
Yeah, it's amazing.
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Glenn Fogel7:15
It's been a good ride so far. But of course, you never stop. Every day is a new adventure. You got to fight for a customer every day.
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Host7:27
How do you think about the lessons from that internet era in terms of the current AI wave? Because we're seeing this massive shift in market cap, a premier explosion of new things, optimism, then backlash. The numbers are much bigger now, but I see a lot of parallels.
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Glenn Fogel7:58
Yeah, because when I look at it now, companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have enormous revenue bases, and you see highly valued companies without revenue yet. In the internet era, about 1500 companies went public, and maybe two dozen are left. It's similar.
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Host8:07
Do you think the same will happen to AI companies? Something different?
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Glenn Fogel8:56
I wouldn't guess at the ratio. There have always been speculative booms over the last 150 years. They create tremendous innovation. But there will be a lot of disappointment and people losing money. That's the nature of how economies work. But there are also real companies.
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Host10:19
How should founders decide whether to keep going or sell? Today there are many exit options. Do you think people should mainly be thinking about exiting now?
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Glenn Fogel10:26
I can't give a general rule without knowing the specific facts. There were times when PriceLine would have been happy to sell. It depends on the situation, how confident management is, and what you're trying to achieve. What is your motivation? Are you trying to make something that matters or just make money? Both are fine, but you have to understand your own goals.
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Host11:33
Back to Booking. One of the categories where AI is experimenting is travel. OpenAI had Checkout in ChatGPT, then canceled it, and Booking went up 8%. What didn't work there? How should people think about travel through the lens of AI?
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Glenn Fogel12:08
First, people from the outside thought it would be easy for AI to take over travel, so travel companies took a hit. When OpenAI announced they weren't doing commerce, it flipped. The truth is, we see AI as an incredible tool to make travel easier and better for customers. We have travelers and partners. AI, especially large language models, can help provide information and do things more efficiently. Don't read too much into that one incident.
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Host14:08
In Silicon Valley, people are very AGI-pilled. They think agents will do transactions for you—sourcing trips, buying travel. A, do you think that's correct? B, how do you see it interacting with Booking?
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Glenn Fogel15:23
Customers find travel frustrating, especially complex trips. Wealthy people have human travel concierges; others rely on family or do it themselves. AI can make it much easier. We are already offering personalized agents that know everything about you and can handle all the permutations. I tried PriceLine's Penny with a very complex family trip: multiple destinations, miles vs. cash, and it worked beautifully. The key is when things go wrong—AI can predict and fix problems. My goal is to have a system that can even suggest changes before problems occur.
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Host19:37
Penny adoption has doubled every month, with higher conversion and lower cancellations. What are the most common use cases? What does it not do well?
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Glenn Fogel20:15
We're still small in absolute numbers. Last year we did $86 billion in travel—over a billion room nights. We're not pushing Penny fully yet. We need to understand the cost: token economics, which models to use for which purpose. It's fascinating. For customer service, AI is great—it's faster and can handle problems without hold. But we must balance customer preference; some still want humans. Customer service costs per reservation are down about 10%, and satisfaction is up.
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Host23:24
You mentioned investing $550 million in AI and platform on your Q1 call. Where are you investing that capital and effort?
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Glenn Fogel23:40
The investment is actually higher—around $700 million this year. It's in many areas, not just AI. We're reinvesting in the company, considering acquisitions, and returning capital to shareholders. We've bought back about 40% of outstanding shares over the last dozen years, and we offer a dividend. If we don't think we can use cash properly, we give it back.
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Host24:49
You did a record $4 billion in buybacks in Q1. And your scale is enormous—8.6 million alternative accommodation listings, which is durable. People sometimes overstate how AI will transform everything, but marketplace assets are hard to build. What other aspects of your business are especially durable?
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Glenn Fogel26:53
In alternative accommodations, we're about three-quarters the size of Airbnb globally, and we've grown faster over the last five years. But there is no moat. You have to fight every day. Today's competitive advantage can be gone tomorrow. Long-term success comes from developing new services, like the agentic travel assistant. We also help partners with complex needs, and the regulatory framework in travel is very important. If you think you can just come in and knock away big players, you need to understand the business before committing capital.
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Host30:19
Reflecting on your life and career, you've had an incredible run and it's not over. How do you think about what you hope to accomplish? What is the right measure of a person?
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Glenn Fogel31:41
I'm very blessed. I can do what I like. I continue because I think travel adds to people's lives. Our mission is to make it easier to experience the world. I believe that improves the world. You only get one life—choose wisely. My fear is that people take paths that leave them regretful later. I hope my law school classmates don't feel that.
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Host33:58
We've talked about AI's impact on jobs. There's the claim of a job apocalypse. What are your views?
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Glenn Fogel34:08
Technology replacing jobs has happened forever. The issue is the speed of change. At Booking, we saw machine translation eliminate many translation and customer service jobs. Now, AI is replacing analyst jobs in finance and other fields. New jobs will be created, but not at the same rate. I'm concerned about people who can't adapt, like a 50-something truck driver. Society has seen force dislocations cause problems. We need to think about how to deal with these changes. At our company, we upskill employees and make them AI-literate. Governments' retraining programs haven't worked well. I want more conversation about this, because if people reject technology out of fear, we'll be disadvantaged against places like China.
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Host39:15
That makes sense. Surveys show people love using AI tools but also fear it. We need to be level-headed and ensure people benefit. Appreciate your perspective.
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Glenn Fogel40:10
Part of the problem is that in a democracy, people say things that get votes. I'm in favor of democracy, but I wish people were more honest.
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Host40:30
Yeah, 100%. Thank you so much for joining today. Really appreciate you sharing your views across all these topics.
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Glenn Fogel40:40
Well, thank you and congratulations on all the things you've accomplished. It's pretty impressive.
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Host40:47
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