Darren Huston, Business Person Of The Year

Darren Huston has been at the Priceline Group since only 2014, but the CEO is making big moves and they’re already paying off: The company sold $50 billion worth of travel in 2014 and posted an 11% increase in profits in its most recent quarter. Darren Huston shapes the company in two ways:

• First, his experience in digital at Microsoft and consumer services at Starbucks have made him a meticulous, hands-on operator.
• Second, Darren Huston’s made some promising acquisitions in his short reign.

Read full article @ https://fortune.com/businessperson-of-the-year/2015/darren-huston/

Darren Huston Good Year For The Company

Darren Huston, The Priceline Group is the dominant online player based on its scale, speed, search engine marketing strategy, and conversion skills, but perhaps its compensation policy should be added to the list of factors, as well.

• Priceline’s stock price increased 87% in 2013.
• Its gross bookings jumped 37.7% year over year.
• Priceline’s adjusted EBITDA climbed 35.9% year over year, and
• Priceline retained its position as the leader in global room nights booked.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2014/04/24/priceline-ceo-huston-earned-17-9-million-in-2013-a-very-good-year-for-the-company/

Darren Huston Challenges In Travel

Darren Huston said “What an asset, but on the other hand it’s a little bit of baggage for us because we’re the Priceline Group. Every time I do an interview, they show a picture of William Shatner. We’re just so much more than that. I hope people start to learn that. I love our legacy namesake business, but look, we’ve got OpenTable, Booking.com, Kayak. We’re now listed as one of the best companies to work for in the Internet segment in Fortune.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2016/02/01/challenges-in-travel-booking-2016-booking-com-needs-to-steal-expedias-thunder/

Darren Huston Have Double The Hotel Bookings Of Expedia

While Expedia dominated headlines with its more than $6 billion worth of acquisitions in 2015, the Priceline Group needs to win the narrative back and CEO Darren Huston made his case about his company’s competitive advantages.

“Our capabilities and scale in partner acquisition, customer experience, and efficient demand generation plus our large installed base of accommodations and loyal travelers give the Priceline Group a competitive moat that is deep and wide,” Darren Huston said.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2016/02/17/priceline-group-ceo-we-have-double-the-hotel-bookings-of-expedia/

Darren Huston runs BlackPines Capital Partners

Darren Huston, who now runs BlackPines Capital Partners. Operto Guest Technologies, a property automation system for vacation rentals, hotels, and serviced apartments, disclosed that last year it raised about $2 million in funding from angel investors.

The Vancouver-based startup, which has 15 employees, automates guest entry by programming unique codes for every reservation onto keypad locks. Its other tools monitor noise, occupancy, air quality, and thermostat control. The company has debuted a new dashboard for workers to use. In the next three months, Operto will add integrations with leading hotel property management systems.

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2019/02/08/2nd-address-raises-10-million-for-rental-bookings-travel-startup-funding-this-week/

Darren Huston Not Acquire HomeAway

Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston touts his company’s organic growth versus Expedia Inc.’s strategy of mostly acquiring companies that need to be put back on track. Rest assured, however, that Priceline would plunk down a few billion dollars on the right acquisition target. It just wasn’t HomeAway, and TripAdvisor and Airbnb are too expensive.

CEO Darren Huston says his company didn’t get involved when HomeAway put itself up for sale because “we’re quite picky” and HomeAway’s model of allowing vacation rental owners to wait 24 hours before confirming a booking and charging travelers a booking fee “just didn’t fit us.”

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2015/11/30/interview-priceline-ceo-on-why-he-didnt-spend-4-billion-to-acquire-homeaway/

Darren Huston Doesn’t Appreciate Direct-Booking Moves

Darren Huston is that chains are shooting themselves in the foot and their properties aren’t happy when the chains offer lower rates on their own websites because then their listings on Booking.com won’t convert as well as they should. But as Darren Huston says in a different context, perhaps the hotels would reply that they are “playing the long game.”

Read full article @ https://skift.com/2016/02/17/priceline-group-ceo-doesnt-appreciate-hotel-chains-direct-booking-moves/

An Engineer.ai Assembly line for apps

Conventional thinking says that one needs to know coding or be an engineer to create an application. Engineer.ai proves it otherwise, getting Artificial Intelligence (AI) to do the job, or at least most of it. Says Sachin Dev Duggal, CEO and founder of Engineer.ai, “I am an engineer and many like me don’t want to do repetitive codes like Facebook login. We have to utilise engineers to do the important things—like the logic and flow of an application and actually thinking through a customer’s problem,” he explains.

Engineer.ai treats app creation as an assembly line production process. When an app needs to be designed, the majority of it is done in the first couple of hours by the AI on his platform. And then, software engineers (from a workforce of 26,000) work on the little parts remaining to complete the app (like how technicians fix a car’s chassis, engine and wheels in a car assembly line), thereby leaving the repetitive work to AI and focusing on the creative parts that actually need human attention. The AI in Engineer.ai platform, called the Builder, draws from a library of ‘Components’ to build the repetitive blocks which have already been built before.

Some 60% of software is ‘Components’ which need not be done again. This could be Facebook login or integration with an analytics provider,” says Sachin Duggal. The rest 40% is business logic and design. To do this, Engineer.ai partners with a number of software companies from whom developers are brought on board, depending on the complexity and features of the project/apps that need to be delivered. The developers’ time do not overlap with their original employers.

Read full story @ https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/an-ai-assembly-line-for-apps/1638580/