16 Feb, 2023

E158 – Adam Schwab, CEO and Co-Founder at Luxury Escapes

Adam Scwhab runs at a million miles an hour – literally, he runs barefoot marathons! The CEO and Co-Founder of Luxury Escapes, Adam Schwab is our guest this week. 

Outside of running one of the country’s most successful, bespoke travel sites, and running really far without shoes, Adam is also a contributing journalist and writer, podcast host, father of two young children, is on the investment committee of Save The Children, and is an angel investor. 

An ex-lawyer, Adam and Luxury Escapes co-founding partner Jeremy Same (an ex-banker), started their first business in 2004 – apartment accommodation for backpackers. Fast forward to 2023, Luxury Escape has 510 staff on its books across Australia, Sri Lanka, India, Brazil, Ukraine, and New Zealand and will turn over close to $1b this year. 

Ian and Adam discuss a heap including:

• Taking asymmetric risks 
• How COVID affected the business and helped them pivot their product offering 
• That every great founder balances incredible self confidence with consistent paranoia 
• His podcast From Zero 

And so much more. 

Quickfire Round 

Book: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Podcast: Pivot, What The Flux 

News Source: AFR, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg 

App: BOM 

Tech CEO: Jeff Bezos 

Productivity Tool: WhatsApp 

TV Show/Movie: WeWork, Superpumped, The Crown – fact based fiction 

Ted Talk Topic: n/a 

Luxury Escapes are always hiring and Adam’s DM’s are open. Hit him up on Twitter.