america. >> thank you for saving the world. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. >> tonight, nbc news goes on assignment. >> you think you saved a life? >> no. i think i did my job. >> josh mankiewicz is on the front line of a whole new war on drugs. >> just makes you want to give up all over again sometimes. >> offenders here don't get handcuffed. they get help. >> you don't arrest them even though they have drugs on them which is illegal? >> correct. >> i think the chief's intentions are misguided here. >> can it work? >> i just want to be sober. >> i sit down with the savvy young ceo of airbnb.

this was the original crash pad. >> this is the original place. >> brian chesky from almost broke to billionaire. >> we couldn't pay rent. we inflated some beds and we called it the airbed and breakfast. >> his empire is now worth more than most hotel chains. >> he took having very ordinary and saw a different way to do it. >> over 50 million people using it. >> you're living large. >> yes. ♪ >> harry smith hits the road. >> i want to take you for a ride to a future when you stop driving and let the car drive itself. >> are you ready for a robotic revolution and maybe an accident free future. >> body shops. >> not so much repair. >> car insurance? >> a third of a what it is. >> lawyers who chase car accidents? >> screw them. >> look who's already behind it. plus, the ultimate guide for grads. >> be kind to others. >> you shouldn't climb on tables. >> from the kids' table. also -- >> we brought out smiles

everywhere we went. an intimate look at muhammad ali, personal images rarely seen. >> it totally shows a different side of ali. ♪ those stories and more on assignment. good evening and welcome to on assignment. i'm lester holt. more americans are arrested for drug violations each year than any other crime, 1.5 million people. tonight a man who thinks all those arrests may be adding to the problem. you'll be surprised at what he does for a living. josh mankiewicz reports from gloucester, massachusetts. ♪ you don't think the war on drugs is working? >> it's done. it's over. it's lost. we've done it for 60 years, billions of dollars. the result, heroin is cheaper, more available, more people are addicted and more people are dying. >> those words come not from a

defense attorney or social worker, but from a career cop. leonard campanello is chief of police in governmenter, massachusetts, a working class port town outside boston. what made him reexamine his department's approach to drugs was a wave of heroin overdoses. >> i had just been called at home about the fourth overdose in the city in the first couple months of 2015. i felt like we were failing. >> in the past when your officers would come across someone who had a small amount of drugs for their personal use, they'd get arrested? >> it's illegal to possess heroin. our historic response was arrest. >> but now the chief started wondering -- and he decided to change the conversation. maybe he thought the answer didn't involve arresting everyone. maybe the answer was changing the way police deal with people who are addicted to heroin. >> you start looking around and realize that the other guy who's supposed to be making up policy

for that. so i sat down and started typing on facebook. >> what the chief posted was controversial if not outright shocking. any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment or drugs and asks for help will not be charged. you take the drugs and needles and dispose of that. >> yes. >> and you don't arrest them? >> no. >> even though they have drugs on them which is illegal? >> correct. desperate times call for desperate measures. >> the chief was not expecting to start any kind of national with debate. >> i was blown away by the reaction. >> keep in mind possession of heroin is a crime. but instead of incarceration, the chief promised addicts a dose of compassion. immediate and guaranteed admission to a detox facility. >> i never thought i'd hear the

day when a policeman would say he didn't want to arrest someone for the crimes they committed. >> we're saying if you continue to arrest and hold accountable for people whose crimes are due to addiction but don't treat addiction, we don't get anywhere. >> he consulted doctors and insurance providers. he called the program the angel initiative. he banned his officers from using the term junkie and told them they would now be helping addicts get into treatment. that surprised this sergeant. >> he was definitely thinking outside the box. we knew we'd be busy. we knew we'd be doing a lot more work. >> his job description suddenly included an elaborate intake process, requiring him to be as much social worker as police officer. >> it's still a form of community police work. so technically it is my job. >> one of the first heroin addicts to show was 24-year-old nathan. >> if i didn't get help that night, i was going to take my

own life. >> he walked into the gloucester police headquarters in july 2015. >> any time i've gone into a police station it's been through the back door in handcuffs. it just wasn't like that. they treated me with respect. >> what they did was find him space in a nearby detox center. they've done the same for more than 400 other addicts in the past year. >> no way to tell how many of those people are going to stay off heroin permanently? >> that's not our responsibility. that's a measure in which treatment providers, insurance companies and the medical community have to step up and start doing their part. >> hi. do you have anything available? >> across the country, addict -- addicts who want to get clean often wait days or weeks for room in a treatment center. by the time something opens up, many have started using again. >> it just made you want to give up all over again sometimes.

>> this woman is cassandra. at 29 she says she's using heroin every day. >> some comes to us, they sit down, we make the calls until we find a place. >> on facebook, it sounds like a great idea. in real life, not everyone's liking it. >> i have no doubt that the chief's intentions are good. he's just going about it the wrong way. >> william fitzpatrick is president of the national district attorney's association. >> it's the prosecutor's job to see who's eligible, who really needs treatment and whether or not they shouldn't be prosecuted. it's not a cop's job to determine whether or not someone gets immunity. >> when was the last time you used any opioid? >> today. >> police, he says, should uphold the law and stop there. >> the chief of police is not the head of social services. if someone walks in and says geez i've got a problem with my temper, i can't stop beating my wife. is the chief going to immunize that person and get the person some type of psychiatric counselling?

>> are you going to stop arresting drunk drivers? >> if a drunk driver presents themselves at the police station and asks for help with their drunk driving, absolutely we'll help them. if we catch them on the road, absolutely not. it's the same with this program. >> for some, that offer of help isn't enough. >> stay focused, okay? you can do it. >> when we met cassandra, she was turning over here needles and heading for detox. >> i don't want to die and be like the last thing that i remember is she was nothing but a junkie. i don't want to be that person. i just want to be sober. >> she did say that, but one day later she was gone. we found her in a parking lot about 45 minutes away and she was using again. >> right now i'm currently high and i haven't like had to work the street yet. but i'm going to have to tonight to have a place to stay. i don't know what else to do. i'm just lost. >> cassandra, i spoke to you

earlier. >> now the sergeant is suddenly forced into a new rol,e from cop to sponsor. >> i've been trying to call her all day long just trying to reach out to her and make sure she's okay. right now she's at serious risk of overdosing. >> whenever you're ready to come back, i'll see you again. >> a few days later cassandra was arrested for shoplifting and spent a month in jail. mccastro was there in court when a judge agreed to release her if she went straight into long-term treatment. >> what are you going to do? >> i'm going to the police department as soon as i get there they'll put me right into a program. >> once again, the program met its limits with cassandra. >> i started making phone calls to find her a long-term program for her to go to. and she started becoming a little bit impatient. >> right now i'm doing a lot of things behind the scenes. >> i know. >> to protect you and keep you clean. >> i know. >> don't waste my time. >> i'm not wasting your time.

>> unfortunately, she ended up leaving while i was making phone calls to try to get her help. i just felt like in court she kind of played us a little bit to get out. i don't think it's a failure of the program. i think it's her not wanting the help yet. she's not ready. >> we caught up with her again that same day at a train station. >> the addiction is so strong that it just keeps taking over. it always takes over, it always wins. >> a day later police found her in a restaurant bathroom. she had overdosed. they managed to revive her and later arrested her. this time the judge ordered her held in jail until she entered a court supervised treatment program. and that is how cases like cassandra's should be handled. by courts, not cops. >> you need that hammer of possible incarceration hanging over the individual to make them successfully complete their treatment program.

>> 400 people have walked through the doors of the police department with no coercion and chose to enter treatment. >> stay in touch. >> okay, but if you lock people up, you are at least keeping them out of my house. >> for a short amount of time they may be out of your hair. however, if we treat them for the long-term, then they may become your neighbor or your best friend. >> so stories like cassandra's don't make you think twice about this? >> no. >> even though it didn't work? >> if you're going to accept it as a disease, you're going to accept the relapse is part of it. it's not a perfect program. it's a step towards treating underlying cause of the crime. >> thank you to my fellow chiefs. >> 100 police departments in 23 states have now adopted elements of the angel initiative. about half of them have the no arrest provision. in march, the chief lobbied the massachusetts legislature to make his idea part of state law. >> this bill helps us to use it without fear that we are doing

something illegally. >> since the program started, addiction related crimes in gloucester have decreased by a third. it's too early to determine how many of the people who turned to the angel initiative are going to beat their heroin addictions. but nathan may be one of them. after detox, gloucester police helped him relocate to florida for further treatment. he says he's been clean for ten months. >> i mean, this is paradise to me. just living a normal life. i never imagined that. >> look at you. jesus, honest to god, you look great. >> on a recent visit, nathan stopped by police headquarters. >> we were really pulling for you. you were in a really bad place. >> i owe you guys my life. i do. like i can't say it enough.

my son wouldn't have a father, mom wouldn't have a son, my sisters wouldn't have a brother. >> nathan's salvation and his gratitude completely floored me and humbled me. >> when you look at nathan, do you think to yourself i saved a life? >> no. i think i did my job. coming up -- >> hands off. let's see what she does. >> look who's behind the wheel. but he's not the one who's driving. >> i'm not touching the brake, i'm not touching the steering wheel. >> cars that drive themselves. jay leno is getting ahead of the curve. that story, next. imagine if thet every day earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you'll get a free checked bag, 2 united club passes... priority boarding... and 30,000 bonus miles. everything you need for an unforgettable vacation.

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hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead, easy on the clutch. ready to throw all those rules of the road out the window? driverless cars are the future. we've all heard that. what you may not have heard is how profoundly they'll change our lives on and off the road.

here's harry smith. ♪ >> i want to take you for a ride to a future where parking lots get turned into parks, where giant auto companies sell rides, not cars, where traffic accidents almost never happen, where thousands of lives will be saved, where you may not even own a car. this future is a lot closer than you think. and it will happen when you stop driving and let the car drive itself. this is a bmw with sophisticated driver assistance. a number of cars offer it. >> i'll show you how this works. >> consummate car guy jay leno shows us how his tesla works. >> i'm not touching the brake, i'm not touching the steering wheel. you see it slowing down? it senses the truck in front of me. >> yeah. >> legally you're supposed to have your hands on the wheel. >> right.

>> my hand is close to wheel. >> cool, no doubt. but we are living on the eve of disruption. why would general motors invest a half billion dollars in ride service lyft? why is toyota partnering with uber? why is chrysler sending minivans to google? from pittsburgh to palo alto, researchers are racing to a driverless future. nissan thinks its simulations will soon become the realization of a new age of automobiles. it's not just cars. mercedes has driverless big mercedes has driverless big rigs in nevada. >> every car company i've been in touch with has woken up. >> meet sebastian. think of him as the godfather of the driverless car. >> five years ago i would run into automotive executives and they it would literally smile at me. i'm the guy who was the dreamer. >> you're the crazy guy? >> now the topic is hot. it took a few years but it's sinking in.

i think the companies are waking up. >> he runs a worldwide learning company. called udacity. before that he helped google start its driverless car program. >> we're nearing a point where i believe the self-driving car drives better than a human being. >> you believe that now? >> yes. and my wife urges me to have the car take over when i drive, because i don't drive as well as my self-driving car. >> the rush to robotic automobiles began as a glean in they the eye of the pentagon. darpa challenged tech types to build a working driverless car. >> everybody knew it could not be done. and i couldn't explain to myself why it couldn't be done, so we decided to give it a try. >> he was teaching at stanford's artificial intelligence lab. he became the head of a team that build a vehicle that drove

itself through more than 100 miles of the mojave desert with no one inside. the year, 2005. it won the challenge. the vehicle, now on display at the smithsonian, always draws a crowd. >> to see a robot my students and i built through this incredible challenge and drive 140 miles through the desert and coming back unscratched, it was a life changing event. >> what did you believe then that you would not have been able to believe before that? >> i believed it was possible. i saw this moment as a complete redefinition of human transportation. i could see all of us driving self-driving cars. >> tr him, that eureka moment was tied to something that happened to him as a teenager. >> when i was 18 i lost a dear friend in a traffic accident. he was out with another friend in his dad's new audi, making a

split-second bad decision, killing both of them on board. >> how? >> it made me think about the million people every year that die in traffic accidents. but we take it for granted. we don't even ask as a society as a question is this the right thing for us to happen? >> more people have died in car accidents in the history of the united states than in all the wars going back to the history of the revolution. >> brad temple has worked on self-driving cars at google. >> it's like curing polio. it's dealing with one of the biggest scourges. it's the biggest reason you'll die between 5 and 35, is a car crash. >> advocates say autonomous cars will take much of the death out of driving. and it won't look a lot different than the way general motors dreamed it would 60 years ago. ♪ >> this is the life. cool comfortable, mind if i smoke a cigar? >> but now that future once imagined is here.

people won't drive and cars won't make mistakes, won't drive drunk, won't text, won't fall asleep. >> some people say the goal is to bring us down to zero fatalities in cars, which would be an amazing goal. i think it will be negative fatalities because there will be people created in cars when this technology coming around. >> in the future, you won't even own a car. you will order rides from an app on your smartphone. as seen in our animation, a vehicle will arrive from a holding lot and take you to work or to school or to grandma's house. >> we're going to see a shift from selling cars to selling rides, which is what uber does, lyft and taxis do. when you see a shift like that, it could be very bad news for some of the big players of the old world of selling cars. >> the ceo of general motors says the car industry will change more in the next five

years than it did in the last 50. could it be that selling rides is a better business than building cars? maybe they'll do both. will there be a day when general motors doesn't make cars anymore? they just service and connect and get people from here to there? >> they're having existential crisis at the car companies about that very question. >> there will be a day as predicted in the movie irobot where the person who knows how to drive will be the outlier. >> what do you think you're doing? >> i'm driving. >> by hand? >> this future, this disruption, will it be a harmonic convergence or a catastrophe? it depends. >> okay, so i'm going to go through a list of professions and businesses, and you tell me whether or not they're in jeopardy with the disruption to

come. body shops. >> maintenance and service, but not so much repair. >> car insurance? >> going to cut to about a third. >> lawyers who chase car accidents? >> screw them. >> driver's ed teachers? >> might want to look for another job eventually. >> drunks? >> they're going to be able to get wasted and get home safely. they're going to love it. >> just think of it, no more road rage, no more fender benders backing up traffic for miles. robot cars would give us a substantial part of our lives back, like the 50 billion hours a year we spend behind the wheel >> what we would like to see is better -- >> but beware says amanda eakin of the national resources defense council. what if we really, really fall in love with driverless cars? >> one of the strange ironies of driverless vehicles is that more people would drive. if they can't move, we haven't really solved any problems. >> think of it as the driverless cars dirty little secret.

>> some studies say up to a 200% increase in energy consumption as people move farther from their jobs, take longer trips and even send empty vehicles circling through our urban areas. >> then there's the tricky matter of judgment. can you engineer realtime critical thinking into a machine? >> you could imagine a scenario where the car has to decide in a fraction of a second whether it's going to impact a pedestrian or bicyclist or whether it's going to stop suddenly in a way that might be damaging to the occupants of the vehicle. how does the car make that decision? >> does the passenger come first or the pedestrian? >> my understanding is that what the google engineers tell you is that they will play out all of these scenarios in advance, sort of preprogram the vehicle to make these decisions. but i think there's still some very important outstanding

ethical questions. >> big questions that need big answers. answers being sought by the u.s. secretary of transportation, anthony fox. >> the technology is very close. how close are we to knowing how safe they are? that's the job we hope to begin doing as we issue guidance in the coming weeks and months. >> fox hopes to have the guidelines that driverless cars need to meet or exceed in place by next month. from what you've seen and what you're hearing, will they be able to actually perfect the technology enough to put these things on the road? to meet, say, your department's satisfaction? >> i think the day is coming, i really do. >> because in the end of the day, it will be up to you to put a seal of approval on it? >> that's right. >> there's no pressure there. [ laughter ]

>> but there's one more thing. what does jay leno, america's consummate car guy, think of cars that drive themselves? we'll ask, next. developed our most revolutionary feature yet. a car that can see trouble and stop itself to avoid it. when the insurance institute for highway safety tested front crash prevention nobody beat subaru models with eyesight. not toyota. not ford or any other brand. subaru eyesight. an extra set of eyes, every time you drive. poallergies?reather. stuffy nose? can't sleep? take that. a breathe right nasal strip instantly opens your nose up to 38% more than allergy medicine alone. shut your mouth and say goodnight, mouthbreathers. breathe right. thisproof of less joint pain and clearer skin. this is my body of proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis

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one more thing about self-driving cars, despite all their apparent advantages, it's still hard for many of us to fathom letting go of the steering wheel. >> i predict an automobile like this, mustang, like a ferrari, like a lamborghini will become

the equivalent of a snowmobile. it's something you use on weekends to have fun. that is a 16 -- 1960 pannard. >> jay leno loves cars. he has airplane hangars full of them and hosts jay leno's garage on cnbc. our guess, he'd be no fan of self-driving cars. we were wrong. he's seen how stupid we can be on the road. >> i remember i'm driving once. i look over and this woman has a sweater. she's got it over her head and she's like this. i'm, what are you doing going down the highway? at 60 miles an hour? that person should be in a driverless car. yeah, i don't want her on the road. >> but can we trust cars that drive themselves? >> you get on a plane. there's nobody flying that plane. it's on auto pilot. the pilot is just sitting there. the pilot doesn't do anything. that's a robot. >> he does get it off the

ground. >> and then they lock that door and i have no idea what goes on in there. you're in a flying can with a machine driving you. if you trust it at 30,000 feet, why wouldn't you trust it at three feet? >> if you're still not convinced, consider this. >> when we were kids we predicted flying cars, you wouldn't eat a meal, you'd just take a pill. remember all that? nobody ever predicted gps. nobody even thought that was possible. >> human behavior being what it is, maybe machines will be the answer. >> i'm one of those people that believes engineers will save the world. people always fear what's ever new and different. if you said to someone, a car with no steering wheel, no, i don't want that. suppose the car saw something you didn't see and stopped in time to not hit a kid on a bicycle? yes, i'd like that. >> one less accident, one less fatality. then think of it multiplied by millions. for sebastian, the future can't come soon enough.

you told me about your friend who you lost in the car accident and you said i'm going to save a million lives. do you feel like you're fulfilling that dream? >> i think i'm on the way. i think we're making it reality in society. i haven't quite fulfilled it yet because i haven't saved million lives. but i'm confident it's going to happen in the near future. coming up, graduation. one of life's big moments. tonight, some big life advice. >> walking on the beach is not a good idea. >> don't shine a light on your eye. it's the most painful thing. >> from the kids' table. our new cocktail bitters were doing well, but after one tradeshow, we took off. all i could think about was our deadlines racing towards us. a loan would take too long. we needed money, now. my amex card helped me buy the ingredients to fill the orders. opportunities don't wait around, so you have to be ready for them.

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>> the hour's top stories. orlando police have identified 27 yeertion kevin james louville as the gunman who shot and killed former vous contestant christina grimmie. he deliberately targeted here

and took his own life following that shooting. in tampa, donald trump called on skeptical republicans to unify behind him, while also taking jabs at mitt romney, who suggested the billionaire promoted trickle-down racism. now back to "dateline: on assignment." it's commencement season. graduates everywhere are getting lots of lofty advice on life, happiness, success. but the wisest words of all just might come from the kids table. >> you're about to enter the most uncertain and thrilling period of your lives. >> who do you want to be? >> listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. ♪ >> you can go to places that you like to go. i would like to go to the pizza place. >> when you're trying to find a job, take a job that you want to

do and not that other people want you to do. >> if it's like raining, then it's a rainstorm. you have to stay inside. >> once after dinner, i wanted a piece of candy. and like they wouldn't let me have a piece of candy. >> you have to stick with it. you have to be persistent. >> and i started yelling at them and they should have gave me the piece of candy. >> you should be kind to others. >> do not forget the people who helped you. ♪ >> don't get mad at your husband if you ever marry. >> walking on the beach is not a good idea. crabs might pinch your feet. >> you all have to figure out how to balance success, happiness and ambition. >> you shouldn't climb on tables. >> don't jump off a cliff.

>> do not take other people's medicines. >> you should never rob, you should never like murder someone. >> when you see things that are broken and you will see things that are broken, go fix them. >> if you accidentally broke something on purpose, you would say sorry. >> don't shine a light on your eye. that is the most painful thing. >> did you try it before? >> yep, i've tried it before. >> congratulations, class of 2016. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ [ laughter ] coming up, you stand back and you go whoa, what did we do? he's the guy who inflated three air mattresses into a $25 billion company. >> 25 billion, with a b. >> the spare room to riches story behind airbnb.

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next, a story of how to become a billionaire. start with three air mattresses, rent out a room in your home and end up with a business bigger than most hotel chains. tonight the man behind it all shares his playbook for success. he's also about to share his fortune. ♪ >> this is going to be really cool. >> he's just 34 years old. already a billionaire three times over. >> you want to play guitar? >> he's the ultimate game-changer. >> you live and learn? >> yes. >> but you might not have heard his name. brian chesky is the guy who runs and cofounded the home sharing website airbnb. >> were you surprised at how quickly this concept grew? >> yes. >> i mean, at some point, did

you stand back with your partners and go, whoa, what did we do? >> yes. i never even heard the word entrepreneur growing up. >> the to me the story of brian chesky is the story of the american dream. >> "new york times" columnist and cnbc anchor says he's a visionary. >> he has revolutionized the hospitality world, tourism, real estate and trust, the way we trust each other. >> airbnb connects strangers, both owners and renters for short-term stays. owners post pictures and descriptions of their properties which could be spare bedrooms or entire homes. one attraction for renters is that the rates are usually lower than hotels. >> we didn't invent the idea of somebody staying in someone else's home. i think we created a simple way with trust to connect people all over the world globally at a scale that has never been seen before. >> airbnb now has more than 2 million listings in this 191

-- in 191 countries. the company gets a cut of each rental and is worth more than almost every giant hotel chain. such a big success, financier warren buffett wishes he had come up with the idea. >> why didn't i come up with it? i wish i could have. brian took something very ordinary, lodging, and he saw a different way to do it. >> brian chesky grew up in a suburb of albany, new york, he was a star hockey player and an artist. his parents debra and robert are retired social workers. they're still surprised at the path their son took. >> honestly, this is the last thing we would have thought of. >> he was very much into art and sports at a very young age. got him a drawing board, sketch pads. he just kept drawing and doing all that type of stuff. >> that led him to the rhode island school of design where chesky showed off a bit of a

cheeky streak, dancing to "billy jean" at graduation. after college he ended up in san francisco, nearly broke when he as his roommate had a eureka moment. >> we couldn't pay rent. and this design conference was coming to san francisco. we realized we have extra space. why don't we provide a house for designers who didn't have extra beds. joe inflated some beds and we called it the air, bed, and breakfast. it was only a way to host these three people that one weekend. this was a recreation of the original apartment that joe and i started the airbnb in that very first weekend in october of 2007. almost every little piece has been created. >> this was the original crash pad? >> this was the original place. one of the couches in this room was the one that they stayed on. >> so you had couches and an air mattress. >> yes. >> in many ways that was the bedrock of the whole idea? was that people have that

experience? >> yeah. that first weekend, what i did not predict was three people living with you, it takes like a year or two-year relationship and it contracts it into a matter of days. >> you're sharing the kitchen, the bathroom. >> by doing that, you get to know somebody really quickly. you become extremely close. i remember, joe and i were waving our guests goodbye, and we immediately thought, if people knew, or could experience what we just experienced this could be an idea that would spread around the world. >> the roommates quickly realized they'd stumbled on a concept for a whole new business. starting with a simple website, chesky and his roommate and a third partner recruited others to rent their places. week by week, year by year, the listings grew from one city and one country to another. what do you know now that you didn't know when you started? the pitfalls, the problems, the issues? >> i think a lot of people when you start a company they think it's all about having an idea. when you run a company, you realize you need to have an idea like every hour.

>> maybe his best idea was to ask for advice. he sought out luminaries like mark zuckerberg and warren buffet. >> we talked for hours and hours. i love talking to a guy like brian. i learned something. he's enthusiastic about his business like i'm enthusiastic about mine. it's always fun to talk to somebody that's excited about what they're doing. >> and they offer two and a quarter million homes around the world. >> in the nine years since airbnb started chesky has become a titan in what's called the sharing economy. that includes companies like uber and wework. >> thank you everyone for coming today. >> but chesky and airbnb's success has not been without growing pains. >> i don't want to dissuade you of the view that there are questions about this business model, because there are. the idea that there are homes, apartments and other pieces of real estate that were never supposed to be rented that now are. how did the neighbors feel about

that? that's real. >> it's ironic in your home city there was a ballot measure last november, essentially aimed at placing a number of restrictions on airbnb? how did that feel? >> it was tough. but i totally understand that ideas that are new, it's easy to misunderstand them. the san francisco measure targeting airbnb was defeated. but criticism continues. this past week, tv ads sponsored by a group of housing advocates and the hotel industry alleged racism in the airbnb booking process. >> i am a black woman. i get declined all the time on airbnb. >> new york city public advocate leticia james is a critic. >> what they need to do is revise the discrimination policy and issue a zero tolerance policy for discrimination. >> airbnb announced on thursday it is undergoing a review to make sure everyone is treated fairly. chesky tweeted that

discrimination and racism have no place on airbnb. there have been other complaints about safety, breaking zoning laws and not enough vetting of owners and guest. >> how does the organization make sure that everyone's okay? >> the foundation of this is really having a real identity. one of the core ideas we had is there's no strangers on airbnb, there's no anonymity. we know who the people are. so having identity is core to us. we have this program called verified id where we ask you -- and this is continually set for rolling out -- we ask you to put on record a copy of your government id. >> and there are other issues. >> unfortunately airbnb is taking too many affordable housing units off the market. >> it's your contention that some of the places that airbnb has on the market would otherwise be available for rent? >> it is illegal to rent out an apartment for less than 30 days.

but unfortunately a significant number of individuals are using sites as airbnb to rent out their apartments that otherwise could be used for affordable housing in new york city. >> are you undermining the rental market in some of these communities, places where the demand exceeds the supply? >> i mean, i think we have a very primary view, which is that we want to be part of solutions in cities, not part of a problem. so we only want people to share homes they live in. i believe in the city even if there is a kind of rental contraction, if people are renting the homes they live in, then by definition they're not taking homes off the market and in fact helping them stay in their homes. >> the reality, critics say, is that thousands of new york apartments on airbnb are not owner occupied. yet to untold numbers of people making extra money, chesky is a life safer. >> i think he's provided a great service. >> nebraska homemaker carrie and her husband rent out this spare room above their garage for $75

a night to help pay for their daughter's college tuition. >> it provides extra income that we normally wouldn't have. >> brian chesky's latest market may surprise you. cuba. we met up at an airbnb in havana. >> i've never been to another place like this before. >> reality check time. >> yeah. >> former hockey playing kid, grew up outside albany in cuba. part of a presidential trip touting a multibillion dollar company in, oh by the way, a communist country. how does that feel? >> you put it that way. it's very surreal for me to be here. i never imagined growing up ever traveling to cuba, let alone having a platform where we have over 4,000 homes here. so it's just incredibly humbling and gratifying for me. >> amidst the vintage cars and a skyline essentially unchanged since 1958, chesky is pushing the future fast forward.

you do battle in san francisco, your hometown. yet you come here and you're blossoming. >> absolutely. >> this is your fastest growing market. how is that? >> havana is growing faster than new york was at its age one year in. >> in havana chesky and airbnb were held up as shining examples of american entrepreneurship by president obama himself. >> what's the valuation now? >> quite a lot. >> don't be shy. >> 25 billion. >> with a b? >> are you competing with hotels or are there people who would stay in this gorgeous house here and take this trip because they can stay in this house? >> i think that, you know, for us to win, first of all, i don't think anybody has to lose. >> so you can peacefully coexist with hotels? everybody thrives? >> i believe we can. it's a multitrillion dollar industry. there issue billions of trips every year. hotels are doing better than

ever since we started airbnb. i think they're going to continue to do well. >> but of course airbnb can offer a few settings a hotel chain can't. among unique listings recently, in california a mushroom dome. in paris, a chance to stay in the catacombs. and in amsterdam, an entire grounded klm airliner was for rent. with all of airbnb's success, chesky's personal net worth is estimated at $3.3 billion. just this week he and his cofounders signed up for the giving pledge, once again following the guidance of warren buffet. >> the giving pledge asks people to pledge morally not legally very wealthy people will give away at least half of their money if not in their lifetime then at death. what they can do for humanity beyond what they've done in their business, can be huge. >> for now at least chesky is one of the richest young people

on the planet. he and his girlfriend travel the world together. so i had to ask -- when you travel do you stay with an airbnb host? >> of course. of course. always. i just came back from tokyo. we did a week vacation. we stayed in two different airbnbs. >> do they know who you are? >> i try not to tell them who i am because i want to see the experience that other guests are getting. i don't want to get a special experience. sometimes they figure it out. >> coming up, a fighter and a father. >> i said, hey champ, can i get a picture of you with laila? it's one of my favorite photographs. >> remembering muhammad ali. built with passion... ines but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business...

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"may i be excused?" get the new xfinity tv app and for the first time ever stream live tv, watch on demand, and download your dvr shows anywhere. ♪ finally tonight, an intimate look at muhammad ali. michael gaffeney was ali's personal photographer in the '70s. now he shares some rarely seen images with us. ♪ >> he was the most known and popular person in the world at the time that i was a photographer for him. people related to him. they loved to see him. he brought out smiles everywhere we went. when he fought, he lost the fight. he was resolute in regaining the championship. that is probably one of the most significant pictures i took of him, because that shows the true

spirit of a champion. i said, hey champ, can i get a picture of you with laila? and he said sure. and so he knelt down on the floor and was just -- just -- just holding her. and to me, it's one of my favorite photographs because it totally shows a different side of ali, a father. ♪ he was a relentless warrior in the ring. he was never knocked out. he was knocked down. but he also showed a great will to survive fights and get up. he said, a champion has to have the skill and the will. but the will must be stronger than the skill. and that was something that he

carried through his whole life. ♪ that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. unexplained images that captivate and perplex. >> the alien in the film i saw looked like it had been very badly injured. >> an eerie evening in a junkyard. >> the thing was out here just twirling around up in midair. >> it or she is looking for something. >> and formations that seem to appear out of thin air. >> it's amazing. >> it's very mysterious. we don't know what it is. >> in this episode, film and video that many believe provide evidence of mythical creatures on land -- >> here's the proof. here's proof that bigfoot exists. >> -- sea -- >> something just shot across