Steve Hafner, co-founder and chief executive of Kayak, is living up to his reputation for being one of the liveliest annual on-stage interviewees at the Phocuswright Conference.
On-stage he says that he was chatting with the two make-up artists prior to going on-stage and that he asked them what they use to book with flights - and they told him Google.
"That was not a great way to come on stage. But Google has come long way. They have a pretty good product. It's really fast and intuitive to use. It's uncluttered with ads, which Kayak is a bit guilty of. It's fun to compete with them."
In perhaps the newsiest bit of his talk, he says that by the end of the year Kayak will end its relationship with ITA Software by Google as a supplier of flight data - something it has relied on since its earliest days. It will rely instead on data sources like from the major global distribution systems, online travel agencies, and some supplier-direct data.
When asked about whether Google is unfairly promoting some of their services over their advertisers's, he agrees that is a sound criticism.
"It's totally unfair. But if any of us were the CEO of Google we'd be doing the same thing."
"Unlike TripAdvisor, we've never relied on Google for a lot of free traffic, and we never have."
"Our goal is to make a better product than Google and to advertise so that people come directly to Kayak."
"Our product is more comprehensive than Google's. We show airlines and suppliers that they don't. We're more accurate. But we're not as fast. So it depends what you're in the market for as a consumer."
Little over an hour before Hafner is speaking, Airbnb says at its conference about five blocks away that it would start adding flights via its new Trips effort. But Hafner says he isn't worried because he believes the attempt will be "unprofitable" for the startup.
"I' not really worried about Airbnb getting into flights any more than I worry about Hotels.com getting into flights by adding a flight tab."
"Their problem is they have this two-sided marketplace wher they're charging the provider of content and they're charging the guest and - basically take a search fee, a tax. I think that's going to be competed away."
"Normally I don't give away free advice. But if I was one of the Airbnb guys, I'd worry less about experiences and more about the consumer fee."
When asked about TripAdvisor's struggles with its Instant Booking product, he reminds the audience that Kayak was a pioneer of facilitated booking.
