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Co-founder & CEO · Airbnb
Brian Chesky
Rented air mattresses, sold cereal boxes, and built a global travel giant.
- Founded
- 2008
- HQ
- San Francisco, CA
- Sector
- Travel
- Company
- Airbnb
“You guys are like cockroaches. You just won't die. — Paul Graham, to the Airbnb founders
The story in brief
Chesky and Joe Gebbia rented air mattresses in their apartment during a 2007 design conference. Nathan Blecharczyk joined to build the product.
Election-themed cereal boxes kept the company alive and helped win a spot in Y Combinator. Airbnb went public in December 2020.
Read the full story · 6 min readAir Mattresses and Cereal Boxes: How Airbnb's Founders Hustled Their Way Into Y Combinator→Lessons for founders
01
Do things that don't scale
02
Resourcefulness is a signal
03
Solve your own problem first
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