Business & Startups

Source

Founders' Letters

Airbnb was rejected by 7 investors

Each one passed. Today the company is worth over $80 billion.

In 2008, Brian Chesky emailed seven prominent Silicon Valley investors seeking $150,000 for a 10% stake in Airbnb. Five ignored him. Two politely declined. The idea of strangers sleeping in strangers' homes was, they said, uninvestable. A cautionary tale about the limits of pattern-matching in venture capital.