Justin Kan & Brian Chesky: The Rejections That Built Twitch and Airbnb | E2344

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist CLA: https://claconnect.com/tech Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Lightfield: http://sentry.io/twist

Today’s show:

Google once interviewed the entire Justin.tv (now Twitch) team and then walked away from an acquisition deal, saying they weren’t good enough. Seven investors passed on buying 10% of Airbnb for $150,000, a stake pegged at roughly $9.25 billion today.

Lon Harris and Alex Wilhelm revisit classic TWiST interviews with Justin Kan of Twitch and Brian Chesky of Airbnb to find out what those founders understood that the market didn't.

PLUS, how did a box of cereal win over Paul Graham and get Airbnb into Y Combinator?

Flashback Guests:

Justin Kan on X: https://x.com/justinkan Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/

Justin Kan (@justinkan) on X

Brian Chesky on X: https://x.com/bchesky AirBnB: https://www.airbnb.com/

Relevant Links:

TWiST E900: Justin Kan, co-founder of Justin.tv, Twitch & Atrium (Feb 5, 2019) → https://thisweekinstartups.com/episodes/L3DP8VCE12s