Airbnb: From Air Mattresses and Obama O's Cereal to a $100 Billion IPO

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In October 2007 San Francisco roommates Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia could not make rent while a design conference had filled every hotel, so they rented air mattresses on their living room floor and served breakfast. In 2008 they added former roommate Nathan Blecharczyk as CTO and launched Airbed and Breakfast that August. With no investors interested, they sold Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's cereal boxes at $40 each around the 2008 election and raised $30,000. Paul Graham took them into Y Combinator in early 2009 for $20,000 and a 6 percent stake, told them to do things that don't scale, and they flew to New York to photograph listings themselves. By March 2009 they had 10,000 users and the shorter name Airbnb.

Venture money from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz and TPG pushed the valuation to $30 billion by 2016, funding acquisitions such as Crashpadder, Luxury Retreats and HotelTonight for $400 million. Cities pushed back: Amsterdam and London capped rental days, Paris set 120 days, Barcelona voted to ban short-term rentals by 2028, and New York barred stays under 30 days unless the host is present. The company canceled Washington, D.C. bookings around the 2021 inauguration, left domestic China in 2022 and reversed a ban on West Bank settlement listings. When COVID-19 cut bookings by up to 96 percent it laid off a quarter of its staff, then went public in December 2020, raising $3.5 billion at a $100 billion valuation.

• A Lisbon moratorium on short-term rentals mainly pushed up hotel prices rather than lowering local housing costs.
• Victims of hidden cameras and violence at rentals have sued the platform for negligence.
• Co-founder Joe Gebbia's move to the Department of Government Efficiency in 2025 triggered user boycotts.
• A global party ban in 2022 used software that weighs a guest's age, distance from home, stay length and day of week.
• Revenue reached $12.2 billion in 2025, and the app now books chefs, massage therapists and trainers.