[bfieidhbrjr]

Revisionist BS.

"it seemed like he [pg] dismissed the idea itself entirely"

"As they started to pack up to leave, Gebbia pulled out the ce­real boxes; against Blecharczyk’s wishes, he’d sneaked them into his bag. He walked over to Graham, who was by then talking with his partners, and handed him one. Graham thanked him, awkwardly"

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/airbnbs-surprising-path-to-y-c...

[dang]

You've truncated the quote to imply the opposite of what the article says! Here's the rest of the passage:

Graham thanked him, awkwardly — he thought they had bought some cereal for him as a weird or bizarre gift. The founders told him, no, they had made and sold the cereal boxes — it was, in fact, how they’d funded the company. They told him the story behind the Obama O’s. Graham sat back and listened, newly intrigued. “Wow,” he mused. “You guys are like cockroaches. You just won’t die.”

I can add something about the cockroach metaphor. At the kickoff meeting of the W09 batch, pg told us "you have all been chosen because you are cockroaches—except for one group of romantic dreamers". Of course we all thought we must be the romantic dreamers.

[ma2rten]

I'm inclined to believe pg more than the wired reporter. The wired article reads like it had been dramaticized.

[dang]

Journalists can't help but write that way, but it rings true to me. The cockroach metaphor was definitely on pg's mind in late 2008/early 2009—he repeated it to us too, saying that they had optimized the W09 batch for survivors. Sequoia had recently issued its "Winter is coming" memo (https://techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/sequoia-capitals-56-slide-...) and everyone was expecting the climate to be tough—as it indeed turned out to be.

And the awkwardness when pg thought they were trying to give him a marketing gift is definitely true to character.

[unityByFreedom]

Is negging a thing among VC's? IIRC the same thing happened with Reddit when PG rejected their first idea and told them to make Reddit. Props to the Airbnb guys for sticking with their idea. Looks like they're all still involved with the company too which is nice to see.