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This Week in Startups

This Week in Startups

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

Oct 1, 2026 · 1h 18m

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This Week In Startups is made possible by: Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twist CLA: https://www.claconnect.com/withyou Sentry: https://sentry.io/twist Lightfield: https://lightfield.app 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…