CEO Diaries: Airbnb’s Founder Brian Chesky on Brutal Rejection, Great Leadership, and The Biggest Mistake Founders Make!

This was one of my favorite business conversations that I've ever had on the Direver CEO podcast, and it's frankly set the bar for every CEO or co founder that I ever interview. Brian taught me, more so than any other guest I've ever had on the show, how important hiring, culture, and team building is. The reality of running a small business is that switching off is never really an option. Even when you try, the ideas, the excitement, and all the responsibility is always there. And because you're always switched on, it's only fair that your hiring partner should be too. LinkedIn Jobs, who are the sponsor of this moment's episode, has been that hiring partner for me and for years, because it's always working away in the background. My team can post our jobs for free, share them with our networks, and reach top talent all in the same place. So let's get into today's conversation. At the very beginning. I saw this email.

Which I think is really important because maybe it's the most important thing because there are gonna be people uh starting companies now that are getting a lot of emails like that. This is From august first, two thousand eight. We were by the way, so let me give the context of this email.

So Jane Jonah and I were trying to raise money. For everyone trying to raise money, I want you to know that Airbnb was trying to raise a hundred and fifty thousand dollars at a one point five million dollar I think post money valuation. I'll give you that right now. Exactly.

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