Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were two broke roommates in San Francisco who rented out three air mattresses in 2007. In 2008, seven investors passed on a 10 percent stake for 150,000 dollars, and the founders sold 40 dollar cereal boxes to stay alive. This film follows the Y Combinator break, the 2020 layoffs, the December 2020 IPO and the company's numbers as of October 2026, about 105 billion dollars in market value, using SEC filings and major outlets. Company claims and critics are attributed in the film.
Sources: Airbnb SEC filings and shareholder letters (2020, 2025, Q2 2026); Brian Chesky, "7 Rejections," Medium (July 12, 2015); Fred Wilson, AVC (Mar 16, 2011); WIRED (Feb 21, 2017); Fortune (Apr 19, 2023); Airbnb CEO message (May 5, 2020); CNBC, Reuters, AP, Bloomberg, Barron's and Crunchbase News (2020 IPO and layoffs); Los Angeles Times and Ballotpedia (2015 Prop F); The Guardian, Bloomberg and WIRED (2023 New York law); CompaniesMarketCap, Nasdaq and Yahoo Finance market data (Oct 19 and 20, 2026).
Photo credits: Brian Chesky at the State Department: U.S. Department of State, public domain. Brian Chesky: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0; LeWEB12, CC BY 2.0. Joe Gebbia: Laurenbusto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nathan Blecharczyk: Web Summit, CC BY 2.0. Paul Graham: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0; Kevin Hale, CC BY-SA 2.0. Fred Wilson: Joi Ito, CC BY 2.0. RISD flags at the Mandel Building: Kenneth, CC BY 4.0. Airbnb and Sequoia Capital logos: public domain. All via Wikimedia Commons. Logos are trademarks of their owners, shown for news commentary.
Some scenes are illustrative AI generated visuals, which are depictions and not real footage. No generated faces of named people.
