StarZero All shows Try the podcast clipper →

Dec 6, 2018 · 16m · how-i-built-this

Airbnb's Joe Gebbia At The HIBT Summit

Joe Gebbia · 10m spoken Guy Raz · 4m spoken
0:00 / 0:00

gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

At the How I Built This Summit, host Guy Raz interviews Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia about overcoming investor rejection, iterating through multiple failed launches, and cultivating the resilience needed to build a global company.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 29.6% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Guy as informed peer 3.5 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 0.8 Guy pushing back 2.0
05100:0010:001:05–4:33 · Guy as informed peer 4/10 Facing Investor Rejection and Testing the Idea Raz cites specific early fundraising stats to set the stage and plays devil's advocate defending early investors who thought the idea sounded crazy. Gebbia warmly agrees and describes the visceral reactions received over the 2007 holidays.4:33–7:09 · Guy as informed peer 3/10 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Early Experiments Raz probes whether Gebbia's persistence is a rare innate wiring or if he ever gave up. Gebbia clarifies the pre-Airbnb journey and recounts his early experiment turning discarded blank proof books into sketchbooks.7:10–10:34 · Guy as informed peer 5/10 Paul Graham's Advice and Iterating Through Failed Launches Raz introduces the story of Slack and Stewart Butterfield to challenge the idea of endless persistence, asking when founders should actually pack it in. Gebbia explains Paul Graham's 'don't die' mantra and recounts iterating through four failed launches.10:34–15:58 · Guy as informed peer 2/10 Learning Resilience Through Discomfort Raz asks if psychological resilience can be learned, prompting Gebbia to recount overcoming public speaking anxiety followed by a vivid narrative of acting as customer support and delivering his own mattress at midnight.1:05–4:33 · Guest teaching 2/10 Facing Investor Rejection and Testing the Idea Raz cites specific early fundraising stats to set the stage and plays devil's advocate defending early investors who thought the idea sounded crazy. Gebbia warmly agrees and describes the visceral reactions received over the 2007 holidays.4:33–7:09 · Guest teaching 2/10 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Early Experiments Raz probes whether Gebbia's persistence is a rare innate wiring or if he ever gave up. Gebbia clarifies the pre-Airbnb journey and recounts his early experiment turning discarded blank proof books into sketchbooks.7:10–10:34 · Guest teaching 3/10 Paul Graham's Advice and Iterating Through Failed Launches Raz introduces the story of Slack and Stewart Butterfield to challenge the idea of endless persistence, asking when founders should actually pack it in. Gebbia explains Paul Graham's 'don't die' mantra and recounts iterating through four failed launches.10:34–15:58 · Guest teaching 1/10 Learning Resilience Through Discomfort Raz asks if psychological resilience can be learned, prompting Gebbia to recount overcoming public speaking anxiety followed by a vivid narrative of acting as customer support and delivering his own mattress at midnight.1:05–4:33 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Facing Investor Rejection and Testing the Idea Raz cites specific early fundraising stats to set the stage and plays devil's advocate defending early investors who thought the idea sounded crazy. Gebbia warmly agrees and describes the visceral reactions received over the 2007 holidays.4:33–7:09 · Guest disagreement 1/10 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Early Experiments Raz probes whether Gebbia's persistence is a rare innate wiring or if he ever gave up. Gebbia clarifies the pre-Airbnb journey and recounts his early experiment turning discarded blank proof books into sketchbooks.7:10–10:34 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Paul Graham's Advice and Iterating Through Failed Launches Raz introduces the story of Slack and Stewart Butterfield to challenge the idea of endless persistence, asking when founders should actually pack it in. Gebbia explains Paul Graham's 'don't die' mantra and recounts iterating through four failed launches.10:34–15:58 · Guest disagreement 0/10 Learning Resilience Through Discomfort Raz asks if psychological resilience can be learned, prompting Gebbia to recount overcoming public speaking anxiety followed by a vivid narrative of acting as customer support and delivering his own mattress at midnight.1:05–4:33 · Guy pushing back 2/10 Facing Investor Rejection and Testing the Idea Raz cites specific early fundraising stats to set the stage and plays devil's advocate defending early investors who thought the idea sounded crazy. Gebbia warmly agrees and describes the visceral reactions received over the 2007 holidays.4:33–7:09 · Guy pushing back 2/10 The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Early Experiments Raz probes whether Gebbia's persistence is a rare innate wiring or if he ever gave up. Gebbia clarifies the pre-Airbnb journey and recounts his early experiment turning discarded blank proof books into sketchbooks.7:10–10:34 · Guy pushing back 3/10 Paul Graham's Advice and Iterating Through Failed Launches Raz introduces the story of Slack and Stewart Butterfield to challenge the idea of endless persistence, asking when founders should actually pack it in. Gebbia explains Paul Graham's 'don't die' mantra and recounts iterating through four failed launches.10:34–15:58 · Guy pushing back 1/10 Learning Resilience Through Discomfort Raz asks if psychological resilience can be learned, prompting Gebbia to recount overcoming public speaking anxiety followed by a vivid narrative of acting as customer support and delivering his own mattress at midnight.

speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Guy 65.7% · guest 34.3%0:00 · Guy 65.7% · guest 34.3%3:00 · Guy 22.5% · guest 77.5%3:00 · Guy 22.5% · guest 77.5%6:00 · Guy 31.5% · guest 68.5%6:00 · Guy 31.5% · guest 68.5%9:00 · Guy 14.5% · guest 85.5%9:00 · Guy 14.5% · guest 85.5%12:00 · Guy 6.7% · guest 93.3%12:00 · Guy 6.7% · guest 93.3%15:00 · Guy 44.1% · guest 55.9%15:00 · Guy 44.1% · guest 55.9%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 8:55 Debating persistence versus knowing when to quit

Gebbia briefly counters the notion of simply giving up by illustrating how multiple consecutive failed launches are necessary steps toward discovering product-market fit.

 Hardest push from Guy ▶ 8:55 Raz pushes on the risk of blind persistence

Raz directly pushes back against Gebbia's 'never give up' framing, highlighting for the summit audience that sometimes entrepreneurs genuinely need to accept defeat or pivot.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 5:29 Gebbia reframes the Airbnb overnight success narrative

Gebbia educates Raz and the audience that focusing solely on Airbnb from 2008 onward misses the years of failed ideas that trained him in the entrepreneurial process.

 Guy holds their own ▶ 7:09 Raz draws parallels to Slack's founding pivot

Raz showcases his extensive startup knowledge by detailing Stewart Butterfield's transition from the failed game Glitch to Slack as a counterpoint to persistence.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicGuy as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementGuy pushing backWhy
Facing Investor Rejection and Testing the Idea 4212 Raz cites specific early fundraising stats to set the stage and plays devil's advocate defending early investors who thought the idea sounded crazy. Gebbia warmly agrees and describes the visceral reactions received over the 2007 holidays.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Early Experiments 3212 Raz probes whether Gebbia's persistence is a rare innate wiring or if he ever gave up. Gebbia clarifies the pre-Airbnb journey and recounts his early experiment turning discarded blank proof books into sketchbooks.
Paul Graham's Advice and Iterating Through Failed Launches 5313 Raz introduces the story of Slack and Stewart Butterfield to challenge the idea of endless persistence, asking when founders should actually pack it in. Gebbia explains Paul Graham's 'don't die' mantra and recounts iterating through four failed launches.
Learning Resilience Through Discomfort 2101 Raz asks if psychological resilience can be learned, prompting Gebbia to recount overcoming public speaking anxiety followed by a vivid narrative of acting as customer support and delivering his own mattress at midnight.

Statements from this episode (6)

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gebbia: Top VCs behind Google and Facebook said Airbnb would never work
“I can tell you all the times and show you all the emails from really credible investors, like people that, these, they're investors that picked Google and PayPal and YouTube and Facebook and all of the kind of internet greats that came before us, and so sittin…”
Joe Gebbia Dec 6, 2018 ▶ 1:47
Insight
Gebbia: Airbnb formalized an existing informal way of traveling
“People are already traveling this way. It's just not formalized. It's not easy.”
Joe Gebbia Dec 6, 2018 ▶ 4:26
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gebbia sold 2,000 branded discarded proof books before founding Airbnb
“For like a year and a half, I just gathered these books, and I had the 2000 of these books in my garage down the street that I collected, and the cool thing is, everyone was different. No two were exactly the same, and then I came up with a rubber stamp. I gav…”
Joe Gebbia Dec 6, 2018 ▶ 6:42
Assertion Partly supported
Gebbia: Airbnb failed through four consecutive launches before finding product-market fit
“So, our next iteration for South by Southwest in 2008 was literally a conference website. After the dud of that launch we regrouped and listened to people's feedback, and then we launched again for the DNC, and that flopped, and then we launched a fourth time …”
Joe Gebbia Dec 6, 2018 ▶ 9:40
Insight
Gebbia: Early startups can relaunch repeatedly because nobody notices initial flops
“The good news, though, is that if you launch and it's a dud, you can launch again because nobody knew about the first one, so.”
Joe Gebbia Dec 6, 2018 ▶ 10:10
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Gebbia used his personal phone number for early Airbnb customer support
“In a last minute decision, I threw my number up on the website as customer service. And my phone almost immediately started ringing. And from that point, for the next probably, gosh, I don't know, year and a half, I was very closely associated with customer se…”
Joe Gebbia Dec 6, 2018 ▶ 12:31
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 800 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.

Try the podcast clipper Learn more