Over 13 years after its founding, one of the defining startup companies of the past decade finally makes its public debut — and boy was it a big one. But for all the hype (and all the legitimately great things Airbnb has accomplished), this is a company that looks very different today than in the past. Even before COVID, Airbnb&#8217;s once-exponential bookings growth had declined to linear levels while the company&#8217;s costs continued to balloon at accelerating rates. What’s going on here? Are public investors smart to bet on a permanent shift in travel behavior coming out of the pandemic? Or is this a case of unrealistic expectations? As always, we dive in. 
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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at <a href="https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/airbnb">https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/airbnb</a>

Carve Outs:
<ul>
<li>David — San Francisco Ballet&#8217;s Nutcracker: <a href="https://www.sfballet.org/productions/nutcracker-online/">https://www.sfballet.org/productions/nutcracker-online/</a></li>
<li>Ben — Star Wars Lofi HipHop: <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iu1sp3UBb1rjf8KNKETtJ?si=WxPdJcRpSnelHN9qh0xYSw"> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iu1sp3UBb1rjf8KNKETtJ?si=WxPdJcRpSnelHN9qh0xYSw</a></li>
</ul>

Ben Gilbert

David Rosenthal

Airbnb

Over 13 years after its founding, one of the defining startup companies of the past decade finally makes its public debut — and boy was it a big one. But for all the hype (and all the legitimately great things Airbnb has accomplished), this is a company that looks very different today than in the [&hellip;]

Acquired Episode #8

Airbnb