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

This Week in Startups · Oct 1, 2026 · 1h 18m

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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…