Firstly, what a great idea (startup timelines). FWIW, I love the wayback machine, and I probably use it 1-2 times per week. The thing I took away from your tim

Firstly, what a great idea (startup timelines). FWIW, I love the wayback machine, and I probably use it 1-2 times per week. The thing I took away from your timeline of airbnb was the same thing I think successful people try to explain time and time again, and it's the same lesson that makes the investors passing up airbnb seem more like a minor, unavoidable incident. The lesson is that a business or idea isn't a success until a team works mega hard at making it a success, and even then it has a huge chance of failing. This lesson is made clear to me in part by the reminder that airbnb has been around since the first year after I learned to program, and that feels like an eternity ago. If I spent 3 years working on a brand with a good team and with VC backing, I'd expect to see some resemblance of success also, as long as the idea wasn't terrible. Hard work pays off, but it's easy to look back at these success stories as some sort of lottery winners.