They definitely didn't see their own story at the time, see my comment at the deepest nesting of the thread. Totally agree. Also agree that execution and actual

They definitely didn't see their own story at the time, see my comment at the deepest nesting of the thread. Totally agree. Also agree that execution and actually building a great business is the most important thing and if you survive long enough to be able to do that and you're good at it, you'll win. The problem is, and the reason VC's need to consider the quality of storyteller you are, is for a business that plans to be capitalized over several rounds, it's a fundamental risk not to have somebody on your team that can tell that story. Secondly, you're going to have to tell stories to your TEAM (internally) and the world (externally/marketing) that will have a huge impact on the future of your company as well. So it matters. It turns out, Brian especially at Airbnb is a natural story teller, he basically can not stop telling stories when he speaks publicly and they're all good. They just didn't know what story to tell yet :)