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> PG used to run a couple straw polls per batch asking founders who was most likely to succeed, and I recall Airbnb winning both the votes in our batch by large
by mbesto 11y ago
> PG used to run a couple straw polls per batch asking founders who was most likely to succeed, and I recall Airbnb winning both the votes in our batch by large margins.
You're mixing up the idea (which seemed lame) with the founders (who seemed great). Presumably this happened also because once you get to know people (especially within 3 months) you can make a much better judgement about their potential. The VC/pitching situation is flawed in that you usually only get < 1hr to sell your vision. VCs love to say "we back teams" which is translation for (1) founders already did something significant (2) founders came from prestigious backgrounds (3) the investors personally know and have worked previously with founders. 3 is obviously ideal, but can be rare.
- dang 11y agoI don't believe I'm mixing those things up, but maybe my point wasn't clear. It isn't correct that Airbnb went from being a bad investment to a good one, and they didn't switch from a small market to a large one. The small market turned out to be the large one. It was the same guys working on the same idea the whole way. Why does that matter? Because Airbnb was a fabulous investment when they got all those rejections, and that is the point of the story: getting a heap of rejections doesn't mean you're not a fabulous investment, despite the unbelievable pressure it puts on you to believe so.