Airbnb Founders Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Joe Gebbia Check In for $5.5 Billion IPO Payday
Brian Chesky, Nathan "Nate" Blecharczyk, and Joe Gebbia, the co-founders of Airbnb, could be worth around $5.5 billion each on Thursday morning, when the accommodation and home-sharing website floats in an IPO that marks the year’s most unlikely business comeback.
Few could have foreseen that Airbnb would have been one of the year’s most high-profile initial public offerings back in March and April.
As the pandemic brought global travel to a standstill, both guests and hosts turned angrily on the platform, with many of the former complaining they were not being refunded (or not being refunded quickly enough) and the latter saying they were left out of pocket by Airbnb’s belated decision to unilaterally override hosts’ cancelation policies and refund most guests in full.