This Week In Startups is made possible by:Plaud: https://plaud.ai/twistCLA: https://www.claconnect.com/withyouSentry: https://sentry.io/twistLightfield: https://lightfield.appToday’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 understood that the market didn't.PLUS, how did a box of cereal win over Paul Graham and get Airbnb into Y Combinator?Flashback Guests:Justin Kan on X: https://x.com/justinkanTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/Justin Kan (@justinkan) on XBrian Chesky on X: https://x.com/bcheskyAirBnB: https://www.airbnb.com/Relevant Links:TWiST E900: Justin Kan, co-founder of Justin.tv, Twitch & Atrium (Feb 5, 2019) → https://thisweekinstartups.com/episodes/L3DP8VCE12sTWiST E1735: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on early rejection, customer focus & AI (May 4, 2023) → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ-BjJZxNoAHalo 3: the game that flooded Mahalo with traffic → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3Weblogs, Inc.: Jason's blog network, home of Engadget → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs,_Inc.Instinct: the invite-only personal AI agent from founder Noah Shinn → https://www.instinct.co/AMD to acquire World Labs for $8.2B in stock; Li becomes AMD chief scientist (Bloomberg) → https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-28/amd-to-buy-fei-fei-li-s-world-labs-ai-startup-for-8-2-billionLovable: where Lon says he'd rebuild a bad app in two hours → https://lovable.dev/Y Combinator → https://www.ycombinator.com/Paul Graham on X → https://x.com/paulgObama O's and Cap'n McCain's: the cereal that funded Airbnb → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb#HistoryStripe: what Paul Graham suggested they build instead → https://stripe.com/Timestamps:Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack:TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcpFollow Lon:X: https://x.com/lonsFollow Jason:X: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanisCheck out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarlandFollow TWiST:Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartupsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartupsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartupsSubstack: https://twistartups.substack.com