Airbnb

Over 13 years after its founding, one of the defining startup companies of the past decade finally makes its public debut — and boy was it a big one. But for all the hype (and all the legitimately great things Airbnb has accomplished), this is a company that looks very different today than in the past. Even before COVID, Airbnb's once-exponential bookings growth had declined to linear levels while the company's costs continued to balloon at accelerating rates. What’s going on here? Are public investors smart to bet on a permanent shift in travel behavior coming out of the pandemic? Or is this a case of unrealistic expectations? As always, we dive in.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta • ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26 • Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora • Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

Get email updates • with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes Join the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store • !

© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC

Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/airbnb

Carve Outs:

• David — San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker: https://www.sfballet.org/productions/nutcracker-online/ • Ben — Star Wars Lofi HipHop: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iu1sp3UBb1rjf8KNKETtJ?si=WxPdJcRpSnelHN9qh0xYSw