From the Editor's Desk

Subject: Airbnb

Yesterday Fred Wilson published a remarkable post about missing Airbnb. VCs miss good startups all the time, but it's extraordinarily rare for one to talk about it publicly till long afterward. So that post is further evidence what a rare bird Fred is. He's probably the nicest VC I know.

Reading Fred's post made me go back and look at the emails I exchanged with him at the time, trying to convince him to invest in Airbnb. It was quite interesting to read. You can see Fred's mind at work as he circles the deal.

Fred and the Airbnb founders have generously agreed to let me publish this email exchange (with one sentence redacted about something that's strategically important to Airbnb and not an important part of the conversation). It's an interesting illustration of an element of the startup ecosystem that few except the participants ever see: investors trying to convince one another to invest in their portfolio companies. Hundreds if not thousands of conversations of this type are happening now, but if one has ever been published, I haven't seen it. The Airbnbs themselves never even saw these emails at the time.

Continued here

Read TradeBriefs every day, for the top insight!

Advertisers of the day
INSEAD: The INSEAD Leadership Programme for Senior Executives - India
Wharton Business Analytics Team: Wharton's Business Analytics Program (Online)

Our advertisers help fund the daily operations of TradeBriefs. We request you to accept our promotional emails.