Wimdu stuck around but would become an inconsequential player in the home-sharing market. In 2013 it shuttered Airizu, the Chinese subsidiary, and pared back its ambitions outside Europe. Airbnb had shown Silicon Valley that it was better to fight cloners than to accommodate them. ‘The worst thing you can do to a cloner is to let him keep his baby,’ Chesky joked to Oliver Jung. ‘The cloner doesn’t want his baby. They build the baby to get rid of it.’ Meanwhile Airbnb continued to gain altitude. In January 2012 it announced that it had booked a cumulative five million nights since opening for
...more
