Chesky, Gebbia, and Blecharczyk are all fully aware that what happened to them happened against all odds. “We weren’t visionaries,” as Chesky told me in one of our earliest conversations. “We are ordinary guys. And this isn’t that crazy of an idea.” But it’s also true that not just any three ordinary guys could have pulled off what they pulled off. “We had instincts and we had courage,” Chesky says. But he thinks one of their biggest strengths was precisely how little they knew. “I think if we knew better, we probably would have known better than to do this,” he says. “Because in hindsight,
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