Airbnb's co-founder learns live on air that his net worth just doubled
Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky could use a bit of work on his poker face — though learning you've raised a few billion more dollars than expected is a reasonable excuse for breaking it.
The home rental app, which Chesky launched along with Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia, first started selling shares at $68 per piece when they began being traded Wednesday. But that share price shot up before trading was set to open on Thursday, more than doubling to $139 each.
Essentially, Chesky and the other co-founders' net worth was about to double as well, from about $3 billion to more than $6 billion, seeing as they all planned to retain around 10 percent of the company. But Chesky apparently didn't know that until he talked to Bloomberg on Thursday. When a host on the business network told Chesky about the new IPO, he quite literally was at a loss for words, only managing to explain that the company had expected to price its shares at around $30 back in April. Kathryn Krawczyk
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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
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