The meaning of design is up for debate. And that’s a good thing
WHEN AIRBNB’S FOUNDERS TELL THEIR ORIGIN STORY, they often go back to the moment in 2009 when Paul Graham, head of startup incubator Y Combinator, gave them four crucial words of advice. At the time, Airbnb had fewer than a thousand registered hosts. Founders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nate Blecharczyk were hunkered in Silicon Valley, scrambling to scale the business by poring over data. After a promising start, revenue had flatlined. To figure out what wasn’t working,
