YC Airbnb Investment Returns

Garry Tan shares a remarkable example of YC's investment returns using Airbnb as an example.

"The craziest thing I'd ever heard was basically the Airbnb round where I think something like under $20,000 became $2 billion in the liquid IPO when Airbnb IPO'd. And YC didn't even take the pro rata then. It's pretty wild honestly - easily could have returned 5 to $7 billion with a good portfolio management strategy."

GT

Garry Tan

President & CEO, Y Combinator

Hi, I'm Garry Tan. I live in San Francisco.

Find me on X at https://x.com/garrytan

I am President and CEO of Y Combinator. I was a partner there from 2011 to 2015.

I started a venture capital fund called Initialized Capital. It has just over $3.2B under management, usually funding folks very early (seed and Series A) often when it is just a few people just starting out.