Airbnb Is Said to Be Seeking Funding Valuing It at $30B

Re:Airbnb Is Said to Be Seeking Funding Valuing It at $30B by sytse on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @04:54PM (#11997486)

As long as you're growing fast you are a startup http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html Size is irrelevant, you can be a small restaurant and not be a startup if you're not growing fast anymore.

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Re:Airbnb Is Said to Be Seeking Funding Valuing It at $30B by untog on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @05:02PM (#11997551)

So when Apple launched the iPhone they were a startup?

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Re:Airbnb Is Said to Be Seeking Funding Valuing It at $30B by adventured on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @05:09PM (#11997618)

The premise obviously doesn't make sense.

Start-up means getting started, starting up something, early into the formation, a young entity, etc. To claim a massive 40 year old business - with many old products - can be a start-up, would be to intentionally obfuscate the historical use of the term. There's no good reason to declare that Apple was a start-up when it was growing fast, it makes no sense. What would be the purpose of contorting the language for that? It's a: "fast growing company," that's all the description that's necessary for any older business that grows quickly.

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Re:Airbnb Is Said to Be Seeking Funding Valuing It at $30B by untog on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @05:16PM (#11997654)

Well that's my point. That the term "startup" is already hopelessly corrupted, and by the OPs standard Apple would count.

It makes no sense, and is largely the way it is for PR reasons.

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Re:Airbnb Is Said to Be Seeking Funding Valuing It at $30B by sytse on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @05:31PM (#11997750)

I'm not sure what their growth rate was at the time. There is no set number, but if you're tripling in people every year it tends to feel like a startup.

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