Sounds like a great exaggerated story.
> I believe the actual idea for Airbnb spun out of them realizing it could help them pay their rent.
That may be, but the founders come from well to do families and I'm sure never worried about missing rent, getting evicted and being homeless.
There might be rags to riches stories out there. AirBnB ain't it. It's a riches to extreme riches story.
Revisionist, sexy origin stories are a proven way of getting free press. Somewhere, these guys are actually confessing how much free press their wild concoction earned them