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Creative destruction definition6/13/2023 Like Airbnb, some of the best-known names in business started during steep slumps, including Uber (2009), Microsoft (1975), Disney (1923), General Motors (1908) and General Electric (1890). ![]() The founders, though, considered it the best compliment they had ever received. That may not be the most tasteful way to describe people in the hospitality trade. ![]() The angel investor who backed them dubbed them “cockroaches” for their survival skills. Yet shortly afterwards they obtained their first-ever funding. The event came just weeks before Lehman Brothers collapsed at the height of the financial crisis of 2007-09. So they focused on breakfast instead, peddling $40 boxes of cereals called Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s (their quip: “Be a cereal entrepreneur”). Their air-bed idea was not popular with the 80,000 people congregated to select a presidential candidate. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hubĪ STRUGGLING Airbnb was still called AirBed&Breakfast when its founders decided to bet its future on the Democratic National Committee in Denver in 2008. ![]() Editor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter.
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