The air mattress that became Airbnb

Before it became a verb, Airbnb was a way to make rent. Not a pitch deck. Not a billion-dollar category thesis. Just two designers in San Francisco, a landlord to pay, and an international design conference that had swallowed every hotel room in town. In that apartment, the first version of the company was not software. It was air mattresses on the floor, breakfast in the morning, and a question that sounded almost too awkward to ask out loud: would a stranger sleep in another stranger's home?