David Rosenthal: uncertainty

Transcript context

…It’s critbuns.com, and it is in its full web 1.5 glory. I think it was on the front page of USA Today, and they have a big area of their site dedicated to letting you know that. Obviously. And of course, by they, we mean Joe. It's not really a company per se. Joe goes around Providence and tries to get the bookstore in town to carry them. I don't know if he actually succeeds, but if he does, he's not moving a lot of product, let's put it that way. In 2006, he finally gave in and he moved out to San Francisco. He always wanted to move to San Francisco. He gets an internship and then a full-time job at Chronicle Books, a famous book publisher here in San Francisco and he's working. He's designing book packaging and marketing materials for them. He, with a couple of roommates, rents an apartment in the then—this is crazy to remember now—sort of up and coming, but mostly still an incredibly sketchy area in the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco better known today as SoMa. I remember at the time, he had friends out here in San Francisco and my wife, Jenny was from here. I came out and visited and you didn't go to SoMa. It was a real sketchy place. It's still kind of a sketchy place but has transformed incredibly since then, of which Airbnb is a big part of. Joe's now living in San Francisco, Brian’s in LA. Remember he’s not super happy. They’re still in really good touch. One day, in 2007, Joe sends Brian a package down to LA with an object in it, with a message behind it. Brian opens up the package, there's a CritBun in the package. As the story goes—at least as told to Brad—the point of the CritBun—other than I'm sure just to be hijinks and ironic—was, hey, let's take another shot at this. It's time to do this together—start a company. We’re not meant to be employees. Let’s go do this. Brian comes up to San Francisco after receiving the CritBun to visit and stay with Joe. When he's there, it turns out one of Joe’s roommates—this tall programmer guy named Nate—who went to Harvard, but he's working at this really weird language tutoring company at the time called [...] and doesn't really seem to be going anywhere. Nate’s moving out of the apartment. Joe is like, we need another roommate. Why don't you just leave your job down in LA come up here and move in with us? Brian’s up there visiting, he has a great time. He wants to do it, but he’s not sure. He goes back to LA, thinks about it for a while. Finally, at the beginning of September in 2007 when Nate finally moved out that month, Brian’s like, I’m going to do it. He quits his job, moves up to San Francisco, he moves into the apartment, but there's a problem. You've replaced Nate, this programmer who had a job, who is making money with this guy Brian, who’s a designer, who doesn't have a job. A roommate is only as good as they are for the rent money, and Brian and Joe need to make the rent. They're thinking about something to do. It turns out, the next month, one of the big international design conferences is happening in San Francisco, the World Design Congress. e need to make the rent. They're thinking about something to do. It turns out, the next month, one of the big international design conferences is happening in San Francisco, the World Design Congress. Anybody who's traveled to San Francisco for all the big conferences that happen nowadays, they're all tech conferences that happen at the Moscone Center. The hotel situation in this city is nuts. It is completely awful.…

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