Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky could use a bit of work on his poker face — though learning you've raised a few billion more dollars than expected is a reasonable excuse for
BREAKING it.
The home rental app, which Chesky launched along with Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia, first started selling shares at $68 per piece when they began being traded Wednesday. But that share price shot up before trading was set to open on Thursday, more than doubling to $139 each.
Essentially, Chesky and the other co-founders' net worth was about to double as well, from about $3 billion to more than $6 billion, seeing as they all planned to retain around 10 percent of the company. But Chesky apparently didn't know that until he talked to Bloomberg on Thursday. When a host on the business network told Chesky about the new IPO, he quite literally was at a loss for words, only managing to explain that the company had expected to price its shares at around $30 back in April.