Airbnb Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
59 free Airbnb trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Airbnb trivia quiz covers the company that turned a spare air mattress in San Francisco into a marketplace hosting two million people a night. The easy questions ask what the name originally stood for, which city it started in, who the three founders are, what the guests were fed for breakfast and how the company finally went public. Then it works through the startup legend: the design conference that filled every hotel, the presidential-election cereal boxes, Paul Graham's Y Combinator, the New York trip to meet users and the name change to end confusion over air mattresses. The hard end is for people who follow tech and travel closely: the seed round at a penny a share, Ashton Kutcher's investment, the $10 billion and $31 billion valuations, Eric Holder's anti-discrimination policy, the Charlottesville cancellations, the pandemic layoffs and host payouts, the exit from China, the permanent party ban, the 55,081-word terms of service, the founders' side careers from the San Antonio Spurs to DOGE, and the rental limits in Paris, London, New York and Japan. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on Airbnb and its three founders before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our tech companies, startups and travel quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Airbnb is short for which original company name?
Airbed and Breakfast
Airbed and Breakfast: once hosts began listing whole apartments and houses, not just airbeds, the founders shortened the name to Airbnb in 2009.
Q 02In which city did Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia first rent out air mattresses in October 2007?
San Francisco
San Francisco: Chesky had just moved in with Gebbia and the pair couldn't afford the rent, so they turned strangers into paying guests.
Q 03Which online marketplace did TechCrunch and Airbnb's 2011 lead investor both liken Airbnb to?
eBay
eBay: the investor who made the comparison, former eBay executive Jeff Jordan, went on to join Airbnb's board.
Q 04Who joined Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia as Airbnb's third co-founder and first chief technology officer?
Nathan Blecharczyk
Nathan Blecharczyk: in 2019 he gave $1 million to his old high school, Boston Latin Academy.
Q 05What did Airbnb's founders serve their first guests for breakfast?
Pop-Tarts
Pop-Tarts: soon after, the pair brought in a third co-founder to build the idea into a business.
Q 06In August 2008, Airbnb's site pitched rooms to visitors of which city's political convention?
Denver
Denver: its hotels had sold out for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, so delegates made a ready market for anyone with a couch to spare.
Q 07Airbnb's founders kept their startup afloat by selling cereal named after which two people?
Barack Obama and John McCain
Barack Obama and John McCain: 'Obama O's' and 'Cap'n McCain's' sold for $40 a box, helping the founders pay off most of their debts.
Q 08Which startup incubator took Airbnb into its winter 2009 session?
Y Combinator
Y Combinator: its $20,000 paid for weeks of meeting hosts in person, and by March 2009 the startup was turning a profit.
Q 09Brian Chesky's 2024 talk inspired which viral business phrase?
Founder mode
Founder mode: the essay it inspired urged CEOs to dig into details, yet Chesky later insisted he never called it founder mode himself.
Q 10Early Airbnb built a tool letting hosts repost their listings to which classifieds website?
Craigslist
Craigslist: engineers built 'Post to Craigslist' with no official Craigslist API, a trick later held up as a classic growth hack.
Q 11Which venture firm backed Airbnb with seed money in April 2009?
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital: it stepped in after a year in which investors had turned down or simply ignored the founders' pitch.
Q 12Which actor became an early Airbnb investor through his venture firm, A-Grade Investments?
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher: in 2022 he and Mila Kunis raised over $30 million for Ukrainian refugees, donated to the charitable arms of Airbnb and Flexport.
Q 13Which hotel-booking app did Airbnb buy in March 2019?
HotelTonight
HotelTonight: the deal pushed Airbnb further into booking boutique and independent hotels, not only homes.
Q 21Airbnb's 2019 documentary followed a gay men's chorus touring which region?
The Deep South
The Deep South: the chorus made its 2017 tour in response to a wave of anti-LGBTQ measures in Southern states.
Q 22Which designer's firm, LoveFrom, began a multi-year collaboration with Airbnb in 2020?
Jony Ive
Jony Ive: his firm signed on to reshape Airbnb's app and website in October 2020, two months before the company went public.
Q 23At the start of the pandemic, what did Airbnb give guests whose stays were cancelled?
A full refund
A full refund: Airbnb later set aside $250 million to pay hosts part of what their own cancellation policies would have paid.
Q 14Airbnb went public in December 2020, a day after which delivery app made its own stock market debut?
DoorDash
DoorDash: both debuts soared, and Airbnb's shares more than doubled from their $68 offering price on the first day.
Q 15In April 2015, after US restrictions eased, Airbnb began offering stays in which country?
Cuba
Cuba: at first only US travellers could book those stays, until US authorities let Airbnb open them to guests worldwide in 2016.
Q 16Which former US Attorney General was hired in 2016 to help craft Airbnb's anti-discrimination policy?
Eric Holder
Eric Holder: Airbnb brought him in after complaints from Black guests showed hosts turning people away over race.
Q 17What did Airbnb call the product it launched in November 2016 for booking activities?
Experiences
Experiences: locals could sell tours and classes through the app, earning money even if they had no home to rent out.
Q 18Airbnb's 2014 logo, a rounded shape resembling a capital A, was billed as a universal symbol of what?
Belonging
Belonging: Airbnb named the symbol the Bélo and invited hosts to design their own versions of it.
Q 19In August 2017 Airbnb closed the accounts of people attending which event?
The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville
The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville: Airbnb cited its rule that members accept people regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.
Q 20Airbnb's collection of quality-vetted homes, announced in 2018, was branded Airbnb ___?
Plus
Plus: Airbnb's design consultants even told some hosts how to redecorate so their homes could qualify.
Q 24Airbnb was a leading sponsor of which Olympic Games, ignoring calls from human rights groups to withdraw?
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: Airbnb stayed on as a sponsor even as the United States staged a diplomatic boycott of those Games.
Q 25In March 2022, Airbnb suspended all its operations in Russia and which other country?
Belarus
Belarus: Airbnb also barred users from both countries from making new bookings anywhere as guests.
Q 26In June 2022 Airbnb made permanent a ban on what in its rentals?
Parties and events
Parties and events: the pandemic-era ban had proved popular with hosts and their neighbours, so Airbnb kept it for good.
Q 27At the start of 2012, Airbnb's European offices were in Hamburg, Berlin and which other city?
London
London: Airbnb wanted a strong base there for that summer's Olympics, and soon bought Crashpadder, its biggest UK rival.
Q 28In which city did Airbnb establish its European headquarters in 2013?
Dublin
Dublin: Chesky said Airbnb chose the city because it 'has hospitality in its DNA' and is known for its warm welcome.
Q 29What working policy did Airbnb adopt for almost all employees in April 2022?
Unlimited remote work
The company had cut a quarter of its staff two years earlier.
Q 30When do Airbnb reviews become visible?
Once both sides have submitted, or the window closes
Once both sides have submitted, or the window closes: neither side sees the other's review first, so a bad review can't simply be answered in kind.