Brian Chesky

What failed

A host's home was ransacked, and the company's first public response was inadequate. He wrote a blog post attempting to explain the situation which, by his own account days later, did not reflect what he actually felt. The company had been paralysed for four weeks.

What happened next

He published a second letter under his own name retracting the first, apologising to the host by name, and setting out what they would do. He framed it explicitly as a lesson other businesses could learn from.

The point

The interesting failure is not the incident. It is the first response — and the fact that he publicly disowned his own earlier statement rather than defending it.