Mike Curtis, Airbnb’s VP of engineering, is leaving
“For a while, Mike has been thinking about making this change to take a long break,” an Airbnb spokesperson told TechCrunch. “After discussing this change with [CEO] Brian Chesky, they agreed that Mike would step down after helping the company choose his successor.” Curtis may be feeling the early-stage itch. When he joined Airbnb nearly six years ago, he told TechCrunch he was particularly excited about how early the company was: “the opportunity with where we can take it is limitless,” he said. But Airbnb is no longer a little startup, it’s one of the most valuable private tech companies in the world. In Curtis’ tenure alone, the engineering team grew from 40 people to more than 1,000 and the company raised more than $4 billion and garnered a $31 billion valuation. Now, it’s gearing up to go public in 2019.