6. 布萊恩?切斯基和約翰?多納霍

eBay首席執行官約翰?多納霍于2012年通過馬克?安德森認識了Airbnb的首席執行官布萊恩?切斯基。安德森是位有影響力的風險資本家，目前擔任eBay董事，他的公司安德森-霍洛維茨（Andreessen Horowitz）在Airbnb有投資。多納霍說，他當時想結交“硅谷最好的創始人”，因為他有關于創新和設計的問題要請教，于是安德森安排兩位首席執行官碰了面。他倆成了不太可能的朋友——多納霍 53歲，曾在達特茅斯大學（Dartmouth）主修經濟學，獲得過斯坦福大學（Stanford）的MBA學位，還在貝恩公司（Bain & Co.）工作了將近20年。切斯基32歲，畢業于羅得島設計學校（the Rhode Island School of Design），為了支付房租才創辦了Airbnb公司。正是他倆跨越年齡、跨越行業、相互依賴的關系促使《財富》雜志開始尋找其他亦師亦友、坦誠直言，但偶爾也互相鼓勵的好朋友?！猄.N.M.

多納霍：布萊恩提到（在Airbnb上）享受“七星級體驗”，我反過來（去eBay）想：“如果我們是七星級體驗，它會是什么樣？”在遇到布萊恩這前，我是問不出這個問題的。

切斯基：我確實不知道怎么發展壯大一家公司。我和各種各樣的很多人談過，可當我遇到約翰——神奇的地方在于，一個人能認識很多人，但你想要確定得到的建議跟你掛得上鉤，而且就在當下。在我的市場上找到擁有眼下真實經驗的當代人，這得多幸運？不久前，約翰給我們的新組織的運營提供了幫助：我該怎么集中運營？怎么給團隊瘦身？我需要哪些不同的職能？我怎樣管理一支團隊？我怎樣管理董事會？我甚至從沒有考慮過所有這些事情，因為你開公司時不會考慮商業的問題，不會考慮公司的問題，你考慮的是產品。

多納霍：創始人擁有異常明確的方向；他們通常在產品和設計方面十分出色。他們靈活，知道怎樣加快執行的速度。他們有更短的周期。所以我認為，我們對話的一部分內容和硅谷正在發生的事情將最佳小企業與最佳大企業連接了起來。事實是，大公司能從新創企業那里學到很多東西，也能從它們的創始人那里受益。我認為的確存在互惠關系。

6. Brian Chesky & John Donahoe

eBay CEO John Donahoe met Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky in 2012 through Marc Andreessen, the influential venture capitalist who sits on eBay's (EBAY, Fortune 500) board and whose firm, Andreessen Horowitz, is an investor in Airbnb. Donahoe says he was seeking to meet "the best founder in Silicon Valley" because he had some questions on innovation and design, and Andreessen put the two CEOs together. They make an unlikely duo -- Donahoe, 53, was an econ major at Dartmouth, got an MBA at Stanford, and worked at Bain & Co. for nearly 20 years; Chesky, 32, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and started Airbnb to help pay his rent. Their intergenerational, intercorporate, interdependent relationship was what inspired Fortune to look for other pairs of non-colleagues who provide each other with good counsel, honest feedback, and the occasional encouraging word. --S.N.M.

Donahoe: Brian talks about having a "seven-star experience" [on Airbnb]. And I went back [to eBay] and said, "If we had a seven-star experience, what would that look like?" I wouldn't have asked that before I met Brian.

Chesky: I didn't really know how to scale a company. I had talked to a number of different people, but when I met John -- the amazing thing is, you can meet a lot of people, but you want to make sure the advice you get is relevant to you, and it's contemporary. How lucky could I be to find somebody in my market, a contemporary, with real lessons for right now? John helped me recently with the new organization we have for operations: How do I centralize operations and lean out the team? What do I need in different functions? How do I run a team? How do I manage a board? All these things I never even thought about because when you start a company, you don't think about the business, you don't think about the company, you think about the product.

Donahoe: Founders have incredible clarity of direction; often they're great at product and design. They're nimble, and they know how to drive execution faster. They have a faster cycle time. So I think part of what's happening both in our conversations and what's happening in the Valley is a bridging between the best of the small companies and the best of the large companies. The reality is big companies can learn a lot from startups and can benefit from founders. And I think the reciprocal is probably true.