Priceline was founded in 1997 on the back of a brilliant original idea. Airlines regularly flew only two-thirds full, with millions of seats empty. A million hotel rooms might go unused every night. We thought, what if we harnessed the Internet to drive demand, filling those planes and hotels? And what if customers could make an offer – name their own price - rather than pay the full fare? The airlines were skeptical. One seasoned executive straightforwardly told our founder Jay Walker that they’d be better off if Jay was “hit by a bus.” Jay conceded that a bus might get him, but the Internet wasn’t going away. The airlines needed it, even if they were wary of it.