Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink co-founded Zillow little over a decade ago. Barton’s 1st company was Expedia. He creates companies but does not stick around to run them. Today, Zillow occupies 12 floors of office space in Seattle with nearly 1000 employees there and 2200 nationwide. Here is a brief summary of a recent interview with the two:
“Lloyd and I were shopping for houses and we couldn’t believe how disempowered we felt. We had to hire a professional and get a little drip-drip of information. We kind of had an epiphany. We were like, “Oh my God, this is so hard. It’s 2005 and the Web has been around for 10 years. Why isn’t it easier for us to get basic marketplace information?”
The seed for Zillow was planted.
“How would it be to be able to strap on the Oculus virtual reality goggles and take a spin around some apartments or houses? That’s a whole interesting technology vector that we’re pushing on. Then there’s the basic mechanics of home shopping and the way documents are transferred. That’s going to change. We are going to be leading on all of it.”
Source: Rachel Lerman, Los Angeles Times, Business Section
