Out of nowhere last week, an NPR producer sent us a note asking about Redfin’s March Madness plans. At first I thought she was talking about last week’s open houses release. Then I was about to say we aren’t doing anything special, but double-checked first with Redfin power forwards Klaus Gosma and Loren Ellingson, who are thick as thieves.
Klaus consulted with Jamie DeMichele, a developer on our data team who on one of his first days at Redfin explained to me with perfect solemnity that we could never play basketball together because “it would be too humiliating for you.” (“Well maybe you could come over to play cards instead,” I suggested. “That would be worse,” Jamie said.)
Jamie had secretly created a customized web application for running Redfin’s big bracket competition, complete with credit card authorization for the entry fee. He, Klaus and Loren had also talked to the IT department, which had commandeered one of our projectors to stream the games in our largest meeting area. Together they came forward to explain their comprehensive plan to make sure Redfin gets nothing done for the next two weeks.
I had no choice but to write the NPR producer back to explain that yes, perhaps, Redfin was doing something for the basketball tournament. Tune in to NPR this afternoon to hear the young DeMichele and his colleagues explain our plans:
Seattle: 94.9 at 6:30 p.m.; Bay Area: 88.5 at 4 p.m.; Southern California: 89.3 at 6:30 p.m.; Boston & DC: do we really have blog readers on the East Coast? Or just stream it.
Update: the segment is available here.
(Did anyone see ChandraB’s TechCrunch touching comment on the death of science-fiction great Arthur C. Clarke?
HAL 9000: What is going to happen?
Dave Bowman: Something wonderful.
HAL 9000: I’m afraid.
Dave Bowman: Don’t be. We’ll be together.
HAL 9000: Where will we be?
Dave Bowman: Where I am now.
This is the conversation I always think of entrepreneurs at near-death startups having with their software…)