Redfin's March Madness Comes to NPR - Redfin Real Estate News

Redfin’s March Madness Comes to NPR

by
Updated on October 5th, 2020

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.)James DeMichele & Klaus Gosma at Redfin

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…)

Glenn Kelman

Glenn Kelman

Glenn is the CEO of Redfin. Prior to joining Redfin, he was a co-founder of Plumtree Software, a Sequoia-backed, publicly traded company that created the enterprise portal software market. In his seven years at Plumtree, Glenn at different times led engineering, marketing, product management, and business development; he also was responsible for financing and general operations in Plumtree's early days. Prior to starting Plumtree, Glenn worked as one of the first employees at Stanford Technology Group, a Sequoia-backed start-up acquired by IBM. Glenn was raised in Seattle and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a regular contributor to the Redfin blog and Twitter.

Email Glenn

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Be the first to see the latest real estate news:

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By submitting your email you agree to Redfin’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

Scroll to Top