Added after the fact to blog posts that generate a significant number of comments.
Every time I get on a plane, I think of Jim Flatley, the vice-president of sales at my old company, Plumtree Software. Corvette-driver, hair-gunker, suit-wearer, sausage-eater, Jim was about as different from me as a person could be. It took us many years to become friends. And because Jim was so very good at sales,… Read More
Whoa! Shocking news, guys. An engineer left Google for Facebook. The great Lars Rasmussen, creator of Google Maps and Google Wave, quit Google Thursday to join Facebook. This has, admittedly, happened before. In June, Matthew Papakipos defected from Google’s Chrome team. In May, it was mobile guru Erick Tseng. Even Facebook’s chef, Josef Desimone, was recruited… Read More
On a Sunday transcontinental flight , I was stuck in a middle seat next to a woman reading a book filled with crazy conspiracy theories. I minded my own business, thinking of a friend at Berkeley who once saw members of a cult walking down the street toward his house. Though heterosexual, he took off… Read More
In our series of reports on The Real Estate Scientist we bring you data driven, no-nonsense answers to help you untangle the snarl of real estate advice you commonly encounter when trying to buy or sell a home. We’ve sifted through piles of real estate data to answer the following question: What is the true… Read More
There’s a fascinating essay on Facebook just now from the owner of the lovely Posie’s Cafe in Portland, OR about how Groupon nearly bankrupted her business. The coffee shop proprietor, Jessie Burke, was shocked at how much money the daily deals site charged to run the promotion. Groupon sold consumers a $13 Posie’s credit for $6,… Read More
It’s a simple argument: Bill Gates is, by far, our industry’s greatest hero. It’s hard to believe we once saw Bill as the pie-splattered villain, and others as the idealists. And it’s hard to understand why, even now, the entrepreneur whom our youth admire far more than Bill Gates is someone who has had great… Read More
Being on TV is a junkie kind of rush. Even if you’re as stuck up as I am about it, you fall into hoping TV’s magic will transform you during the broadcast into something larger than life. But then you get airbrushed with make-up (new for HD, it feels soft and good), the mic-man publicly… Read More
The New York Times reports Friday that alone among all the cities hoping to be the next Silicon Valley, Seattle “is actually doing it.” But the Times didn’t talk to iLike President Hadi Partovi, or Zillow.com CEO Rich Barton, both entrepreneurs who, like many of the folks at Redfin, shuttle between Seattle and Silicon Valley…. Read More
I’ve been asked by many of my friends and family why I decided to leave my position at Microsoft, where I was appreciated and rewarded, for more work, more responsibility, and more stress. Well, the decision was mainly a result of three factors. First, someday I may start my own company, and transitioning from a… Read More
Redfin has been futzing around with some new designs for the home page of our website and could use your help picking one out. Our goals are to get people searching and to explain how Redfin works. We only get one shot at the explanation because returning visitors see a view of our map as… Read More