The Exchanges

Q Matt, how have you changed as a leader in this time?

A Look, the experience that I think all of us went through last March and April, you know, around the real estate market, basically being on pause, That was pretty humbling. And I think one of the things that I learned and that I changed about, or at least I tried to change about how we were managing the company was being more frequently candid with the entire company about what was actually going on. And this is something that I've learned from Sarah Fryer, who I've like learned so much from her. Anytime I'm like, I have like a crisis of conscience on something related to leadership, I will call her and be like, Hey, what would I do here? And she basically taught me, she was like, look, in times of crisis, people like to assume that leaders Have a very specific strategy and they've mapped everything out and they know what to do. And the reality is like, we're just winging it. And sometimes when you tell people that that's what you're doing, that's the most comforting thing you can do. So that's specifically kind of what we did for a period of like three or four months last year, we did, I think it was like weekly all hands calls and we have 1200 people at the company. So we did weekly all hands calls where basically the purpose of the call was to tell people that we had almost no new information. It looked like things might actually get worse. Here were the things that we were n…

AI assessment note: “I changed about how we were managing the company was being more frequently candid”

Q Max, I'm interested. PC man, what would you say your learnings would be?

A Look, I've learned interesting things from all three of these guys. If I were to go down the list, I'd say, and a lot of them stick out from conversations or healthy debates that we've had in the past. From Nima, we had a conversation that sticks with me that has actually kind of become one of our foundational projects. Principles of how we build our business, which is the importance of being naive when you're launching a business. It's actually like ignorance is bliss. The more you know about an industry, the more reasons you have not to start a company or grow a business, right? It's too hard. Did you like understand the competitive landscape? I don't know if you remember this conversation, but we talked about how like naivete is like one of the most dangerously powerful skills, I think, of any entrepreneur. That's something I've learned to embrace. From Masath, he taught me that if you think about life as a series of chapters in a book and you think you're going to read it, 20 years from now, everything's going to be great. So when you're in a chapter that might seem like it's a disaster, just wait long enough, and you'll look back on it, and it'll seem great. And from Brendan, like, I've just learned that, like, you can transform an entire industry just by, like, sheer will. People, I think, probably told Brendan similar to what they told me when I started States. Like, Bre…

AI assessment note: “I've learned interesting things from all three of these guys.”

Q Matt, how have you changed as a leader in this time?

A Look, the experience that I think all of us went through last March and April, you know, around the real estate market, basically being on pause, That was pretty humbling. And I think one of the things that I learned and that I changed about, or at least I tried to change about how we were managing the company was being more frequently candid with the entire company about what was actually going on. And this is something that I've learned from Sarah Fryer, who I've like learned so much from her. Anytime I'm like, I have like a crisis of conscience on something related to leadership, I will call her and be like, Hey, what would I do here? And she basically taught me, she was like, look, in times of crisis, people like to assume that leaders Have a very specific strategy and they've mapped everything out and they know what to do. And the reality is like, we're just winging it. And sometimes when you tell people that that's what you're doing, that's the most comforting thing you can do. So that's specifically kind of what we did for a period of like three or four months last year, we did, I think it was like weekly all hands calls and we have 1200 people at the company. So we did weekly all hands calls where basically the purpose of the call was to tell people that we had almost no new information. It looked like things might actually get worse. Here were the things that we were n…

AI assessment note: “being more frequently candid with the entire company about what was actually going on”

Q Max, I'm interested. PC man, what would you say your learnings would be?

A Look, I've learned interesting things from all three of these guys. If I were to go down the list, I'd say, and a lot of them stick out from conversations or healthy debates that we've had in the past. From Nima, we had a conversation that sticks with me that has actually kind of become one of our foundational projects. Principles of how we build our business, which is the importance of being naive when you're launching a business. It's actually like ignorance is bliss. The more you know about an industry, the more reasons you have not to start a company or grow a business, right? It's too hard. Did you like understand the competitive landscape? I don't know if you remember this conversation, but we talked about how like naivete is like one of the most dangerously powerful skills, I think, of any entrepreneur. That's something I've learned to embrace. From Masath, he taught me that if you think about life as a series of chapters in a book and you think you're going to read it, 20 years from now, everything's going to be great. So when you're in a chapter that might seem like it's a disaster, just wait long enough, and you'll look back on it, and it'll seem great. And from Brendan, like, I've just learned that, like, you can transform an entire industry just by, like, sheer will. People, I think, probably told Brendan similar to what they told me when I started States. Like, Bre…

AI assessment note: “Look, I've learned interesting things from all three of these guys.”

Q a lot. The exodus from Silicon Valley is real, certainly if you follow Keith Rabor's Twitter. So I'm intrigued, in terms of your perspective, what do you think about this exodus from Silicon Valley, and I guess, is this a seismic shift, but permanently, or is this purely a COVID temperament short-term shift? And so I'm gonna throw that out to everyone, and anyone who wants to jump on that.

A I'll jump on that grenade first, and say a bunch of things that I probably regret later, and may end up on the internet somewhere. I would guess I would frame it by saying, you know, who was it that said the rumors are from my death have been greatly exaggerated. I think it's like kind of a similar thing going on here in that Silicon Valley. And as I said, even that term is kind of out, like it's the Bay area, right? Like you've got some of the most amazing academic institutions in the world churning out some of the most talented technical and entrepreneurial people located right next to like the center of where counterculture was born. You cannot take that out of this region. This area is going to only get stronger as a result of the dynamic change that's going through. The thing I will say on this topic specifically is like, I don't have an issue with people like leaving the Bay area. You know, everybody's right in this country to live wherever they want. I actually think it's wonderful for people to go and experience different places. I have a major problem with people leaving the Bay area and talking shit about it on their way out. So like, it's fine. If you want to go somewhere else, don't go somewhere else. And like on your way out, tell us how horrible the area has become. And especially not if you haven't been involved in the community broadly Speaking enough to make a …

AI assessment note: “This area is going to only get stronger as a result of the dynamic change”

Q Nice, Nasa. How do you think about it?

A I would agree completely with Nima that the most valuable investors you can have are those that produce revenue. I know of no problem in the business world that revenue doesn't solve. And I know of lots of problems that can cause a company to fail that have to do with not getting enough revenue. And that's influenced our journey. Our largest single shareholder, still a minority shareholder, but the largest shareholder on our cap table is Lenar, who Fifth Wall introduced us to, and they became our largest shareholder because we bought their legacy title business, which gave us a ton of revenue and distribution and data to build our business. And then I also think that like, and it's funny, like Nima mentioned something I think should be talked about more is like, You only see the press releases on the financing rounds and there are big up rounds and like massively oversubscribed. And like, it reminds me of a story I heard from a founder, a friend of mine four or five years ago, he like saw a friend of his was also founder. And he was like, and this conversation I guarantee happens like hundreds of times a day where he was like, Hey, how are things going with the company? And his friend was like, Oh my gosh, they're so great. We're crushing it. We just like blew out our quarter. We just closed this big financing round, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he asked my frien…

AI assessment note: “I would agree completely with Nima that the most valuable investors you can have”

Q Nice, Nasa. How do you think about it?

A I would agree completely with Nima that the most valuable investors you can have are those that produce revenue. I know of no problem in the business world that revenue doesn't solve. And I know of lots of problems that can cause a company to fail that have to do with not getting enough revenue. And that's influenced our journey. Our largest single shareholder, still a minority shareholder, but the largest shareholder on our cap table is Lenar, who Fifth Wall introduced us to, and they became our largest shareholder because we bought their legacy title business, which gave us a ton of revenue and distribution and data to build our business. And then I also think that like, and it's funny, like Nima mentioned something I think should be talked about more is like, You only see the press releases on the financing rounds and there are big up rounds and like massively oversubscribed. And like, it reminds me of a story I heard from a founder, a friend of mine four or five years ago, he like saw a friend of his was also founder. And he was like, and this conversation I guarantee happens like hundreds of times a day where he was like, Hey, how are things going with the company? And his friend was like, Oh my gosh, they're so great. We're crushing it. We just like blew out our quarter. We just closed this big financing round, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he asked my frien…

AI assessment note: “I would agree completely with Nima that the most valuable investors you can have”

Q a lot. The exodus from Silicon Valley is real, certainly if you follow Keith Rabor's Twitter. So I'm intrigued, in terms of your perspective, what do you think about this exodus from Silicon Valley, and I guess, is this a seismic shift, but permanently, or is this purely a COVID temperament short-term shift? And so I'm gonna throw that out to everyone, and anyone who wants to jump on that.

A I'll jump on that grenade first, and say a bunch of things that I probably regret later, and may end up on the internet somewhere. I would guess I would frame it by saying, you know, who was it that said the rumors are from my death have been greatly exaggerated. I think it's like kind of a similar thing going on here in that Silicon Valley. And as I said, even that term is kind of out, like it's the Bay area, right? Like you've got some of the most amazing academic institutions in the world churning out some of the most talented technical and entrepreneurial people located right next to like the center of where counterculture was born. You cannot take that out of this region. This area is going to only get stronger as a result of the dynamic change that's going through. The thing I will say on this topic specifically is like, I don't have an issue with people like leaving the Bay area. You know, everybody's right in this country to live wherever they want. I actually think it's wonderful for people to go and experience different places. I have a major problem with people leaving the Bay area and talking shit about it on their way out. So like, it's fine. If you want to go somewhere else, don't go somewhere else. And like on your way out, tell us how horrible the area has become. And especially not if you haven't been involved in the community broadly Speaking enough to make a …

AI assessment note: “rumors are from my death have been greatly exaggerated”