Zillow's Rich Barton: A Quiet Assassin Executor

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Rich Barton is the founder of Expedia, Plastor and now the CEO of Zillow. He's not like super into doing media, although you've had media at the core of a lot of your success in terms of strategies. I believe that the product should speak for itself, and it should be amplified by earned media and word of good old word of mouth. That will be coming through in the pod.

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Today’s show:

Rich Barton joins Jason to give a masterclass on his thought process behind creating evocative top-tier brands like Zillow, Expedia, and Glassdoor. (22:02) Rich also discusses the lessons he learned from Bill Gates during his time at Microsoft (49:22), how tech management has evolved (57:04), and more!

Rich's blog on branding: https://www.hopperanddropper.com/syllables-scrabble-letters-and-picking-brand-names

Time stamps:

(0:00) Zillow CEO Rich Barton joins Jason

(1:58) The creation of Zillow’s Zestimate

(7:03) “Tension and Importance” and empowering people in the workplace

(13:24) Crowdbotics - Get a free scoping session for your next big app idea at crowdbotics.com/twist

(14:53) Branding and creating iconic company names

(16:53) Navigating major layoffs

(22:02) Back to building top-tier brands, “What got us here, won’t get us there”

(27:54) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://openphone.com/twist

(29:25) Steering the complex dynamics of startup-attorney interactions

(33:22) Defying convention to create stellar products and the effects digital currency