Zillow names new CEO
Co-founders Rich Barton, Lloyd Frink will continue active roles
By Inman News, Tuesday, September 14, 2010.The co-founders of property listings and valuation portal Zillow.com, Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, are stepping down from their respective roles as chief executive officer and president, but will continue to play an active role in the company.
Barton -- Zillow's CEO since the company's founding in 2005 -- will continue to serve as chairman of the board of directors, the company said.
Frink, who also holds a seat on the board, is exchanging his title as president for what the company said will be a new full-time role: chief strategy officer.
Taking over the CEO reins from Barton is Spencer Rascoff, who joined Zillow in 2005 as a member of the original executive team and was named chief operating officer in October 2008.
As COO, Rascoff has been responsible "for the majority of Zillow's day-to-day operations for the past two years," the company said, overseeing marketing, finance, partner relations, as well as the execution of the company's recent partnership with Yahoo Real Estate.
Under an advertising partnership announced in July, Zillow said it would serve as the exclusive provider of for-sale property listings for Yahoo Real Estate.
Barton, Frink, Rascoff and several other members of Zillow's management team are veterans of the online travel site Expedia.com, which Barton founded. Expedia launched as a Microsoft project in 1994, and spun off as a publicly traded company in 1999.
Barton is also the co-founder and chairman of the board of Glassdoor.com, which posts employee reviews and salary information for more than 84,000 companies. Barton is a venture partner at Benchmark Capital in Menlo Park and serves on the boards of directors at Netflix, Avvo and RealSelf.com.
Frink, who joined Expedia in 1995 as one of the first members of the team, had previously worked for Microsoft, where he started working as a summer intern in 1979.
Rascoff joined Expedia after the online travel company he co-founded in 1999, Hotwire.com, was acquired by InterActiveCorp for $675 million.
Rascoff's resume also includes a two-year stint as an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs & Co. following his graduation from Harvard University with a bachelor of arts degree in government and economics.
Other Zillow executives previously with Expedia include Chief Technology Officer David Beitel, Chief Economist Stan Humphries, and vice presidents of product teams Kristin Acker, Christopher Roberts and Garrett McAuliffe.
Since the company was founded, it has completed three rounds of financing by outside investors, totaling $87 million. The last round of financing -- $30 million -- was announced in September 2007.
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Submitted by Matt Carter on September 14, 2010 - 4:55pm.
Rascoff tells Bloomberg Zillow is planning an initial public offering. Not saying when or how much. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-14/zillow-planning-initial-public-offering-new-chief-executive-rascoff-says.html Owen Thomas of VentureBeat: "The shift at the top suggests impatience: Perhaps on Barton’s part to move on, perhaps on Rascoff’s part to get the CEO title, perhaps on Zillow’s investors’ part to get this company sold." http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/14/zillow-ipo-ceo-rich-barton-spencer-rascoff/Submitted by Mike Parker on September 17, 2010 - 10:50am.
Mike Parker
mparker@theblackwatercg.com
I also read this as a move by the investors to put a new face in charge and shake up the company to position it for going public. Unfortunately, in this economy, Jack Welch and Peter Drucker would have trouble producing a surge in Zillows earnings (or, most real estate focused firms).
If Zillow were created today, it probably could not raise the capital it has. Markets have changed and it's a tough old world out there. Maybe Yahoo will ultimately buy them, but if they do, it won't be for the multiples that going public in 2005 could command.