Spencer Rascoff, Co-founder of Zillow, Pacaso, dot.LA, and 75andSunny #DDRE43

Spencer Rascoff is a serial entrepreneur and company leader who is now the chair and co founder of Pacaso, dot.LA, and Supernova. He also is co-founder and general partner of 75 & Sunny, a VC firm that focuses on early stage startups and he also serves on the board for Palantir. But most of us watching or listening to this show know Spencer from Zillow, which he co-founded in 2006, and served as CEO for a decade.

00:00 The Data Driven Real Estate Podcast Welcomes Spencer Rascoff, Co-founder and former CEO of Zillow, Co-founder and Chairman of Pacaso, dot.la and Supernova, Co-founder and General Partner of 75 & Sunny and Board Member of Palantir
00:54 Briefly mentioning the state of DDRE
1:10 How did Spencer get involved in so many industries?
3:37 Spencer's wide breadth of investing and investing philosophy
8:55 What is Pacaso and how does it work?
20:00 Supernova, Offerpad, SPACs and iBuying
20:31 What excites Spencer about Offerpad?
31:00 Spencer's past, present and future with iBuying
34:00 Can Wall Street and property technology survive another downturn?
44:02 What data does Spencer wish he had and the future of real estate
49:45 Spencer's favorite software collaborators
51:53 What technologies could we see changing the state of real estate?
55:04 The current state of the DDRE Podcast and its future

Episode Transcript

Aaron Norris (00:02):
Hey, welcome back to the Data Driven Real Estate
podcast, very excited today tohave a very special guest,
Spencer Rascoff. He is a serialentrepreneur. He is the company
leader who is now the chai r andco founder of Pacasso, dot.la,
supernova. He also is co founderand general partner of 75 &
Sunny, a VC firm focused onearly stage startups as well as

(00:24):
he serves on the board ofPalantir. Most of us watching or
listening to this show know himfrom Zillow, which he co founded
in 2006, and served as CEO for adecade. Spencer, I'm super
excited to speak with you today.
So than ks for joining us.

Spencer Rascoff (00:39):
Thank you. I'm totally excited to be here and
appreciate the warmintroduction. And thank you.

Aaron Norris (00:45):
So I only had about 48 hours to really dig
into 75 & Sunny. And I

Sean O'Toole (00:52):
Before you get started Aaron,

Aaron Norris (00:54):
Oh, sure.

Sean O'Toole (00:55):
I want to let folks know to hang on at the
end. Because we've missed a fewepisodes, I want to let people
know what's going on there. AndAaron and I are gonna have a
conversation about that and whatthe future of the podcast is. S
o with that, Aaron, I'll let youtake it away.

Aaron Norris (01:09):
Okay, cool. So 75 & Sunny. I hadn't really no
idea. So from pizza to celebritycameos to space travel. How on
earth did this get started? Andhow, with all these industries
is so fascinating.

Spencer Rascoff (01:25):
Yeah, so I mean, I've been an angel
investor in startups, really,for my whole career, I think my
first angel investment I made in1999, when I was 23. And, you
know, a friend of mine pitchedme a company called easy to get
easy to win the number two andthen get GT, and easy to get was
basically doordash. But it was25 years too early. There were

(01:49):
no smartphones, there was reallyno internet. And you know, you
could pick up a phone and call anumber and then place a delivery
order from any restaurant, andthen they moved it to the web.
But you know, it was you haddial up Internet access. And
anyway, so I made a small angelinvestment in a company. And of
course, it promptly failed aboutsix months later. But over the

(02:11):
next 20 something years, I haddone a lot of personal angel
investing. And so starting abouta year ago, I sort of formalize
that, and I call the firm, 75 &Sunny, which is a nod to the
weather in Los Angeles, where Ilive, and where I'm from. And
within 75 & Sunny, we make acouple dozen early stage
investments a year. And you'reright, the portfolio is really

(02:34):
diverse everything from ModPizza to fly homes. And so
there's a lot of real estate,there's some travel, there's
just stuff from my personalnetwork, just generally things I
find interesting. And then 75 &Sunny Labs is my startup studio,
which starts companies, whichI'm sure we'll talk about as
well.

Aaron Norris (02:52):
No, absolutely.
And you also 75 and sunnyspecializes in early stage
startups. Is that is that rare?
Because it's more often thannot?

Sean O'Toole (03:02):
Yeah. And so it tends to be the pre seed or seed
stage sometimes series A. Andyeah, it is it is risky, I have
plenty of zeros in my portfoliostarting with easy to get, you
know, and there. And there aremany others. You know, pocket
list was a was a real estate onethat folded just a couple of
weeks ago. And that was one ofmy, you know, one of my

(03:24):
investments from a year or twoago. So the thing about early
stage investing is yet you havezeros, you know, and that is
just kind of the name of thegame. And hopefully you also
have some homeruns in there. Butyou're right, it is risky.

Aaron Norris (03:38):
How do you even go about selecting the companies
that 75 & Sunny will even lookat,

Sean O'Toole (03:44):
I get a lot of inbound deal flow, just from my
network just from, you know,people I've worked with in the
past. And because I have apretty accessible I have a high
profile online, so I probablyget, I don't know, at least 20
pitches a week. Just inbound.
And I have a team that helps meassess them and evaluate them.
And then, you know, my team andI also identify themes that

(04:06):
we're interested in and that wethink, you know, we think have
potential. And so in some cases,we go out and find startups that
are pursuing those themes. Andthen the last big area for deal
sourcing is through the venturecapital community. So in
addition to being a directinvestor through 75, and sunny
and many, many startups, I'malso an investor in about 50

(04:27):
venture capital funds, thingslike NSX, which is Pete Flint,
the you know, who would be wellknown to your listeners, the
founder of Trulia, you know, hisventure capital fund, I'm an
investor in or benchmarkcapital, who was an early
investor in Zillow and Twitterand Snapchat and Uber, etc. I'm
an investor in their venturefund. And so a lot of those

(04:48):
venture funds tend to show medeals that they're working on or
evaluating and so I get a lot ofdeal flow from venture capital
firms as well.

Aaron Norris (04:58):
Well, it's been an exciting Think just a couple of
weeks between space fly homesand arrived and I think it's
relativity. I mean, there wasover $500 million in capital
raise for some of the venturesthat you're behind. Yeah.

Spencer Rascoff (05:11):
Yeah, it's true. It's I mean, it's an
exciting time in tech. Andthere's a lot happening in my
portfolio. So relativity, spaceis a super cool company, I've
been an investor in that foryears. They're 3d printing
rockets. And sending, you know,or they hope to send things to
Mars will, you know, we'll see,they haven't had a first launch
yet. But it's a very promisingtechnology, being able to 3d

(05:35):
print a rocket. And their realgoal, actually, is to send one
of these 3d printers to Mars, toprint rockets on Mars to send
things back to Earth, which isjust crazy enough that my work.
So you know, that's, that's a anexciting company. And then
there's always a lot of Proptech activity in my, in my
portfolio, including, you know,a couple of the companies that

(05:57):
you mentioned,

Aaron Norris (05:58):
I guess the only other question I would have
with, you know, with such avariety of categories, and
themes, as you say, is thatyou're investing in people and I
read and I think, are listenedto, in an interview with you
that vertical integration isreally important. Are there
certain things that are reallyimportant to you? Because you
can't get everything

Sean O'Toole (06:18):
here? Right? No, that's certainly true. I mean,
I'm certainly no expert inspace, for example. So you know,
something like that. I mean, I'mnot diligence in the technology,
right. I'm not I'm not a rocketscientist. And so for, for
companies like that, I'm relyingon others. In that case, you
know, hi, top tier highlyqualified venture capital firms
that are doing proper duediligence, and are hiring

(06:39):
experts, etc. In, you know, whatI'm usually doing, as you point
out, is evaluating the team asbest I can, especially at the
very early stage, you know, whenit's one person with a deck, or,
or two or three people with anidea, they don't even have a
deck, you know, there's nothingto evaluate at that point,
except the, you know, except theperceived quality of the team

(06:59):
and the idea, but there's nodata certainly to assess whether
this startup will have productmarket fit. And what I look for,
in a founder or founding team atthat early stage, is some sort
of chip on their shoulder, youknow, sort of a me against the
world mentality, a feeling thatthey have something to prove,

(07:22):
you know, I want startup Irecently invested in, for
example, this person had beenlaid off from a company, and
they were pissed off about it,and they, you know, they really
wanted to show it to the, youknow, to that company that they
were going to make it and, youknow, another another person had

(07:43):
a small amount of success, likea small exit and another
startup, but didn't own as muchof the company as they wanted.
And now they're going to kind ofgive it their second go and try
to make it bigger on the secondtime. So something like that is
really attractive to me as anangel investor, because the
person has they've gotten ataste, but they haven't, you

(08:04):
know, they haven't got to firstbase, but they haven't hit a
homerun yet. And that'ssomething I look for.

Aaron Norris (08:09):
They're coachable, I heard is very important. Yeah,

Sean O'Toole (08:12):
absolutely. All super important. I mean, that
what I basically am doing nowthat I've not, you know, ever
since I left Zillow full time,two years ago, is I'm coaching
mentoring. And so that's, that'sthe game essentially, you know,
I don't want to, like I sotherefore, I need somebody to
want that input and advice andmentorship and coaching. And

(08:36):
that's pretty clear. Even in apitch in a very first pitch
meeting, whether that founder iscoachable or not. You can you
can suss out arrogance prettyquickly in somebody and you can
also assess out humility, andcoachability pretty quickly.

Aaron Norris (08:53):
Very cool. Okay.
Let's do 75 & Sunny Labs becauseyou've got a lot of really
exciting things happening. Let'sstart with Pacaso. Sure, yeah.

Spencer Rascoff (09:03):
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, 75 & Sunny Labs is
trying to start like two orthree companies a year and last
year we launched Pacaso, which Ico founded with an incredible
entrepreneur, Austin Allison isprobably known to some of your
listeners. Austin started acompany called dotLA. also
started a company calleddot.loop dot.loop. Not to be

(09:24):
confused with dot.LA, dot.loopwhich Zillow acquired and then
Austin and I worked together forfour years at Zillow. And what
Picasso aims to do is it aims todemocratize access to second
homeownership. So I've beenlucky enough to own a second
home and it's had an incrediblyenriching impact on my life and

(09:45):
my family's life. But second,homeownership shouldn't just be
accessible to the, you know, toto a small category people, it
can be accessible to a muchbroader category of people
through co ownership. And so aPicasso does is it allows you to
buy a portion Have a home, sayan eighth of a home or a quarter
of a home or half of the homeand Tahoe or Napa Valley, or

(10:06):
Malibu or Colorado. And you buythat home, as a co owner with
other families that Picasso'ssort of pairs you with. And you
don't know those people, youdon't need to know those people.
But, but the home is yours. Andyou know, you own a portion of
it. And you use the proposal appto schedule visits to your home,

(10:29):
and we do all the propertymanagement for you, and handle
all the particulars like repairsand maintenance and the creation
of of the tax and, you know, thetax information and the LLC
formation, etc. So that's whatthe cost is up to. And it's
growing like a weed. I mean,it's growing faster than
anything I've been a part ofincluding Zillow. The company is

(10:50):
less than a year old, and it'sit's just on fire.

Aaron Norris (10:53):
Am I did I read this correctly? That you have
reached unicorn status fasterthan?

Spencer Rascoff (10:58):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a weird statistic.
Right. But we decided to, wedecided to announce it because
firstly, we were pretty proud ofit. But But you know, secondly,
I think it speaks to just thestrength of the team and the
strength of the idea. So yes,just six months after founding,
we were we raised a Series B atover a billion dollars, which

(11:21):
makes us the fastest companyever to reach unicorn status.
And, you know, we've been luckyenough to have an extraordinary
team, many of whom came fromZillow, many of them came from
other great companies. And, youknow, it just, it's, it's a
great idea, especially in thisenvironment, post COVID, where
people have realized that theycan now work remotely, and

(11:42):
there's greater interest thanever in second home ownership.
And you know, Pacasso is just agreat way to achieve that dream
that many people have of owninga vacation.

Sean O'Toole (11:52):
What's there other than the technology side, and
you know, the app to manage itand stuff? Is there any
differences in like, theownership structure versus like
the traditional timeshare?

Spencer Rascoff (12:04):
Yeah, so there there are, you know, timeshare
is a dirty word for good reason.
You know, timeshare is basicallya liability, not an asset, when
you buy a timeshare, you're sortof prepaying for the right to
stay at essentially a hotel at adiscounted rate. And what
Picasso is, is because of histrue homeownership of a single

(12:25):
family home, like a vacationhome, a four bedroom, four bath,
you know, $4 million house, notan apartment in a high rise, and
you actually own that particularpiece of real estate. So a good
way to think about it kind of athought experiment is if, if you
owned a Pacaso, you own, say, aneighth of a home in Tahoe and

(12:45):
eighth of caso, and Pacaso, thecompany were to vanish for some
reason, God forbid, you know, wewent out of business or
whatever, you still own thathome, you'd still own that
eighth of that house, likePacaso doesn't need to exist for
that you own real property. Butif Mera Vacation Club goes out
of business, and you know, andyou own a Marriott, timeshare in
Orlando, like you're, you'rekind of hosed. Like, you know,

(13:08):
it doesn't exist without thecompany. So because it basically
facilitates the ownership ofreal property fractionally in a
single family homes. And thatmakes it quite different from
timeshare.

Sean O'Toole (13:20):
And just because we have this technical audience,
right, that's deep real estateinvestors, like, what is that?
It's probably not tenants incommon. The, you know,

Spencer Rascoff (13:29):
it's an LLC, yeah, it's an LLC, it's exactly
like when people self organize,to buy a second home, which
happens. I mean, I talked tosomebody today, who owns a home
in Pebble Beach with three otherfriends, and the four of them
have gone and they created anLLC, and they each own a quarter
of the LLC, and then they pay aproperty manager. So that's the
structure. And, you know, theproblem, of course, is when

(13:52):
friends do it together, itusually ends the friendship.
Because it's hard to figure outwho gets to use it when it's
hard to make decisions onmaintenance. It's there's just a
lot of challenges of doing ityourself. And the Picasso
platform solves all thoseproblems at scale. And, and the

(14:13):
biggest problem, of course, ismaking sure that you can find a
home that you like, and thatmeets your needs. And you can do
that through Pacaso withouthaving to find other buyers for
the rest of the home becausethat's what Pascaso does.

Sean O'Toole (14:28):
And I imagine, you know, so I'm jumping in here I
live in Tahoe right full time.
timeshares, including a singlefamily and actually met Austin
at my next door neighbor's housein Tahoe, so in a place called
Marty's Camp. And so but thereare a lot of fractional
ownerships here that are tenantsin common often and but one of

(14:51):
the problems is themarketability on the other side.
So is part of that fundamentalpiece That ability to also sell
and have that market. Yeah havebuyers because that's a real
problem right now that just Yes,the MLS, but realtors don't
really want to bother with aneighth share of something.

Spencer Rascoff (15:12):
Yeah, so that's another major difference versus
timeshare, right the timesharesare sold in this kind of
alternative marketplace thatisn't the MLS and so resale
ability of timeshare is is oneof the main fatal flaws of the
timeshare product. Because thoseare not like that because those
are real property. It getslisted in the MLS. It's in the

(15:33):
regular marketplace. So if youknow if you'll see picassos on
Redfin on realtor comm onZillow, you'll see an eighth of
a home in Toronto, that is aPacasso listing in the MLS. And
it'll Of course, also be on thecasas website. But it's listed
in the MLS, we're payingcommissions. And it is in the

(15:55):
regular real estate marketplace,which is a very important
distinction.

Aaron Norris (16:01):
The 3% Commission's are now playing
around.

Spencer Rascoff (16:04):
Yes, yeah, by design, I mean, we we partner
with local agents, and then wepay, you know, we pay for
commissions on both sides of thetransaction. And the way we make
money is by marking up the realestate when we fractionalize it,
so we're not monkeying withcommissions.

Aaron Norris (16:20):
Got it. I was, uh, talking to Sean about this,
I've been surprised some of thestories that have come out with
some of the cities that areupset. And because of the
ownership structure, I wasthinking about places like
Tahoe, where if a single ownerlives there, and they're only
there maybe a month out of theentire year, and now you've got
eight owners, I know what I dowhen I go into a vacation rental

(16:41):
and how much money I spend inthe market and going out to
restaurants, you would think alot of these electeds. And city
leadership's would be a littlebit more excited about this
model.

Spencer Rascoff (16:52):
Yeah, so I mean, we saw we saw one of the
big problems of these vacationcommunities, which is empty
homes, and you know, a homethat's empty and is only used
six weeks a year. There's nothere's no business coming into
local community from that emptyhouse. And our homes have 90
something percent utilizationrate. So those people are going
to the restaurants, they'rebuying lift tickets, the going

(17:14):
to the wineries, they're, youknow, using local services.
Local officials do get thatactually we have very strong
support from from most localofficials in the markets that
we're in. However, we haveencountered opposition and
concern from some communitymembers. And and it's usually

(17:35):
because of misunderstanding ofthe model or you know, confusing
us with short term rentals, likean Airbnb, which we very much
are not because this is an owneronly product. Once we get a
chance to educate people aboutwhat we are and what we're not.
We usually overcome objections.
But like with any newinnovation, whether it's ride
sharing, or scooters in citiesor short term rentals, you know,

(17:58):
there's there's communityconcern and opposition, I think
with with new models. And youknow, I think as time passes and
as we educate people about whatwe're up to, I think that will
will lead

Aaron Norris (18:15):
what the markets are you most excited about doing
this in and at what price point

Spencer Rascoff (18:21):
the markets that we've had the most success
in so far have been Napa Valley,and Sonoma Valley. So one
country taho the SouthernCalifornia beaches from Malibu
down to Orange County, San Diegoand La Jolla. And some of the
Colorado ski markets like AspenVail Park City, Breckenridge,

(18:43):
telluride. We are we justlaunched South Florida, and are
having great success there. Andwe are launching new markets all
the time, includingInternational, which is a major
focus of ours. The price pointsare typically the whole home
prices are in the four to $8million range for the whole

(19:06):
house. And so the Picasso sharesare typically an eighth of that.
So usually a couple $100,000 pershare. And we hope over time to
move to lower price points andmake it even more accessible.
But for now, that's the pricepoint that we're in.

Sean O'Toole (19:23):
And did you like you know, hold back one week and
each of these houses for likeyou and your team?

Spencer Rascoff (19:30):
know we alas we did not, although we do have a
very innovative employeebenefit, where employees can buy
Picasso's at no markup. And theythey there's kind of a vesting
program where longer tenuredemployees can essentially earn
into owning Picasso's, etc. So,you know, we do have a very nice

(19:52):
employee benefit in that regard.
But no, we're not keeping thebest the best inventory for
ourselves

Aaron Norris (19:58):
Had to ask I think I want to skip to supernova and
offerpad. I bind a hot topic.
But I think we need to startwith the SPAC. What is what is
the SPACYeah, so what is this back? It's
a SPAC. The term spec stands forspecial purpose acquisition

(20:18):
company. And a SPAC is a publiccompany, that it's when you take
public, a shell company that ispublicly traded. And in my case,
I have three of these, they'republicly traded on the New York
Stock Exchange. One is calledsupernova one, the tickers SPN
v. The other is called supernovato the ticker is sn, I and the

(20:39):
other one is supernova three,and that that ticker is str,
like, like supernova tray. So Itake a shell company public, and
it has no operating business, itonly exists for one purpose,
which is to find a privatecompany to merge into it. And
when that private company mergesinto that publicly traded shell

(21:00):
company, then the public SPACfades away, it changes its name
to the private company. And likea supernova, which burns
brightly for a period of timeand then vanishes, it kind of
collapses into a black hole. TheSPAC disappears when the merger
is complete, and the privatecompany eclipses the public

(21:23):
company. And the reason whythese things exist, is there a
number of advantages for acompany to go public via a spec
merger, rather than through atraditional IPO or direct
listing. And just very briefly,cuz it's this gets kind of

(21:43):
technical, but briefly, a coupleof the benefits of going public
through SPAC are, it's faster,it gets done in the matter of a
couple months, rather than aprocess of upwards of a year for
a traditional IPO. Number two,you get the sponsorship of the
SPAC itself. So usually, thesefacts are run by people like me
kind of people that have takencompanies public before or have

(22:05):
a particular area of expertise.
And so the sponsorship meansthat when your private company
merges into my public shellcompany, my team and I
essentially help you with thattransition from private to
public. And then we support youin the public markets for a
couple years afterwards. So thatsponsorship can be pretty
helpful for certain types ofprivate companies as they go

(22:25):
public. And number three,because it's a merger, not an
IPO, these private companies areable to issue projections,
financial projections, becausethere is a safe harbor
protection of sharing financialpredictions in a merger, which
you can't do it throughtraditional IPO. So this is why
you see a lot of spec, companieshave spec mergers with electric

(22:50):
vehicle companies or flyingtaxis or, you know, space
companies kind of things thatare very hockey stick ish, where
if they can share long termprojections with public
investors, then they'll beproperly understood by the
public markets. But if they gopublic through regular IPO,
they're not allowed to shareprojections. Those are a couple

(23:13):
of reasons why companies gopublic through SPAC.

Sean O'Toole (23:16):
So just to be clear, this has been around for
a long time. Yes. Go on. I was18. My partners in my first
software company wanted to go Ithink was reverse IPO. Is that
the right word they used to use?
Yeah, but yeah,

Spencer Rascoff (23:29):
I mean, they used to be called kind of blank
check companies. Yeah, you'reright. They've been around for
many years for decades. And theywere always kind of in the
shadows. It was always sort oflike a weird way to go public.
Yeah, kind of a little bitshady, a little bit weird. And
then a couple years ago, theystarted becoming a little bit
more mainstream. And there werea couple of very high profile
tech companies that went publicthis way. DraftKings was kind of

(23:53):
the first one that really made aname for themselves and Virgin
Galactic and then open door. Andthen now you have very high
quality companies like so phiand grab and offerpad going
choosing to go public in thisway. And they could go public
any which way? So it's it's nolonger a you know, it's no

(24:14):
longer a sketchy way to gopublic. It's now more
mainstream.

Aaron Norris (24:20):
It's supernova one that is working with offerpad.
Right.

Spencer Rascoff (24:25):
least five other prop tech companies have
gone public through specmergers. The Hippo which is home

(24:48):
insurance, states title, whichis has been renamed DOMA is
title insurance. So all of thoseare going public through spec
mergers. Yeah. So Supernova oneis merging with Offerpad. When
the merger closes, hopefully inq3 then the ticker SPN V will
switch to OPAD. and Supernovawill cease to exist and it will

(25:11):
switch its name to Offerpad andOfferpad will be public. And at
that point you know, the thebasically, the Supernova which
you know, my team which tookSupernova public will become
shareholders and offerpad is theeasiest way to think about it.

Sean O'Toole (25:30):
Cool to the folks at Zillow still talk to you.

Spencer Rascoff (25:32):
They do they do I mean, you know, ibuying is so
small relative to the totaladdressable market. And it's
still so new that I believe andI think Zillow believes that
there is so much space foreverybody. And the fact is, I'm
still a large Zillowshareholder. And I still believe
Zillow blue and I have manyfriends there and root for the

(25:55):
company and as a shareholder, ofthe company. And I think that
Offerpad can be very successfuland Zillow can be very
successful. And so yes, theystill talk to me.

Aaron Norris (26:05):
Hey, I enjoy you responding on Twitter to Zillow
haters.

Spencer Rascoff (26:10):
But yeah, I mean, it's still you know, look,
I still, I still get people, youknow, complaining about hotwire
stuff. And I started Hotwire2022 years ago, and I sold it 19
years ago, and people still, youknow, talk to me on social,
like, I didn't know my flightwas canceled and Hotwire. And,
you know, didn't they didn'trefund their ticket, whatever.

(26:30):
And I'm, like, apologizing forhot water. So, you know, the
founders curse is I'll always bea part of the company when we're

Aaron Norris (26:40):
now did you start Supernova one thinking? Were you
eyeing? offerpad?

Spencer Rascoff (26:44):
No, no, no. In fact, you're not even allowed to
by law, you really cannot havethat, like, yeah, you cannot
have your target identified atall. So no, we had no, it's not
none of my three stacks or proptech stacks. It was not focused
on overpass, we looked athundreds and hundreds of
companies. And but you know, Inever thought it was going to be

(27:07):
a prop tech company to behonest, and was surprised that
it ended up being something asclose to, you know, as close to
a space that I knew well, but wemet with hundreds of companies
and Offerpad was the best. Welooked at this and we're like,
wow, this will make a greatpublic company. This is a space
we understand. And, you know,let's merge with them in order

(27:28):
to take them public so that wechose the deal. But no, we
didn't know who

Aaron Norris (27:32):
what gets you so excited about offerpad in
comparison with open door andZillow, like how are they
standing out and differentiatingthemselves for you.

Spencer Rascoff (27:39):
The biggest point of differentiation is the
real estate DNA and the realestate expertise, you know,
Zillow and open door. And bothamazing companies. They are tech
and product companies at theircore at the you know, in their
DNA, they both hired for realestate expertise. But offerpad
went the other direction, theystarted as a real estate
company. And then they hired fora second product. So if you look

(28:03):
at the renovations, for exampleof offerpad, or their ability to
buy and sell homes quickly andon budget, like the performance
in those particular areas, whichare so critical to ibuying
metrics. They're terrific. Andofferpad is the profitable eye
buyer, you know, Zillow and opendoor a lot bigger. But offerpad

(28:26):
is more profitable, and I thinkhas terrific real estate
operations. So those are the theadvantages that they have. But
the fact the fact is that whilethe media likes to, you know,
the media and and others, youknow, like to ask that question,
the fact is that it's likeZillow, and open door and our
friend like they don't reallycompete with each other, what
they're really competing with,is the selling your home the old

(28:49):
way, which still has 99.5%market share. So only point 5%
of people sell their home to oneof those three eye buyers. So
really offerpad is trying toconvince people to sell their
home, you know, in this way, andin that sense, offer pad
benefits from Zillow and opendoor educating sellers that

(29:11):
there's a better way to sellyour home, then, you know,
having a real estate agent walkaround the house, point to all
the things that you need to fixthat didn't bother you enough
when you lived in your house.
But now all of a sudden, youhave to spend 15,000 bucks to
fix it for the next guy tellingyou good luck on you know,
general contracting your ownrenovation to refurbish your
home. And then you pay for thatupfront and then putting the

(29:33):
yard sign in your house and youhave no idea whether the house
is gonna sell in a day, in whichcase Oh my god, where do I go?
Or is it gonna sell in sixmonths? In which case I can't
really start buying my nexthouse. Like that's 99.5% market
share that way. And I buying youknow, or selling your home to an
eye buyer is point 5% marketshare. And I firmly believe our
customers. Yeah, I mean, Ifirmly believe that in the next

(29:56):
five or 10 years. It's going tobe Five or 10% of homes are
going to sell to an eye buyer.
And if you believe that, yeah,there's tone, then then Zillow
will be $150 billion market capcompany opener will be an $80
billion market cap company offerpad will be a $30 billion market

(30:16):
cap company. And, you know, I'lldo great, you know, in lots of
different ways, you know, andlike, there's just so much
opportunity, as the share shiftsfrom selling your home the old
way to sell your home the newway. And you look at what's
happened in other categories,right, like, you know, let's
take carbine, for example, incar selling, where you have room
and shift and carvana. All youknow, all innovating on the car

(30:41):
buying and selling experienceand stealing share from buying
and selling your car the oldway.

Sean O'Toole (30:47):
Or, you know, pieces of the market and lots of
room.

Spencer Rascoff (30:50):
Exactly, exactly. So that's why, you
know, to me, this is just a wayfor me to magnify the size of my
macro bet on iBuying. I alreadybet Zillow I bet the company of
Zillow on the shift to ibuyingwhen you know my team, and I
pivoted the company to it, and Igot I launched us into I think
our 10th or 15th market. And Iturned over a lot of the

(31:13):
shareholder base and hired 1000sof employees to shift the
company towards AI buying andthen about two years ago, I was
like, Okay, I did it like I Ifeel like I successfully
migrated the company into thisnew space time to retire. But
now I have a chance withofferpad to increase the size of
my bet on iBuy.

Aaron Norris (31:32):
I think you were really instrumental in vertical
integration at Zillow though, aswell, you know what the dot.loop
and now we're looking at remoteonline notary. I mean, it's
really ecosystems to where aconsumer could touch an
ecosystem and really never touchanother real estate brand.
Again. I interviewed MarnieBlonko, actually in in December,
and we're talking about this andall the data that Zillow was

(31:52):
able to garner throughout thetransaction when everything's in
house, the mortgage and theclosing and whatnot, and how
powerful that is. So that'sfine.

Spencer Rascoff (32:01):
Yeah, that's Yeah, so I mean, well, Marnie,
obviously, was an executivedotloop and Zillow for many,
many years. And now by the way,she is a Pacasso, so you'll have
to have her back on and on. ButMarnie is awesome. And I'm so
excited to be working with heragain it because so but yeah,
look, I mean, again, think aboutthe consumer in other

(32:21):
categories, because people arenot, home shoppers are home,
home sellers in a vacuum.
They're, they're using serviceslike Uber and Grubhub, and
Instacart, and DoorDash andTaskRabbit. Like, they're on
their phones, they're pressing abutton, and they're having some
magic happen in their life. Andso they're bringing that
expectation into the real estatecategory. And, you know, they're

(32:43):
like, Look, I can buy lifeinsurance on my phone in like,
you know, 60 seconds, I can buya car on my phone in 60 seconds.
Why can I, you know, why can't Isee a house on my phone? Why can
I sign a real estate purchaseand sale agreement on my phone,
like they bring thatexpectation. And so a lot of the
hard work that we did at Zillowwas your right around vertical
integration around trying tobring that transaction

(33:05):
transaction seamlessly into oneecosystem in a full stack way.
And I'm as a venture investor,now it's 75 & Sunny, I'm
investing behind that thesis inlots of places fly homes, for
example, which is trying to doit on the buy side. Offerpad,
obviously, which is reallytrying to do it on the sell
side. So sell your home to offerpad seamlessly. And then buy a

(33:27):
home from Offerpad seamlessly.
So I'm a big believer in thatvertical integration, and trying
to build a full stack experiencefor the consumer.

Aaron Norris (33:39):
Marnie, and I joke I said, if there's not, here's
your first buying experience, itwasn't a real estate
transaction. So

Spencer Rascoff (33:45):
yeah, hopefully, it won't be that way.
You know, hopefully, my kidswhen they buy their first home,
someday, it will be as easy asyou know, ordering an Uber or
buying an airline ticket ontheir phone or some of these
other transactions that wereable to complete seamlessly.

Aaron Norris (34:01):
Now, now, you started Zillow, during the Great
Recession, great timing, butalso gives you very unique
insights into market cycles. Sois Wall Street and prop tech
position to survive a downturnif it happens?

Spencer Rascoff (34:17):
Well, that's a tricky question. I mean, the, we
sort of went through one withCOVID. Briefly, it was, it was a
mini one, like everyone freakedout for three months, and then
we realized actually realestate's gonna be on fire, you
know, through COVID and beyond.
So, so, what tends to happenduring downturns, whether it was
the travel recession of 2001,after 911, which I lived through

(34:40):
with hotwire and Expedia, or thereal estate recession in 2008,
which I lived through Zillow orthe COVID recession, which was
brief, but but you know, butStark is disruptors tend to
benefit and disruptors tend tobenefit during those challenging
times. Because Firstly, theytend to be more nimble, but more

(35:01):
importantly, decision likeeverything, all the cards are
thrown up in the air at thosepoints of time. So like in 2008,
in the case of Zillow, all thecards were thrown up in the air
meaning meaning brokerages allof a sudden, were receptive to
distributing their listingsthrough Zillow because their
homes weren't selling anyway,they're like, well, I don't know
you're at your website with alot of traffic. Sure, we'll give

(35:22):
you listings. And MLS is morereceptive to it, but for the
same reason, because theiragents and brokers are like,
Hey, man, we got so many housesto sell. We just got to get them
out there online. Here's awebsite that has traffic great.
Sure, get more listings. SoZillow benefited undoubtedly
from that and hotwire in 2001benefited undoubtedly, because
airlines and hotels had extracars and, and started cars and
hotels and airline tickets tosell and so they embraced online

(35:46):
distribution. The disruptors ofonline travel through that as
well. So what happens is yourquestion, what happens in a
hypothetical real estatedownturn? Should there ever be
one? I actually think I buyingbenefits, believe it or not,
because the biggest reason whypeople don't sell their home to
offer pad or Zillow or open dooris because they think they can

(36:11):
get a great price selling theirhome conventionally. Oh, it'll
sell in a week anyway, for 20%above. So why should I? You
know, why should I take ahaircut from an eye buyer? So in
a downturn, the certainty andspeed that a ibuyer provides is
even more advantageous to aseller. That is

Sean O'Toole (36:31):
so capital, though, which could That's true.

Spencer Rascoff (36:35):
That's true.
And it also assumes that theycan stay a step ahead of the
market, because they do own alot of houses now briefly, only
on them for six weeks. But, youknow, if there's a if there's a
sharp decline in there, andthey've got a lot of real
estate, that could be a problem.
You know, I, this is, I mean,this is why when I was CEO
Zilla, we raised a lot of money,I think, you know, I don't know

(36:57):
how many billions of dollars ofcash Zillow has, but every time
that this stock went to acertain price, we did more share
offerings for exactly thatreason to have a lot of capital.
And this is one of the reasonsofferpad is going public because
they're gonna have 600 millionof capital. You know, once the
once the merger with supernovacloses. And in their whole
company's life, they only everraise 200 million of total
venture capital. So all of asudden opera, Pat's gonna have a

(37:19):
lot more money, and opendoor hastons of money, too. So. So these
companies are trying to positionthemselves for that rainy day
should ever come. And they'retrying to make sure that they
stay abreast to the market sothat if the market starts to
slow, they can adjust quickly,so they're not left holding the
bag. And they did that reallywell. Through COVID, we saw a
little mini version of thatwhere all three of the buyers

(37:40):
slammed on the brakes, theystopped buying new homes, and
they were able to sell theirexisting inventory. And they all
did great, actually throughCOVID. And they've you know, and
now they've come out of it evenstronger.

Sean O'Toole (37:52):
That capital raised is that as a part, that's
never been clear to me, that's,that's not really being that's
being used to fund operationsand the rest that's not being
used as the capital to purchase

Spencer Rascoff (38:04):
your right.
Well, you're mostly right,you're right. They all have
credit lines, kind of warehouselines and other forms of debt.
That is mostly buying the homes.
But sometimes it takes a coupleweeks for that. So sometimes
they are using their own cash onthe balance sheet.

Sean O'Toole (38:22):
warehousing like the mortgage guys.

Spencer Rascoff (38:24):
Exactly, exactly. But yeah, you are
right. They're mostly they'remostly using debt to buy the
house.

Aaron Norris (38:31):
You at all concerned about a downturn in
the next few years?

Spencer Rascoff (38:35):
Well, next few years is a pretty long horizon.
I guess in the next one or twoyears. I'm not I'm not
concerned. And the reason is,even though we're way past peak
value, we're way past the 2007peak value of homes of home
prices. The 2005 to 2007 bubblewas created by easy credit, and

(38:57):
people getting mortgages thatthey shouldn't have gotten. And
as soon as that easy creditstopped in 2007 2008, then there
was a foreclosure crisis.
Obviously, we all know whathappened. This period of home
price appreciation is not due toeasy credit, it is due to a
supply demand imbalance. And thefact is that we are missing
about 10 million homes from thehousing stock somewhere between

(39:19):
five and 10 million homes. Andhere's what the data says in
each decade from the 70s 80s 90sand 2000s. We built about I
think it was 26 between 25 and28 million new homes each of
those decades for four decadeswere in the 2000 10s. I'm gonna
get my number wrong here, but Ithink we built about 10 or 12

(39:41):
million homes. I tweeted thissomewhere if listeners want to
try to track it down. Butanyway, so there's about 10 ish
million homes sort of missingthat just didn't get built in
the 2000 10s. And the reason forthat was coming out of the 2008
recession. Home Builders pulledway back, they were building a
million homes a year. And theywere brought down to like two or

(40:02):
300,000. So there were like fiveyears there, where we just
didn't build enough houses. Andnow we're paying a price by
having missing homes. So that isgoing to take many years to
rectify. And, Go ahead,

Sean O'Toole (40:19):
I agree with everything you just said. But
you know, I think I could alsosay that, you know, the, the
2008 crisis was due to easycredit. Right. But I think some
of home prices today are due tocheap credit, thanks to very low
interest rates. Right. And a lotof people talking about
inflation now, and I have my owntake on that. But I'd love to

(40:39):
hear your take on inflationrates. Because if if rates
double, like these prices won'tbe sustainable.

Spencer Rascoff (40:48):
Yeah. So So.
Yeah, I mean, if yes, if ratesdouble, then I agree. But at
Zillow, we did a lot of researchon what impact increases in
interest rates have and mortgagerates, I should say, have on on
home buying. And what we mostlyfound was that when rates are
low, people trade up on pricepoint, and when rates go up,

(41:10):
they still buy, they just tradedown a little bit on price. And
so it doesn't really you know,this is within a band, like
obviously, if mortgage rates gofrom 4% to 12%. Sure, fine.
people stop buying houses. Butwhen they go from 4% to 5%,
people, you know, they, all of asudden their mortgage, their

(41:31):
monthly mortgage goes up. And soinstead of buying a $300,000
house, they buy a $280,000 houseto get the monthly back into
their budget, but they stillbuy. And so I'm just I'm not
that worried. I you know, theFed is going to slowly increase
rates over the next 234 years,and their mortgage rates are
gonna go up 100 basis pointsover the last couple years. I

(41:51):
don't think that's going to likecause the housing market to jam
on the brakes. It may it what Ithink is happening instead, and
we're already seeing this isfirst time homebuyers, are being
priced out of the market,because they don't have the
benefit of the appreciation. Youknow, if you're, if you bought a
home 10 years ago for $300,000.

(42:12):
And now it's worth $400,000, youcan sell it into this hot market
and buy a home for 500. But ifyou don't have a home to sell,
you know, you're kind ofscrewed, because you don't you
know, you can't bet the hotmarket. And so people are just
going to keep renting longer.
And that's what's going to getthe demand and supply a little
bit more imbalance while HomeBuilders scramble to buy more
homes or build more homes. Andhopefully that creates more of

(42:35):
an equilibrium. But So the shortanswer is, I think home prices,
the home values and the generalheat in the real estate market
is going to pretty much continuefor the next two or three years.
And I just don't see anythingthat that alarming on the
horizon right now the way I didin 2007. And there's a great
blog post out there somewherestill on Zillow blog, which I
wrote in 2007. And this thesubject or the title of my blog

(42:58):
post was the tidal wave iscoming. And it was, you know, I
was just looking at the data, ondelinquencies. And it was super
obvious that a year later, therewas going to be this foreclosure
crisis. Now, of course, I wish Ihad put some money behind that
bet. Instead, I just wrote ablog post that nobody read. But
you know, but it was prettyobvious at the time. To me,

Sean O'Toole (43:22):
that's actually the call Aaron is and his dad
are famous for running aroundwarning everybody in 2006 to get
out. And I have a, you know, Ilaunched a foreclosure service
in early 2007. And I got out ofthe market at the end of Oh,
five. So that's a lot of ourlisteners are here because of
that. And you're wondering, whenwe're going to say get out

(43:44):
again, and I share your outlookat this point. And so just for
the folks here listening forthat reason, because that is a
big part of our audience isexactly that question.

Spencer Rascoff (43:57):
Yeah, I mean, we'll see. But that's, that's
how I see it from where I said,

Sean O'Toole (44:02):
I agree.

Aaron Norris (44:03):
What data do you wish you had access to that you
don't?

Spencer Rascoff (44:07):
Um, let's see.
Well, for Picasso's purposes, Iwish I could prove that vacant
second homes, you know, arereally bad for local
communities, because that wouldhelp us win the argument with
community members. And we're, ofcourse trying to find that data
to prove it. But I think moregenerally, what data do I wish I
had? Oh, boy. I get asked a lot.

(44:32):
The question about migrationcoming out of COVID. And I just
haven't seen great data on thatyet. Like we all know, friends
that are moving, you know, thestories of like, Oh, these
people left New York City andthey would Florida or they moved
to Westchester or you know, itfeels that way. It feels like
people are moving to Montana andColorado but like, are they
really or is it just a coupleyou know, everyone knows two

(44:54):
people and like, but the, youknow, the numbers don't really
say it. I don't know. area, Idon't really understand the
terms of the data.

Sean O'Toole (45:02):
Yeah. Especially for us being in California.
Right. Like, we hear it, I thinkmore than everybody else
combined.

Spencer Rascoff (45:11):
I yeah. I mean, I it's like, I mean, not, you
know, obviously, there is somedata that shows that home values
in the city of San Francisco aredeclining, because, you know,
people are moving. So I've seensome data on that. But like,

Sean O'Toole (45:24):
the code, the number one zip code out of San
Francisco, though, there was astudy 96161 which is Truckee,
California, right?

Spencer Rascoff (45:34):
I believe it.
Yeah. People are living. Yeah. Imean, yeah. So like, in where I
live in LA, I, you know, thereare a couple friends of mine
that have moved to Dallas andAustin. And there's kind of this
lore that like, oh, everyone'sleaving California for Texas,
because it's a better business,climate and taxes and whatever.
But I'm like, I don't know. Cuzlike, Yeah, I know, three
families that moved there, youknow, two or three families have
moved to Texas. But you know,what, two or three families

(45:55):
bought their houses. Sosomebody's moving here. I know,
for every person that leaveslike, their their housing stock
isn't getting knocked down. Andhouses still seem really
expensive. So I don't know.
Like, I tend to think that theit's like the stories of the
demise of the cities is probablypremature.

Aaron Norris (46:15):
I would agree that it seems like not only do we not
build enough, but we also are ondemographic trends. So you've
got xennials and millennialsfinally getting off the house,
my bench. And in myneighborhood. I live in
Riverside, about 45 minutes awayfrom downtown LA without
traffic, you can all laugh, cuzthat never happened. I was
walking the neighborhood aftermy open heart surgery last

(46:37):
month. And I ran into this guy.
And he's like, I just bought theneighborhood. I'm like, Hey,
welcome. You know, it's a greatneighborhood. It's super
diverse. You're gonna have agreat time. What do you do for
work? He's like, Oh, I workdowntown LA. I'm like, oh,
because you get to work fromhome, right? He's like, no, I go
in every day I'm all, and you'recrazy. That's at least three
hours a day of his life gone.
That's the only thing I don'tlike, but I don't think they're
all moving out of California.
But I do see a lot of it seemslike I'm seeing a lot of people

(47:01):
from LA and the coastal regionscoming into the Inland Empire
right now.

Spencer Rascoff (47:05):
So well, that's, that's the other piece
of data that I would like tohave, which is nobody really
knows what's going to happenwith this work from home thing.
Right? Like, I mean, my, Isuspect that most people are not
going to have to be in theiroffice five days a week, then
maybe there'll be there one day,a week, a couple days a month.
Therefore, it's much morereasonable to live in Riverside

(47:27):
and commute to Santa Monica ordowntown LA than it used to be.
Like, I mean, I've I havefriends, for example, that have
moved to Santa Barbara, but theystill work in LA, because they
only have to go to their laoffice, like a day a month. And
so it's okay to live two hoursaway. But, you know, but is
that? And nobody knows? Theanswer is it's not that it's not
the data has been collected isthat companies haven't even

(47:48):
decided yet. What What is theworld gonna look like? And, you
know, it's because

Sean O'Toole (47:54):
I'm sure it's completely their decision,
either. Right? Well, that'strue.

Spencer Rascoff (47:58):
You're right, you're right,

Sean O'Toole (47:59):
workers are gonna get a pretty big say here, just
because of how hard it is to getin.

Spencer Rascoff (48:04):
Totally. I mean, I talked to a startup
today actually a prop techstartup based in Seattle, it's
10 to 10 to 15 employees. AndI'm an investor in it. And he's
like, yeah, we really just can'thire people. It's so hard. And
I'm like, well, where, you know,tell me more. He's like, Well,
you know, I'm trying to hireengineers and hear for our
office in Seattle. And I'm like,What do you mean? It's like,
well, I'm, they have to be inthe office. Because, you know,

(48:25):
we're a start up in thecollaboration and the
whiteboard, I'm like, well,that's a failing strategy.
Because like, you know,everyone's moving remote. Like,
first of all, the talent poolthat you're looking in is just
that one city of Seattle. Secondof all, you're trying to steal
people from you know, theSeattle tech companies that are
all being more flexible. Now.
You know, Microsoft, Zillow,Amazon, Expedia, these companies
are either in the case ofZillow, allowing you to work

(48:47):
from anywhere, or in the case ofthese other companies are
allowing you to work fromanywhere some of the year. And,
you know, you're saying you gotto be in the office all the
time, like, what are you doing?
So you're right, like employershave are going to adapt based on
what workers tell them. Picassodecided pre COVID, when when

(49:09):
Austin I started a company, wedecided from the very beginning,
this was pre COVID, to betotally remote, no office at
all. And of course, that turnedout to be depressions when COVID
happen, but now we've decided tostick with it. We have 110
employees now I think, nooffice, no plans for any
offices. And it's working great.
It's been totally seamless. Ifeel like we've built strong

(49:29):
company culture, we've got greatinnovation, collaboration,
coordination, we're using a lotof software tools for those
things. You know, it's not it'snot all like rainbows and roses.
Like there are some challenges,but overall, I think it's
it'sgreat.

Sean O'Toole (49:46):
Any favorite software collaboration tools,
like not slack that we've notheard of, but they're really
cool that you like, um, youknow,

Spencer Rascoff (49:53):
because I'm not an engineer. I don't I'm not
really sure what's the state ofthe art for us on that. I mean,
I I did in terms of softwarecollaboration, I'm, I am
investing a lot in companies inthat space, though. So like,
there's one that unfortunately,because it doesn't use at least
not yet, which is called Kona,which is super cool. It's a,
it's a slack plugin forcoaching, emotional

(50:16):
intelligence. So like, whathappens is when if I'm slacking
with you, it'll, it'll give me amessage that says, like, Hey,
you know, the person who you'retalking to, they really prefer a
much more direct communicationstyle. And, you know, just tell
them like exactly what you'retrying to communicate, or, you
know, it looks, it looks, youknow, it looks like this person

(50:36):
is having kind of a crappy day.
And I can tell because theircalendar is jam packed, and
they've had a tough week. Andevery morning, by the way, you
get prompted to like, post tobasically tell Kona, like how
you're feeling. And so it's thetype of thing that if we were
working in an office together,you can kind of tell like, you
can sort of send someone'shaving a crappy day, and they
kind of seem down in their bodylanguage. But if you're, if

(50:58):
everyone's remote, you can'tsense that. So this is like a
software version ofcommunicating body language to
help people improve their theirEQ. So, you know, that's the
type of software that I thinkthere's a place for in a remote
world.

Sean O'Toole (51:15):
I've loved that.
I've always hated that, like,the sender gets to choose the
method of communication, right?
Whether that's text or aFacebook message, or email, or
voicemail or whatever, right? Itshould be the recipient that
always gets to choose, like, Iwant to have a router that
routes the routes to my favoriteplatform, and lets me work

(51:36):
there. But it's the same kind ofidea, right? It's like, how do
you take into account that otherperson's you know, needs?

Spencer Rascoff (51:45):
Exactly. That's what this is trying to solve
with software.

Aaron Norris (51:48):
Gosh it's therapy at work all day, every day. I
like it. We're at the end. Hereyou are. And I have a super
important question, because Ijust think you're so well adept
to answer this. Whattechnologies do you see having
the biggest impact on realestate that we might not be
paying attention to? Becauseit's outside the realm of real
estate?

Spencer Rascoff (52:08):
Wow, interesting one. I mean, the
easy one is AR but I'm not gonnabut the fact is that I don't
actually think augmented realityis gonna is gonna change real
estate that much, so I'm gonnarefrain from giving that answer.
Oh, gosh,

Sean O'Toole (52:25):
possible but not likely?

Spencer Rascoff (52:26):
I don't know.
Yeah, I mean,

Aaron Norris (52:30):
cool stuff with AR it's cool.

Spencer Rascoff (52:32):
Have it? I haven't. I haven't. I haven't
seen that. I mean, I guess Um, Idon't know. I guess I feel like
payments and the FinTech. We'restill so early that like, the
whole kind of mortgage appraisaltitle, like that part of the
funnel, kind of the last thirdof the transaction is still it's

(52:53):
still really messy andantiquated, like the first third
of the transaction, which is thesearch discovery thing like
that's cracked, you know,Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com.
Redfin, like, they got that nowthat you can't start a new real
estate search portal tomorrow,like that won't work. The middle
third, which is like thecoordination and communication
with the real estate agents, andkind of giving the agent tools

(53:14):
to the CRM and the same searchnotifications, and then even the
writing of the offer and thatkind of deal room coordination
of, of all that sort of like thedot loop DocuSign type stuff, I
think we're getting there. Butthat last third, which is like
greasing the wheels of of themoney flow, you're just starting
to see that with fly homes andmany others. But that's still

(53:38):
really early like that thosethose innovations have, like 0%
market share right now. So Ithink I think we'll see a lot
happening there over the next 10years.

Aaron Norris (53:49):
Okay.

Sean O'Toole (53:51):
Thank you, Spencer. I really appreciate

Spencer Rascoff (53:53):
Thanks, guys.
This is a fun discussion.

Sean O'Toole (53:55):
Awesome show.

Spencer Rascoff (53:56):
Thank you.
Thanks very, very much forhaving me. It's a great honor.
And I'll I'll drop off. I knowyou guys are gonna have another
chat here. But thank you guys.

Sean O'Toole (54:06):
Aaron. That was a pretty amazing show. Great job.
Yeah, really? great guests.
Super cool.

Aaron Norris (54:14):
Oh, that was cool.

Sean O'Toole (54:17):
What a way to come back after what we missed about
eight weeks here, the datadriven real estate podcast.

Aaron Norris (54:22):
Yeah, it's been a crazy weeks.

Sean O'Toole (54:25):
Crazy eight weeks.

Aaron Norris (54:27):
All very unexpected, and lots of changed.

Sean O'Toole (54:30):
Lots of things have changed. Um, so what? You
know why, why have we missed thelast eight weeks? I know you've
let folks know on Facebook. Andso this won't be news for
everybody. But where are youbeen?

Aaron Norris (54:46):
Yeah, I thought it would be fun to have open heart
surgery. I had some pretty crazysymptoms a couple months ago.
And you know, doctors weretrying to say it's stress. Like
Listen, I've been stressed sincethe fifth grade. I know my body
This is not stress. My heart wasracing out of my chest, but my
blood pressure was good. I wasgetting blurry vision. And I

(55:07):
wasn't able to breathe. It wasthe weirdest thing. I'd wake up
at one in the morning and havefive hours of hyperventilating.
And you read things about panicattacks and I'm like, my brain
is calm, but my body is freakingout. So I had two doctors that I
was very lucky that listened tome that I had known for a long
time. end up going to thecardiologist and during my
echocardiogram, the techniciansall holed up. The doctor came

(55:30):
in, he's like, yeah, that's notsupposed to be in there. I had
an egg size tumor inside my leftatrium. So think thinking it was
benign. We had what's called anOOP surgery, where you they open
you up and they take out thetumor. And that went very well.
But 10 days after the surgery,it came back as as a sarcoma. So
cancer 1% cancer, it's veryrare. So we started that

(55:54):
journey. So it's been a crazycouple months of trying to heal
from open heart surgery. I had amemorial day incident that ended
me up in the hospital for threedays, and another something that
I have to heal, and then Istarted chemo about three weeks
ago. So next week, July 1 willbe my second round. And I will
be bald, as of this weekend, I'mlooking very forward to a shiny

(56:17):
head. So it is, it's been reallycrazy. Our community has been
very cool. Property radar hasbeen awesome. I've been
overwhelmed. I can't take anymore coloring books, or food
delivery. It's been insane. Butjust going through it. It's just

(56:40):
been a crazy experience. Twomonths, it's so hard to say
those words associated with me.
I'm 44. I'm a healthy guy as oftwo months ago. So not expected.
This doesn't run in the family.
And we don't know where thiscame from. So

Sean O'Toole (56:56):
a big, big reminder. And I for you to be
the reminder, but how quickly,life can change and how kind of
pressure to precious it is andhow important like every day is.
And yeah, yeah, so I've reallymissed doing these podcasts with

(57:17):
you the last eight weeks

Aaron Norris (57:20):
of the week, I feel me. And then I go back
under chemo. And I think I'mgoing to change my strategy, I
just open heart surgery, one ofthe side effects is you don't
sleep. So I was running on weeksof three and a half hours of
sleep. And you're just reallyrestless and you're so exhausted
and you're in so much pain. Andtheir answers just like takes

(57:41):
take Norco. Like I'm not tryingto get not trying to create that
movie. I don't want to be partof that show. But yeah, I was
just exhausted. So I'm finallygetting back up to speed. I'm
breathing, okay, for the firsttime

Sean O'Toole (57:55):
a day like, you know, it's hard to know that all
the stuff you've been through inthe last eight weeks, and you
sure pulled off a heck of ashare today. So

Aaron Norris (58:04):
well gave me something to look forward to
being a doer, it is very hard tosit down and heal and to be
quiet. That's not my style. SoI'm learning a lot in this
process. So one of my number onegoals for 2021 was balance and
joy. And like most things,they've been wrapped in poo
sandwiches, all my goals thathave come through in the last

(58:27):
year has been wrapped in thingsthat are unexpected, and you
just have to run with it andmake the best of it. So I got
some things to learn apparently.
Exactly how would it planning oncompetence, accomplishing
balance, but here we go.

Sean O'Toole (58:44):
What happens from here, and let's give folks an
update on what we're gonna dowith the podcast.

Aaron Norris (58:49):
Because we're gonna put it on hold for a
little bit I, the second roundof chemo was a little bit
important, we have to see thecancer spread. So this is News.
Now a lot of people know that.
It wasn't just in my heart, it'sin multiple organs, muscle bone,
unfortunately. So the secondkind of round of chemo is really
systematic, just trying tosquash it. I'm very excited
about some other things thatwe'll talk about maybe at

(59:12):
another time. But we'll seeafter the second one, how I
handle the chemo and how thecancers reacting to the chemo.
But so far, I feel really good.
I think part of it was just mystrategy going into the last
chemo and so much pain and nosleep and now that that's
getting fixed, I feel like adifferent human being so I am
silly and Goofy and Phil morelike myself. So the next three

(59:36):
weeks will be really importantfor me to find out how this how
I'm responding, and then we'llgo from there.

Sean O'Toole (59:42):
No and my friend, you're an amazing one of a kind
a unicorn. And if anybody canbeat this thing it's you I look
forward to beating it and for uscoming back and continuing this.
We've had some amazing guests,you've done an amazing job with

(01:00:04):
this. And, you know, justappreciate all your help for the
last year and so much in thisand so many other things. And
so, folks, this is it for alittle while. And I hope you
keep up Aaron and your thoughtsand prayers, and, you know, send
all your good Juju his way. Andhopefully we'll be back.

Aaron Norris (01:00:28):
But none of your remedies no more remedies. I'm
full. Thanks. Thank you guys. Ilook forward to coming back now
that we've had Spencer on who'sgonna say no now?

Sean O'Toole (01:00:42):
Yeah, exactly.

Aaron Norris (01:00:43):
Hello. All right.

Sean O'Toole (01:00:46):
Awesome. Bye.