I remember sitting in my first business class at Boston University as an undergrad; squinting at the whiteboard in a giant lecture hall while learning about “the paperless environment.” “Yeah, right” I thought, who are these guys kidding? When I graduated and started working in Silicon Valley 4 years later, there wasn’t anything paperless about finance or accounting (and this was “The Valley” – epicenter of the Internet boom). Journal entries, financial statements, reconciliations, presentations, analyzes, checks, deposit slips, etc., were all being printed. It’s not that the company I was working for couldn’t have Gone Green back then…It was more that no one really cared enough to make a change.
So, as of a few months ago (nearly 16 years since I started biz school), our Finance team here at Zillow decided to get smart about our use of paper. To that end, we are making a concerted effort to GO GREEN. Going Green not only means that we do what’s right for the environment, but it also means that as the fiduciaries of Zillow, we save the company some coin (green = cash). To this end, we are asking all our suppliers and customers to help us cut out the paperwork to save everyone, including our vendors, some shekels.