Please join co-founder of Zillow, Lloyd Frink, and me in congratulating Spencer Rascoff today on his promotion from COO to CEO of Zillow. Spencer is an immensely capable and energetic leader, who has been a driving force at Zillow from the beginning, progressing gracefully and quickly through several positions including VP of Marketing, CFO, and COO. This promotion is well-deserved and is a formal recognition of leadership responsibility he has been carrying for awhile. I will remain an executive at Zillow as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Lloyd and I have known Spencer for many years. After a career in investment banking and private equity, Spencer came to his senses and co-founded Hotwire, the big discount travel site, which was purchased by Expedia (where Lloyd and I were executives) in 2003. In the five years he has been at Zillow, Spencer has overseen a company that grew from the spark of an idea into a widely recognized and respected brand that helps over 12 million people each month make better real estate and mortgage decisions — be they at their computers or on their mobile phones. Backed by an immensely strong team, he helped forge the brand, the product, and the relationships that made Zillow a force. Importantly, he helped create the business model and operations that made Zillow the company it is today. One that:
- Serves 12.5 million monthly visitors on Zillow.com (August), up 41% year over year
- Operates Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, the industry’s first open and transparent marketplace where borrowers connect with lenders to find loans and custom mortgage rates. ZMM processed 314,000 loan requests in August, up sixfold from a year ago
- Has the most popular real estate apps on iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile devices, downloaded more than 2 million times
Zillow’s success and position are a great source of pride and joy for me, and I couldn’t be more pleased to hand the baton off today to Spencer. If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him, you can follow Spencer on Twitter (@spencerrascoff), visit his ActiveRain blog, watch his real estate videos or find him passionately conversing in Zillow Advice. Congratulations to Spencer Rascoff, Chief Executive Officer of Zillow.