Usually, GeekWire’s John Cook is the one quizzing Zillow, but in this instance, the tables were flipped.
Cook stopped by Zillow headquarters last Friday as the featured speaker in the Zillow Speaker Series. He shared some tidbits on his life as a co-founder of GeekWire, from covering the tech scene in Seattle, as well as marrying entrepreneurship and journalism in the creation of GeekWire.
Prior to founding GeekWire, Cook also helped start TechFlash.com (the Puget Sound Business Journal’s technology news site), where he served as executive editor. Before founding GeekWire and TechFlash, Cook has followed the successes (and failures) of many Seattle start-up companies, and has covered Zillow from nearly its inception in his role as tech beat writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Cook explained that the goal of GeekWire is to be more than a news source, but an important part of the technology scene in Seattle.
“We’ve built something new to help galvanize the tech community, and put us [Seattle] on the map,” Cook said.
As part of GeekWire’s commitment to the tech hub in Seattle, the company hosts local events. In one past event, Cook interviewed Zillow co-founder Rich Barton, inviting him to play a word association game.
On Friday, Zillow CMO Amy Bohutinsky had Cook play the game himself and asked him what came to mind for the following words:
Online real estate: “Seattle hub of activity.”
Windows Phone: “Long hill to climb”
Seattle drivers: “Awful.”
Venture capitalists: “A necessary part of the ecosystem.”
Kindle Fire: “Waiting to see.”
Selling your tech blog to AOL: [laughs] “No comment!”
Kim Kardashian: “One of the Kardashians. And someone on one of the shows I watch with my wife.”
Newspapers: “Relic.”
Want to hear from influential speakers like John Cook in person? Check out Zillow’s jobs page — we’re hiring for several positions.