29: JD Ross, Co-Founder of Opendoor

The global stock of institutional grade real estate is set to triple over the next 15 years, with some estimates pegging aggregate values at ~$70 trillion. With this increase in asset volume, there’s a slew of complexity and change on the horizon — social migration will change the distribution of construction, the changing nature of cities presents a wider range of risk and return opportunities and technology is playing a deeper role in we re-think the physical world. Though there’s significant macro change on the horizon, participating in the market today feels less than inspirational — transacting is expensive, messy and lacks transparency.  Enter Opendoor. Opendoor brings machine learning and a thoughtful user experience to bear to dramatically simplify the end-to-end residential real estate transacting process. The company has raised $500M+ over the past few years and has scaled to 1,000 employees in less than half a decade. JD and I chatted at length about: (1) the technological shifts that make Opendoor possible, (2) key lessons he’s learned in scaling a business so quickly, (3) the flywheel effect for Opendoor and why its different from other marketplace businesses, and (4) the challenges incumbents face in entering this space. It was a pleasure to have JD on the show.