Tim FerrissHow Rich Barton Built Expedia and Zillow — Audacious Goals, Provocation Marketing, and More
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Rich Barton on building Expedia and Zillow through provocation
- Rich Barton recounts early Microsoft lessons—especially Brad Chase’s encouragement to take big swings without punishment—and how that shaped his approach to building innovative cultures.
- He explains how Expedia began as a Microsoft internal venture after he pitched Bill Gates on consumer travel booking, and why spinning it out mattered for value and talent/accountability dynamics.
- He describes Zillow’s founding insight as “power to the people” for opaque real estate data, early missteps with home auctions, and the Zestimate as the provocative feature that unlocked massive consumer interest.
- He outlines a “provocation marketing” playbook built on emotionally resonant features and continuous data distribution through PR, while rejecting fear-driven attention as “cheap.”
- He discusses strategic defenses against Google disintermediation (brand and workflow integration), plus leadership practices around boards, delegation via intentional absence, and firing as a humane win/win.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasInnovation requires leaders who reward big swings, even when they fail.
He described being encouraged by Brad Chase at Microsoft to take a big swing (a DOS For Dummies bundle) that failed, then being asked immediately, “What’s your next big idea?”—a model of innovation where leaders don’t punish thoughtful risk-taking.
Culture is people—and innovators need explicit protection from the ‘corporate immune system.’
He said culture ultimately “boils down to the people that you hire” and that innovators/intrapreneurs often get rejected by “mainline corporate culture,” so leadership must “hire, cultivate, protect, and invest” in them.
Expedia started as an internal venture driven by a consumer-access vision and a spin-out thesis.
He traced Expedia’s origin to pitching Bill Gates on consumer access to travel booking (inspired by EasySabre on Prodigy), and later pushing for a spin-out largely as an HR/talent accountability experiment inside a growing Microsoft.
Zillow’s key leap came from abandoning auctions and focusing on ‘prices on every roof’ via Zestimate.
He said Zillow came from noticing how hard it was in 2003 to get basic home information online and wanting “power to the people” like Expedia; early Zillow tried home auctions, learned why that didn’t fit housing behavior, and discovered the Zestimate as the breakout feature.
Provocation marketing works best when it’s data-driven, emotional, and not fear-based.
He described “provocation marketing” as building provocative features and a stream of data people care about, then distributing it through PR (including local housing-news demand), while avoiding “cheap” fear-based attention in favor of provoking people while making them feel good or entertained.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesAnd then we went to the hospital, and while the IPO was happening, my son was being born.
— Rich Barton
And I have a folder called The Breakfast Club in my iPhone pictures, and I have, like, 1,000 pictures, and it's a time series of these kids growing up.
— Rich Barton
But he, but Brad Chase, back to Brad, sat me down. I thought I was... for my review, and I thought I was gonna, who knows, like it was like it was a 10, $20 million mistake, you know? And I was a young kid. And he said, I remember distinctly, he said, "All right, what's your next big idea?"
— Rich Barton
My business criteria for doing stuff is, you know, is it a big pond and are there good fishermen?
— Rich Barton
Don't panic.
— Rich Barton
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
