When Being Naive is an Advantage

I was recently asked by a journalist to describe what it’s like to work at Zillow. Here’s what I said:
At Zillow, we are always innovating. We have a “fail fast” culture. We try stuff, and if it’s not working, we change direction quickly. We have created a culture that rewards innovation rather than rewarding success. If you focus on rewarding success, people won’t take risks for fear of failing.
The most important thing we do at Zillow is recruit and retain talented people. Without our people, we are nothing. Hence we hire first and foremost for IQ, then for energy and passion, and then for culture fit. Subject matter expertise is a distant fourth, and can actually be a detriment for people in certain positions. It’s good to hire people who don’t have preconceived notions of what might be impossible based on their prior experience in the industry. Being naïve can be an asset.

I’ve had the good fortune of being part of two extraordinary startups which have revolutionized their industries: I co-founded Hotwire which was a disruptive new entrant in the online travel industry over 10 years ago, and I helped start Zillow which has rewired the real estate industry.

In both cases, my team and I had no prior experience in the specific industry. This was a good thing. If we had been in the real estate industry before starting Zillow, we would have thought it ludicrous that we could use computer models to value every home in the country, we would have thought it impossible to launch a product with hundreds of thousands of reviews of real estate agents, and we would never have tried to change the mortgage industry by creating a consumer-first mortgage shopping experience.

Sometimes being a newbie is a huge advantage. You have no pre-conceived notions about what’s possible or impossible, so you try innovative things. This is why little kids are such great skiers – they have no fear of falling down. As soon as you start to worry about falling, you’ve failed