a16z Podcast - 如何打造一个房地产交易平台——Opendoor首席执行官Kaz Nejatian 封面

如何打造一个房地产交易平台——Opendoor首席执行官Kaz Nejatian

How to Build a Real Estate Marketplace - Kaz Nejatian, Opendoor CEO

本集简介

Opendoor致力于简化购房流程。Kaz Nejatian刚加入并出任CEO以助力公司成功。 本期节目中,a16z普通合伙人Alex Rampell和Erik Torenberg与Kaz深入探讨房地产与交易平台相关话题。他们讨论了Kaz对Opendoor的愿景、套用对冲基金模式的问题、如何在经济低迷期持续发展,以及雄心与长远思维的重要性。 资源: 关注Kaz的X账号:https://x.com/CanadaKaz 关注Alex的X账号:https://x.com/arampell 保持更新: 若喜欢本期节目,请点赞、订阅并分享给朋友! 资源: a16z的X账号:https://x.com/a16z a16z的LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z 在Spotify收听a16z播客:https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX 在Apple Podcasts收听a16z播客:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 关注主持人:https://x.com/eriktorenberg 请注意,此处内容仅作信息参考;不应视为法律、商业、税务或投资建议,亦不可用于评估任何投资或证券;且不针对任何a16z基金的现有或潜在投资者。a16z及其关联机构可能持有讨论企业的投资。详情请见a16z.com/disclosures。 保持更新: 关注a16z的X账号 关注a16z的LinkedIn 在Spotify收听a16z播客 在Apple Podcasts收听a16z播客 关注主持人:https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg 请注意,此处内容仅作信息参考;不应视为法律、商业、税务或投资建议,亦不可用于评估任何投资或证券;且不针对任何a16z基金的现有或潜在投资者。a16z及其关联机构可能持有讨论企业的投资。详情请见a16z.com/disclosures。 由Simplecast(AdsWizz旗下公司)托管。关于我们收集和使用个人数据用于广告的信息,请访问pcm.adswizz.com。

双语字幕

仅展示文本字幕,不包含中文音频;想边听边看,请使用 Bayt 播客 App。

Speaker 0

在上市公司中,有些事情你必须处理,而且会被放大。比如在私营公司,这些问题是在董事会桌上与风投讨论的。而在上市公司,它们会在Reddit上被讨论,还会登上《华尔街日报》。所以如果你非常在意《华尔街日报》对你的评价,经营上市公司会极其困难。这真的非常艰难。

There are things you have to deal with in a public company that are amplified. Like, in a private company, these problems are discussed with your VCs at a board table. In a public company, they're discussed on Reddit, and it's held in The Wall Street Journal. So if you care a great deal about what's said about you in The Wall Street Journal, running a public company is incredibly difficult. It's just very difficult.

Speaker 0

幸运的是,我根本不在乎。

Luckily, I just don't care.

Speaker 1

购房本应是美国梦的象征,但实际上它却是经济中最痛苦、最不透明和最低效的市场之一。在本期A16z播客中,我与领导我们应用业务的A16z普通合伙人Alator Mpel,以及Opendoor的新任CEO Kaz Najayshan一起探讨如何解决这些问题。我们讨论了为什么房地产行业几十年来一直抵制颠覆,市场模式如何最终打破房地产中介垄断,以及Opendoor让房屋买卖像点击'立即购买'一样简单的使命,远不止是炒房这么简单。Kaz分享了担任上市公司CEO的真实感受,为什么Opendoor实际上是一家软件公司,以及他如何让公司重新采取攻势。

Buying a home is supposed to be the American dream. Instead, it's one of the most painful, opaque, and inefficient markets in the economy. On this episode of the A16z Podcast, I'm joined by A16z general partner Alator Mpel, who leads our Apps practice, and Open Door's new CEO, Kaz Najayshan, to talk about fixing those issues. We discuss why real estate has resisted disruption for decades, how a marketplace model could finally break the real estate agency cartel, and why Opendoor's mission to make buying and selling a home as seamless as clicking Buy Now is much bigger than just flipping houses. Kaz shares what it's really like stepping into the CEO seat of a public company, why Opendoor is really a software business, and how he's putting the company back on offense.

Speaker 1

让我们开始吧。

Let's get started.

Speaker 0

Kaz,欢迎来到播客节目。谢谢邀请,老兄。

Kaz, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, man.

Speaker 2

我觉得你是当下的风云人物。你最近接任了Opendoor的CEO。已经几周了,一个月吧。我想是第16天。第16天。

I feel like you're the man of the moment. You recently took over as Opendoor CEO. It's been a few weeks, a month. It's day 16, I think. Day 16.

Speaker 2

我感觉你正在开创一种担任上市公司CEO的新方式。首先,是什么让你对这个机会感到兴奋?然后接手时,你抱着什么样的心态来面对你将如何

And I feel like you're pioneering a new way of being a public company CEO. First, what got you excited about the opportunity? And then coming into it, what was your mindset going into how you were

Speaker 0

会成为这家公司的CEO吗?我认为Opendoor将成为这一代人的公司,因为我觉得当人们去商学院时,他们总说你应该有个商业计划。它应该有17页,上面要有波特五力模型,事情就该这么运作。但这通常不是伟大企业建立的方式,至少很多都不是。我认为伟大的企业始于一个非常简单的理念,人们可以认同或反对它。

gonna be CEO of this company? I think Opendoor will become this generational company because I think people when you go to business school, they're like, you shall have a business plan. And it shall be 17 pages, and it shall have Porter's Five Forces on it, and that's how it's going to work. And that's just generally not how great businesses are built, at least not that many of them. I think it's important that great businesses start with a very simple statement that people can buy into or disagree with.

Speaker 0

重要的是你确实在表达观点。我认为房屋所有权对世界有益。拥有住房的人越多,我们就越好。这个过程客观上是有问题的,所以我们可以修复它。因此,我对公司的使命感到非常兴奋。

That's being actually important that you're saying something. I think home ownership is good for the world. The more people that can own a home, the better off we are. This is objectively a broken process, so we can fix it. So I think I was just generally excited by the mission of the company.

Speaker 0

我关注它有一段时间了,从外部观察,我觉得这似乎是我能帮忙解决的那种问题。现在我们踏上这段旅程才16天。让我们看看这是否最终能成真。

And I'm just a fan of it for a while and looking from the outside in, I'm like, look, this feels like the type of problem that I can help with. So we're sixteen days into this journey. Let's find out if that ends up being true.

Speaker 2

哇。好吧,我们来回顾一下历史。Alex,你主导了我们对公司的投资。是什么论点或愿景让你对它如此兴奋?

Wow. Well, let's trace a little bit of the history. Alex, you led our investment into the company. What was the thesis or vision that got you so excited about it?

Speaker 3

我来谈谈一些背景。当然。我会从亚马逊开始,然后再讲到Opendoor。我记得我是在Eric Wu刚和Keith创办Opendoor时见到他的,我想他们当时在凤凰城周边大概翻新了七八十套房子。嗯。

I'm gonna talk for a little bit of the background. Sure. And I'm gonna start with Amazon, and then I'll get to Opendoor. So I remember I met Eric Wu when he had first started Opendoor with Keith, and I think they had flipped maybe seventy, eighty homes, like, right around Phoenix. Mhmm.

Speaker 3

凤凰城市场之所以非常有趣,是因为有一个术语,我相信你非常熟悉,叫做资本化率或cap rate。可以把它看作是某项资产的收入除以资产价格。所以湾区的资本化率非常低。你可以在帕克高地买一栋2000万美元的房子,如果想出租,月租金可能大约是1万或2万美元——这很多,但相对于资产价格的比例并不高。

And the reason why Phoenix is a very interesting market is there's a term that I'm sure you're intimately familiar with called cap rate or capitalization rate. And think of it as like the income of some asset divided by the price of the asset. So the Bay Area has very low cap rates. So you could buy like a $20,000,000 house in Pack Heights. If you wanted to rent it, it might rent for like $10,000 a month or 20 which is a lot, but not as a percentage of the price of the asset.

Speaker 3

那是非常、非常低的收益率。而在像凤凰城这样的地方,所有房子都差不多——我有点夸张了,不是想冒犯住在凤凰城的人。但你可能会有一栋20万美元的房子,年租金却能到2万美元。

That is very, very low yield. In a place like Phoenix, all the homes are pretty similar. I'm exaggerating. I'm not trying to affect people who live in Phoenix. But you would have a $200,000 house that might rent for $20,000 a year.

Speaker 3

所以就像10%那样,净营业收入除以资产,这就是你的资本化率。10%。实际上你可以让很多事情行得通,因为总会有默认买家,他们会说,我可以套利这个。我持有一栋房子,我不必把它卖给另一个想买房的人。

So like a 10% so the net operating income divided by the asset, like, that's your cap rate. 10%. You can actually make a lot of things work because there's always a default buyer of somebody who will say, I can arbitrage this. I'm holding a house. I don't have to sell it to another person that wants to buy a house.

Speaker 3

我现在可以把它租出去。而且因为我能从银行获得5%的抵押贷款,我可以让整个数学计算成立。所以埃里克开始在凤凰城翻新房屋,并在大多数房子上赚了钱。但我觉得,啊,你知道,我不确定,翻新房屋似乎有点挑战性。我的意思是,当所有价格都上涨时听起来很棒。

I can now rent it out. And because I can get a mortgage from a bank for 5%, like, I can make the whole math work. So Eric had started flipping homes in Phoenix and made money on most of them. But I was like, ah, you know, I don't know, flipping homes seems kind of challenging. I mean, it sounds great when all prices go up.

Speaker 3

但我真正被吸引的是他提出的愿景。当我最终投资时,我认为他已经相当接近实现那个愿景了,这就是我提到的。我要谈谈亚马逊。亚马逊在九十年代开始时基本上销售世界上所有的书,因此有了亚马逊和杰夫·贝索斯的车库或地下室或仓库什么的。通过销售每一本书,就像拥有无限的书籍供应,他获得了所有的需求。

But what I was really drawn to is the vision that he laid out. And when I finally invested, I thought he was pretty along towards getting that vision become a reality, which was this is what I mentioned. I'm gonna talk about Amazon. Amazon started off in the nineties basically selling every book in the world, hence Amazon and Jeff Bezos's garage or basement or the warehouse or something. And by selling every book, like having infinite supply of books, he got all of the demand.

Speaker 3

然后因为他获得了所有的需求,他可以说,好吧。我现在想卖一些不是书的东西。我要卖CD和DVD。那是下一步。但我仍然在仓库里库存这些。

And then because he got all of the demand, he could say, alright. I wanna now sell something that isn't books. I'm gonna sell CDs and DVDs. That was next. But I also still stock those in the warehouse.

Speaker 3

但最终,我要卖电视。我要卖其他东西。我不会库存它们,但我已经有了所有的需求。我之所以获得需求,是因为我对其他东西有所有的供应。所以我开始,因为这是鸡和蛋的问题。

But eventually, it's I'm gonna sell TVs. I'm gonna sell something else. I'm not going to stock them, but I already have all the demand. And I got the demand because I had all the supply for something else. So I start up because this is the chicken and egg problem.

Speaker 3

你是从供应开始还是从需求开始?我们知道市场非常有价值,但你必须从某个地方开始,因为如果没人买,没人想卖。如果没人卖,没人想买。所以亚马逊的模式是,在一个细分市场找到某种东西,用它来获得所有的需求。一旦你获得了所有的需求,你现在就可以以一种非原则性风险承担的方式吸引供应。

Do you start off with supply or do you start off with demand? And marketplaces we know are very valuable, but you have to start somewhere because nobody wants to sell if nobody's buying. Nobody wants to buy if nobody's selling. So the Amazon model was like, find something in one niche, use that to get all of the demand. And then once you get all the demand, now you can actually attract the supply in a non principle risk taking way.

Speaker 3

所以快进到Opendoor。我记得当埃里克在凤凰城翻新所有房屋时。我觉得那很聪明,但我不确定。就像,我知道其他人在凤凰城翻新房屋。但我认为到了一个点,在其中一个市场,我想是夏洛特,如果我没记错的话,夏洛特几乎10%的房屋,价格低于某个水平,比如60万美元的房子,这在夏洛特实际上能买很多房子,10%的房屋被Opendoor买下了。

So fast forward to Opendoor. So I remember when Eric was flipping all the homes in Phoenix. I was like, that's clever, but I don't know. Like, I know other people that flipped homes in Phoenix. But I think it got to the point where in one of the markets, I think it was Charlotte, if I remember correctly, almost 10% of homes in Charlotte that were under a certain price, call it like $600,000 homes, which actually buys you a lot of houses in Charlotte, 10% of the homes were bought by Opendoor.

Speaker 3

所以现在想象一下,我想在夏洛特买一套房子。我可以去多重上市服务系统MLS,你在Zillow、Redfin等网站上看到的其实就是MLS的镜像。但这只会显示90%的待售房屋。另外10%只在这个叫opendoor.com的平台上。所以你不需要获得100%的房源就能获得100%的用户。

So now imagine that I want to go buy a house in Charlotte. I can go to the multiple listing service, the MLS, which is you see that on Zillow, Redfin, all of these other sites kind of they just mirror the MLS. But that's only going to show me 90% of homes for sale. The other 10% are only on this thing called opendoor.com. So you don't have to get 100% of the homes in order to get 100% of the users.

Speaker 3

你获得10%的房源,甚至5%。这有点像拉弗曲线。你无法精确定义这个比例,但存在某个临界值,我称之为10%——如果你获得10%的供应量,就能获得100%的需求。一旦你拥有100%的需求,你就能打破这种可怕的垄断。

You get 10% of the homes. You get 5%. It's kind of like the Laffer curve. You can't exactly define what it is, but there's some quantum, and I would call it 10%, where if you get 10% of all of the supply, get 100% of the demand. And once you have 100% of the demand, now you could break this, like, horrible monopoly.

Speaker 3

我做了一个完整视频讨论这个(我知道我跟你说过)。这种房地产经纪人的可怕垄断,你可以说:你可以在opendoor.com上挂牌房屋,我们只收取1%佣金。如果成功实现,这将是世界上最大的市场。这就是让我如此兴奋的原因——eBay是除房产外一切商品的交易平台,市值450亿美元。而住宅房地产领域实际上没有大型公司。

I did this whole video out of which I know I said to you. This horrible monopoly of real estate agent dom, and you can say, you can list your house on opendoor.com, and we'll charge 1%. And if you pull that off, it's the biggest market in the world. And that's what made me so excited because eBay is a marketplace for everything except for homes, and it's a 45,000,000,000 company. There aren't actually big companies in residential real estate.

Speaker 3

这有点奇怪。最大的公司是CoStar和Zillow。住宅房地产领域没有千亿美元级别的公司,这很疯狂,因为这是一个比eBay上所有商品总和更大的资产类别。

It's kind of strange. Like, the biggest ones are CoStar and Zillow. There's no $100,000,000,000 plus company in residential real estate, which is kind of bonkers because it's a bigger asset class than, like, everything sold on eBay.

Speaker 2

那么为什么会出现这种情况呢?

And so why is that?

Speaker 3

为什么?因为聚合供应和需求非常困难。Zillow和其他公司所做的只是潜在客户开发。从消费者角度来看,这是个糟糕的商业模式——净推荐值应该是负100,因为你整天都被房地产经纪人打电话骚扰。

Why is that? Because it's so hard to aggregate the supply and the demand. And what Zillow and others do is they just do lead generation. It's a terrible business model from a consumer perspective. Like, it should have like negative 100 NPS because you're just getting called all day by real estate agents.

Speaker 3

你并没有真正提升价值主张。而Opendoor的关键不是炒房(也许确实是,毕竟你运营着公司),而是如何建立世界上最大的交易市场。

You're not actually improving the value proposition. And Opendoor, it's not about flipping homes. I mean, maybe it is. You run the company. It's about how do you build a marketplace, the biggest marketplace in the world.

Speaker 3

我的意思是,我想让你感受一下这有多疯狂。有一家叫Copart的上市公司,你知道他们是做什么的吗?他们拍卖的不是二手车,而是报废车辆。所以如果你发生车祸,State Farm保险公司说,哦,这辆车全损了,他们会怎么处理这辆车?他们就在Copart上卖掉。

Mean, I to give you a sense of how crazy this is, there's a company called Copart, public company. You know what they do? It is auctions for not used cars, but for, like, totaled cars. So if you get into a car accident and State Farm's like, oh, that's a total loss, what do they do with the car? They sell it on Copart.

Speaker 3

Copart,市值大概有700亿美元。

Copart, think it has like a $70,000,000,000 market cap.

Speaker 2

谁会买这些车?

Who buys it?

Speaker 3

谁会买?比如俄罗斯的人。嗯,现在不急了。但各种各样的人会买,我买零件用,或者我要去修理它。但Copart是一家比Zillow还大的公司。

Who buys it? Like, people are in Russia. Well, no rush anymore. But like all sorts of like, I buy it for parts or I'm gonna go fix it up. But Copart is a bigger company than Zillow.

Speaker 3

这怎么可能?而这仅仅是因为没有人涉足这个领域。这是世界上最大的市场,但你必须建立一个资本轻量化的市场平台。

How is that possible? And it's just because nobody's tackled this. It's the biggest market in the world, but you have to build hopefully a capital light marketplace.

Speaker 0

我认为Opendoor是一家被严重误解的公司。我觉得在公开市场投资中,类别问题是真实存在的。我记得,2019年我刚加入Shopify时,它好像是华尔街被做空最多的股票之一,因为人们对Shopify犯了类别错误。他们觉得,嗯,这又是一家电商公司。它建所有仓库的几率有多大?这是一个类别错误。

I think Opendoor is a deeply misunderstood as a company. Like, I think you have to think about companies as like, category problems are real in public market investing. I remember, like, when I first joined Shopify in 2019, I think it was, like, among the most shorted stocks on Wall Street because people made a category mistake about Shopify. They're like, well, it's another e commerce company. What are the odds it will build all the warehouses that's gonna that's it's a category mistake.

Speaker 0

Shopify做电商,但不是电商公司。Shopify的杠杆点并非来自电商。它显然来自软件。它非常像软件公司。我认为这实际上是Opendoor一直存在的问题,就是在外部,并且在一段时间内内部也承认,公司把自己本质上视为房地产资产类别的投资者,而这并不是公司的职责。

Shopify Does ecommerce, not ecommerce company. Just the leverage point for Shopify does not come from ecommerce. It obviously comes from software. It's a very much just like the software. I think that's actually a problem that Opendoor has had, is that externally and admittedly for some time internally, the company thought of itself as essentially an investor in real estate as an asset class, which is not the job of the company.

Speaker 0

这不是公司所做的事情。它是一家旨在解决该问题的软件公司。我认为如果你那样攻击它,你们从根本上做的事情就不同。对吧?我的意思是,这是一家上市公司。

This is not not what the company does. It's a software company designed to solve that problem. I think if you attack it like that, you just fundamentally do different things. Right? If you look at I mean, it's a publicly traded company.

Speaker 0

实际上可以看看数据。公司每年购买的房屋越来越少。因为他们觉得,酷,我要买一个资产类别。你只购买定价错误的房屋。但事实证明,世界上并没有那么多东西长期定价错误。

Can actually look at the numbers. The company has repeatedly been buying fewer and fewer homes every year. Because they're like, cool, I'm going to buy an asset class. You only buy homes that are mispriced. But turns out not that much in the world is mispriced for a very long time.

Speaker 0

它可能会成为一门好生意,只是不会成为大生意。我认为这是公司在过去几年里犯的一个根本性错误。

It may become a good business, just won't become a big business. And that's, I think, a fundamental mistake the company has made in the past few years.

Speaker 2

是的。让我们更深入地理解这个问题。Alex,也许你可以分享你演讲中的几个要点,或者解释一下房地产经纪人的垄断地位,或者提供更多背景信息。

Yeah. Let's understand this problem a bit deeper. Maybe Alex, you could share a couple points from the talk that you gave or maybe explain more sort of the monopoly real estate agents have or give some more context here.

Speaker 3

所以很长一段时间以来,房地产经纪人,在美国大约有200万名注册房地产经纪人。我几年前引用的统计数据,我认为现在仍然适用,

So real estate agents for a very, very long time, there are about 2,000,000 registered real estate agents in The United States Of America. And the stat that I quoted a couple years ago, I assume it's still the stat,

Speaker 0

确实是。我查过了。是免费的。

but it is. I looked it up. It's free.

Speaker 3

所以如果你记得均值、中位数和众数,均值是平均值,中位数是中间值,众数是最常出现的数字。每位经纪人每年的交易次数的众数是零。这有点像,嗯,我是个演员。哦,那你最近演了什么电影?嗯,我现在其实是个服务员。

So if you remember mean, median, mode, mean is the average, median is the one in the middle, and mode is the most frequently occurring number. The mode number of transactions per agent per year is zero. So it's kind of like, well, I'm an actor. Oh, well, what was the last film that you're in? Well, I'm kind of a waiter right now.

Speaker 3

我正在等待获得一份电影工作。很多房地产经纪人也是如此。所以即使是真正优秀的经纪人,他们每年完成的交易量也不多。而且他们从根本上与客户利益不一致,因为如果我作为买方经纪人,你花的钱越多,我获得的佣金就越多。通常作为买方经纪人我能获得2.5%到3%的佣金。

I'm waiting to get a film job. And that's what a lot of real estate agents are. So even the really good ones, they don't do that many transactions per year. And they fundamentally are misaligned with their customers because if I'm a buy side agent, the more money you spend, the more commission I get. So I normally get 2.5% to 3% as a buy side agent.

Speaker 3

通常佣金池有5%到6%,其中一半归卖方经纪人,一半归买方经纪人。已经有很多很多诉讼案件,有些甚至上诉到最高法院,指控这种行为像是邪恶的垄断行为(不是寡头垄断)。我很喜欢剧作家萧伯纳的一句话:每个行业都是针对外行人的阴谋。处理利益集中而损害分散的问题非常非常困难。

So normally you have 5% to 6% as a commission pool, half of which goes to the sell side agent, half of which goes to the buy side agent. And there have been numerous, numerous lawsuits, some of which have gone to the Supreme Court attacking this as this kind of like evil, not oligopoly, but this monopoly behavior. And there's an expression that I love. It's by the playwright George Bernard Shaw, Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity. And it's very, very hard to deal with problems of concentrated benefit and diffuse harm.

Speaker 3

200万房地产经纪人获得了集中利益,其中只有少数人实际进行活跃交易,但他们确实在合谋,字面意义上的合谋,来保持这些佣金非常高,因为你每十年才买一次房子。作为买家,你绝对受到了损害——等等,你让我付的钱越多,你得到的就越多。为什么对卖家也不利呢?因为如果你卖得价格更高,卖方经纪人也能获得更多。

So there's a concentrated benefit to the 2,000,000 real estate agents, small number of whom actually do active transactions, but they conspire, literally conspire, to keep these commissions very, very high because you buy a house once every ten years. And you are absolutely harmed because if you're a buyer, well, wait a minute. The more that you convince me to pay, you get more of that. And then why is it misaligned as a seller? Because the sell side agent is getting more if you sell for more.

Speaker 3

因为他们只想尽快完成交易明天拿到支票。比如你在卖一栋1000万美元的房子,这是很大一笔钱。如果有另一个卖家出价1000万零1万美元,卖方经纪人会想:我能拿到其中的3%,我其实不在乎。但你能多拿1万美元。

Because they just wanna move on and get their check tomorrow. So if I say, okay, you're selling a $10,000,000 house, that's a lot of money. And then there's another seller who will offer you $10,000,000 $10,000 Well, the sell side agent is like, well, I get three percent of that. I don't really care. But you get an extra $10,000.

Speaker 3

而你确实很在乎这笔钱。这就是为什么整个'委托-代理问题'的说法虽然不直接来源于此,但这就像是该问题的人格化或现实版。有太多东西都出问题了,其他拍卖都很公平。比如我想在eBay上卖辆二手车,他们做得其实很不错。

Like, you really do care about that. So there's just this is where the whole the phrase principal agent problem doesn't come from this, but it's like this is a personification or like a real life version of the principal agent problem. So there are just so many things broken where it's like every other auction is fair. It's like I see, okay, I want to go list I can sell a used car on eBay. They actually do a pretty good job of that.

Speaker 3

我看到有24个出价。这是我的保留价。但房地产交易非常不透明。由于这是低频交易,且存在利益集中而损害分散的问题,已经有很多试图彻底颠覆这个行业的尝试。其中一家公司——我应该说我在Rocket Mortgage的董事会,他们收购了Redfin。

And I see there are 24 bids. Here's my reserve price. And like it's just very opaque. And because it's a very infrequent transaction and you have concentrated benefit and diffuse harm, there have been so many attempts to like really, really violently disrupt this industry. And one of them and I should say I'm on the board of Rocket Mortgage, which bought Redfin.

Speaker 3

格伦·凯尔曼是个了不起的人,他创办了Redfin,真心想颠覆房地产行业,说我们只收1%的佣金。其实让我退一步说,关于房地产经纪人有件有趣的事:我买过很多房子,但从未用过房地产经纪人。其实也不完全对。

And Glenn Kellman is an amazing guy, started Redfin and really wanted to disrupt real estate and said, okay, we're only gonna charge you 1%. Actually, let me take a step back. The funny thing about real estate agents, I've bought many houses. I've never used a real estate agent. Actually, that's not true.

Speaker 3

我确实有一次通过房地产经纪人买过房子。但我想说的是,我不想通过房地产经纪人买房,因为你要收我的钱。他却说,不不不,你不用付钱给我,是卖家付钱给我。

I did use a real estate agent one time to buy a house. But I I was trying to say, I don't wanna use a real estate agent to buy a house because you're gonna charge me money. He's like, no, no, no, no. You don't pay me. The seller pays me.

Speaker 3

我就问,卖家从哪里拿钱?他们说,从他们的银行账户啊。我说,不不不,是我把钱打到托管账户,然后卖家从托管账户拿到钱后再付给你。不对不对。

And I'm like, where does the seller get the money from? They're like, well, from their bank account. I was like, no, no. I send the money to the escrow agent, and then the seller gets the money from the escrow agent and then pays you. No, no, no.

Speaker 3

这是两码事。我记得当时在帕洛阿尔托买房时,我跟那个房地产经纪人说过,我不会点名羞辱他。我说,恕我直言,或者也许每次他说这话时,你意思是毫无敬意。但恕我直言你

It's different money. It's like And I remember talking This is when I bought a house at Palo Alto. I told the real estate agent, I will not name and shame him. I was like, with all respect, or maybe whenever he says it, you mean no respect. But with all due respect You

Speaker 0

意思是恕我直言。是的。

mean all due respect. Yes.

Speaker 3

恕我直言——虽然我一点敬意都没有——你一定是觉得我是个白痴,或者我觉得你是个白痴。好像就只有这两种可能。因为说什么买方代理是免费的,这太荒谬了。所以Redfin开始做的是,把3%的买方佣金通过返利部分给消费者降到1%,这确实对行业产生了非常积极的影响。但俄勒冈州禁止这种做法,这又回到了每个行业都在合谋坑害消费者的老路。

With all due respect, of which I give you none, you must think I'm an idiot or I think you're an idiot. And like, those are the only two options. Because it's like, it's just absurd to say that like, it's free to be represented by a buy side agent. So what Redfin started doing, and this actually did have like a very, very positive impact on the industry was like, why don't we bring down the 3% buy side fee to 1% by rebating part of it back to the consumer? But the state of Oregon bans that, going back to every profession as a conspiracy against the lady.

Speaker 3

如果我说,嘿,找我来买房,别找Kaz,我会把那3%的广告佣金返还一部分给你,不行,你会进监狱的。不能这么做。这太荒谬了。即使你说我只收1%的买方代理费,卖家现在可能要付4%。因为如果是3%的挂牌费加上1%,可能总共是6%,但3%中的2%会返给你。

If I say, hey, use me, Eric, and not Kaz to buy your house, and I'm going take that 3% that's advertised as commission, and I'm going share it back with you, nope, you'll go to jail. Can't do that. It's like that's absurd. And then even if you say, I'm gonna do buy side representation for 1%, well, the seller sells to pay 4% now. Because if it's a 3% listing arrangement and then 1% and maybe it's 6% all in, but of the 3%, 2% goes back to you.

Speaker 3

整个体系都乱套了。所以在我看来,真正彻底改变这一点的唯一方法就是建立自己的市场平台。

The whole thing is messed up. So the only way to really violently change this is to have your own marketplace, in my perspective.

Speaker 0

我认为实际上这里的关键在于,发生频率极低的交易通常充满了欺诈。就像,卡尼人离开城镇是有原因的。这是真实存在的。就像,我拿到你的钱了,我就走了。

I think actually the key part here is transactions that happen incredibly infrequently usually end up being full of fraud. Like, there's a reason why Carneys leave town. That's a real thing. There's like, I got your money. I'm out of here.

Speaker 0

比如,你一生可能只会买两套房子。而且你很可能不会用同样的流程来买这两套房子。就像人们直觉上对二手车经销商有这样的理解。他们会说,嘿,我不会去一个不提供认证二手车的经销商那里,因为我不信任交易对手。我需要别人来认证这个东西。

Like, the odds are you're gonna buy maybe two homes lifetime. And the odds are you're not gonna use the same process to buy both of them. And it's like people intuitively understand this about used car dealers. They're like, hey, I'm not gonna go to a used car dealer that doesn't offer certified pre owned cars because I don't trust a counterparty. I need someone else to certify this thing.

Speaker 0

这是非常真实的情况。顺便说一下,这就是为什么在软件行业,我们很难理解这个问题,因为在软件行业,我们大多数人每个月都会因为有人使用我们的产品而获得报酬。这是一种长期关系。你用得越多,我赚的钱就越多。但这仍然不习惯,在软件行业确实如此。

That's a very real thing. This is why, by the way, in software, we have a very hard time understanding this problem because in software, most of us get paid every month someone uses our product. It's a long term relationship. The more you use it, the more money I make. But it's still not so used to be, it's true in software.

Speaker 0

而且以前的软件也有这个问题。协调交易对手的最佳方式是将交易拉长时间,确保我在十年后仍然希望你喜欢我。如果你这样做,大多数这些问题往往都能得到解决。但为了做到这一点,你需要一个交易对手,或者至少一个第三方来认证这个东西是好的,这个第三方在那个即时交易之外有自己的利益。这就是为什么亚马逊运作得如此出色。

And back then software was also had this problem. The best way to align counterparties is to take the transaction and stretch it out over time to make sure that I'm interested in you liking me ten years from now. And if you do that, most of these problems tend to get solved. But in order to do that, you need a counterparty or at least a third party to certify that this thing is good, that has an interest outside that one transaction immediately. And it's why Amazon works so obscenely well.

Speaker 0

你从亚马逊买东西,如果不喜欢,可以退货。顺便说一下,我们昨天刚刚在德克萨斯州达拉斯的Opendoor推出了这个服务。你从Opendoor买房子,如果不喜欢,可以退货。

You buy things from Amazon, you didn't like it, you can return it. Which by the way, we launched just yesterday at Opendoor in Dallas, Texas. You buy a home from Opendoor. You don't like it. You can return it.

Speaker 0

比如,你可以提前搬进去。是的,试试看。不喜欢?退货。

Like, you can move in early. Yeah. Try it out. Don't like it? Return it.

Speaker 0

哇。这就像没有人会这样做。就像,这在常规的房地产交易中不会经常发生,这就是为什么如果你曾经买过房子,你的经纪人会说过类似这样的话。哦,他们刚刚拒绝了一个完全一样的报价。或者,哦,他们周二还有一个报价要来。

Wow. And this is like no one would do that. Like, this it's not a thing that would happen regularly with a regular real estate transaction, which is why if you've ever bought a house, your agent has said something along the lines of this. Oh, they just turned down an offer exactly like that. Or, oh, they have another offer coming on Tuesday.

Speaker 0

他们周二从来不会有另一个报价出现。他们不会就这样拒绝一个报价。所以我认为有一个非常现实的问题,就是你只需要,第一,找到一个对长期感兴趣的对手方,延长交易时间;第二,消除‘我现在就靠这一笔交易赚钱’的心态。这两种情况在任何市场中都容易导致糟糕的结果,尤其是在存在代理问题的情况下,结果会更糟。

They never have another offer coming on Tuesday. They didn't just turn down an offer like that. So I think there's a very real thing that you just need to, A, have a counterparty who's interested in the long term, stretch out a transaction, And B, remove the, I make all my money from this one thing transaction right now thing. And that's both of those things just tend to, in any market, lead to bad outcomes, where there are agency problems still lead to terrible outcomes.

Speaker 3

是的。还有一个推论,是在金融服务方面。部分原因是,如果我每十年才做一笔交易,我对它并不熟悉。但如果你一年只做两笔这样的交易,坦白说,你也不够了解。然后你还会遇到其他复杂的问题,比如怎么买房?

Yeah. There's a corollary to that as well, which is on the financial services side. So part of it is like, well, if I only make a transaction happen every once every ten years, I don't know it that well. But if you're only doing two of these a year, candidly, you don't know it that well. And then you have this other complicated thing like how do you buy a house?

Speaker 3

你怎么负担得起房子?对我来说,融资的事情完全与买卖脱节有点疯狂,就像,我们通过Affirm成为朋友的部分原因,对吧?你怎么能把买卖和融资分开?它们是一体的。而且在我卖掉现在的房子之前,我买不了新房。

How do you afford a house? And to me, it's kind of crazy that the financing stuff is totally divorced from the buying and selling, which is like, I mean, part of how we became friendly is through Affirm, right? Where how do you divorce buying and selling from financing? They are one and the same. And I can't buy a house until I sell my current house.

Speaker 3

房地产经纪人不会帮我解决这个问题。他们没有大笔的支票簿。

And the real estate agent's not gonna help me with that. They don't have a big checkbook.

Speaker 0

不,我认为代理问题,就其价值而言,房地产中存在的代理问题实际上在整个链条中被放大了。因为通常有代理人参与抵押贷款,有代理人参与保险,在你做的每一件事中通常都有,有时甚至在托管中,你通常有一个主要的代理问题就已经很糟糕了。在房地产交易中,你通常有五个。所以它被放大了。假设一个人从你这里赚一次钱后就再也不见你了,这很糟糕。

No, I think the agency problem, better for it's worth, the agency problem that exists in real estate is actually multiplied along the chain. Because there's usually an agent involved in the mortgage, there's usually an agent involved in the insurance, there's usually in every single thing you do, sometimes even in the escrow, there's usually you have let's say one principal agent problem is a bad one. In a real estate transaction, you usually have five. So it's multiplied. And let's say one person making money off you once they've never seen you again is bad.

Speaker 0

在房地产交易中,你通常至少有五个,有时甚至更多,比如为你房子做检查的人。你再也见不到那个人了。这绝对是一个,而且我认为实际上,但你可以在这整个链条中有非常好的人,但最终结果却非常糟糕,因为这个系统基本上设计得不会导致好结果。

In a real estate transaction, you usually have at least five, sometimes a lot bigger number, like the guy who does the inspection for your house. You're never going to see that guy again. Just definitely, it's a very and I think that actually is but I think people you can have very good people along this chain of the whole chain, and you end up with very terrible outcomes because the system is basically designed to not lead to good outcomes.

Speaker 3

问题是,有很多这些小规模的事情其实挺酷的,但从未被产品化和推广。所以如果你是普林斯顿或斯坦福的英语教授,你可能买不起房子。但大学会帮你买房。或者他们会补贴抵押贷款。或者我最喜欢的一个例子是,有一种叫做卖方融资的东西。

Well, the thing is you have a lot of these subscale things that actually are pretty cool that have never been productized and rolled out. So if you are an English professor at Princeton or Stanford, you probably can't afford to buy a house. But the university helps you buy a house. Or they will subsidize a mortgage. Or one of my favorite examples is there's something called seller financing.

Speaker 3

所以时不时你会看到一些非常富有的人卖房子时会说:你知道吗?我现在不需要全部现金。你可以分期付款给我。这就像BNPL(先买后付)。我的意思是,抵押贷款其实就是BNPL。

So every now and then, you'll see a house sold by a very rich person who is like, you know what? I don't need all the cash right now. You can pay me over time. It's like BNPL. Mean, a mortgage is BNPL.

Speaker 3

但这是有人在说:我将成为你的融资选择,而不是银行。这些都是非常有趣的想法。但就像只有斯坦福、普林斯顿等学校会为他们的英语教授这样做,也只有真正富有的人会为房产提供这种特殊融资——你会看到某些挂牌出售的房屋带有这种特殊融资条款。而在实体零售世界,这种事情每天都在发生。这叫做'每个以Y结尾的日子'(意为天天如此)。

But this is somebody saying, I will be your financing option and not a bank. These are all really interesting ideas. But like only Stanford and Princeton and other schools do that for their English professors, and only really rich people do this for homes where you could see, oh, here's a home that's listed for sale that has this like special financing. And that's done in the brick and mortar retail world every day. That's called every day that ends in Y.

Speaker 3

就像,哦,我们想卖更多东西,比如宝洁公司。再说一次,我们想卖更多东西。给你一张优惠券。Xbox想卖更多游戏机,或者雷克萨斯想卖更多汽车。0%融资,0%年利率的劳动节促销。

It's like, oh, we want to sell more stuff like Procter. Again, we want to sell more stuff. Here's a coupon. Xbox wants to sell more things or Lexus wants to sell more cars. 0% financing, 0% APR Labor Day sale.

Speaker 3

为房产提供这种融资方式非常有意义,但房地产经纪人并不懂,他们根本不知道自己在做什么。

Doing that for homes makes so much sense, but the real estate agents are not, they just don't know what they're doing.

Speaker 0

房地产有一个领域我认为实际上这些问题要少得多,那就是当你从建筑商那里购买全新房屋时。是的。当你从建筑商那里购买全新房屋时,比如你走进Lennar社区从他们那里买房,他们已经解决了大部分这些问题。

There is one area in real estate where I think actually there's far fewer of these problems, which is when you buy a brand new home from a builder. Yes. When you buy a brand new home from a builder, like when you walk into a Lennar community and buy a home from them, they've solved most of these problems.

Speaker 3

生产线。

The production line.

Speaker 0

他们非常清楚自己的定位。一切都是打包好的。你几乎没有什么代理问题。即使你使用自己的融资方式购物,仍然会存在一些问题,但很可能你不应该这样做。直接接受他们的融资方案,因为这是为你优化的。

They know exactly what they're like. Everything is bundled. You have you have very few agency problems. You have some still even then if you shop with your own financing, but the odds are you shouldn't. Just take their financing because it's optimized for you.

Speaker 0

我认为这是第二个非常经典的问题,本质上是一个市场平台问题,必须解决,我同意你的看法。解决方法就是你需要积累大量库存,并让交易对手方觉得值得来找你购买。就像我们在公司成立初期花了大量时间处理买家事务,因为必须让从我们这里购房比别处更有优势,这样才能真正启动飞轮效应。

And this is, I think, the second, like, a very classical problem in basically, it's a marketplace problem that you'd have to solve, and I agree with you. The way to solve it is you need to just gather significant inventory and make it possible for counterparties to make it desirable for counterparty to come to you to buy it. This is like we spend so much of our time in the first sixteen days of me being in this company working on buyer stuff because it must be beneficial to buy a home from us in a way it wouldn't be somewhere else so you can actually start the flywheel.

Speaker 2

是的。你说能做到这一点的公司将成为世界巨头。像亚马逊这样的大公司尝试过类似的事情吗?还是说这个领域太偏门,他们根本不会涉足?

Yeah. And you you said a company that could do that will be one of the biggest in the world. Has a company like Amazon or or other big companies tried to do something like this, or is it just so far field that they would would never?

Speaker 3

这个行业另一个独特之处在于其本质上是高度本地化的。如果说要击败MLS(多重上市服务),实际上并不存在一个统一的MLS公司。这不是说'我要去打败那些家伙'那么简单。就像将军的作战意图是'拿下那个山头'——每个市场都是不同的。

Well, the other thing that's I think very unique about this industry is it's so fundamentally local. So if you say, I want to beat the MLS, there is no MLS Inc. It's not like, oh, I'm gonna go beat those guys. And the commander's intent of the general is like, take that hill. You it's every market is different.

Speaker 3

关键就在这里。就像你或许能主导夏洛特市场,但这对于夏威夷市场毫无影响。实际上我在夏威夷买房时就通过房产经纪人交易——我在那儿有套房,他们根本不用MLS系统,而是采用封闭式体系,确保你必须通过特定渠道,这些经纪人业绩很好,正好体现了市场平台的价值。

And that's the thing. It's like just because, like, you could dominate Charlotte, and that does not make a single dent at all in Hawaii. And, actually, the the one case where I I used a real estate agent to buy my house was in Hawaii. I have I have a house in Hawaii, and they don't use the MLS there. It's just like this captive system where it's just like they make sure that you go through and like those agents do so well because like it just shows the value of a marketplace.

Speaker 3

可能有公司决定在某个特定地区通吃市场,但这在其他地域完全不会显现。回过头看这些特殊领域,无论是金融、房地产还是高管搬迁服务——后者其实是大事。想象你被聘为家得宝的CMO,我有个朋友就是这样,她和丈夫原本住在纽约。

But you could have a company that decides, I'm gonna go run the table in XYZ place, and it doesn't show up in a different geography. So what you do see, going back to these kind of pockets of esoteric products, either financial or real estate, executive moving. This is actually like a big thing. So imagine that you're hired as Actually, I have a friend who was hired as the CMO at Home Depot. And she and her husband lived in New York.

Speaker 3

但家得宝总部在亚特兰大而非纽约。公司就说:我们会用最高现金价收购你的旧房,协助你在这边购房,

And guess what? Home Depot is not in New York. They're in Atlanta. They're like, okay, we will buy your old house from you, and we'll pay top dollar cash. We'll help you buy a house over here.

Speaker 3

还提供两个月的公寓住宿等全套服务。为什么?因为他们想要成功聘请这位CMO,所以打包了所有这些福利。他们并非想要颠覆MLS系统。

We'll put you up in an apartment for two months. We'll do all of these things. Why? Because they want to get this person hired as the CMO of Home Depot, and they bundle in all these other things. They're not trying to say, I want to go disrupt the MLS.

Speaker 3

我是说,他们应该这样做。我希望eBay——我不了解这段历史,但我相信你可能已经研究过。比如,我知道eBay曾尝试过房地产业务。还有一家叫auction.com的公司,它真正进入了不良商业地产和一些不良住宅地产领域。

I mean, they should. I mean, I would hope that eBay and I don't know the history on this. I'm sure you probably have looked into it. Like, I know eBay has tried doing real estate. And there's another company called auction.com that really got into the distressed commercial real estate space and some distressed residential.

Speaker 3

因为如果是不良资产,比如你拖欠房产税,政府会没收你的房子。政府不想持有房产并自己向自己缴纳房产税。所以它会拍卖掉,并且需要在五天内完成交易。像auction.com这样的平台非常适合做这种事。但我发现你们有一些定制化产品,比如针对高管搬迁的,这些服务做得非常非常高端。

Because if it's distressed, like, you haven't paid your property taxes, government seizes your home. Government doesn't wanna hold on to home and pay its own property taxes to itself. So, it auctions it off and it needs to close within five days. Like, that's what like something like auction.com is like very well situated to do. But I find that you have some of these bespoke products for, as an example, executive moves, and those are done in the very, very first class way.

Speaker 3

这就是技术的酷炫之处。你宁愿做1900年世界上最富有的人,但没有青霉素、没有iPhone、没有Netflix,还是做2025年的中下层阶级,拥有青霉素、Netflix和现代生活?我宁愿做中下层阶级,也不愿做1900年的世界首富。技术的作用往往是让这些神奇的产品普及到每个人。就像每个人都能享受到亿万富翁级别的教育资源。

Like, why can't this is the cool thing about technology. It's like, would you rather be the richest person in the world in 1900 with no penicillin and no iPhone and no Netflix, or a middle lower middle class person in 2025 with penicillin and, you know, a Netflix and life? I'd much rather be the lower middle class person than the richest person in the world in 1900. What technology often does is it helps diffuse these amazing products down to everybody. Like, everybody gets the education of a billionaire.

Speaker 3

我认为这就是AlphaScore的宗旨。它致力于实现所有这些事情。所以你们有这些高管搬迁产品,我以此为例。你们曾尝试过占领部分市场,将其转化为公开喊价的英式拍卖或所谓的第二价格拍卖(维克瑞拍卖),这些都是已知有效、能最大化价格的好方法,但它们只适用于某个特定市场。仅仅拿下一个市场对我毫无帮助。

Like, that's the I think that's the motto of AlphaScore. It's like, let's do all of these things. So you have some of these products for executive moves, and I kind of point to that as an example. And you have had attempts at like kind of taking parts of the market and turning it into like an actual either open outcry English auction or what's called the second price auction, a Vickrey auction, like do all of these cool things that are known to work, that are known to maximize the price, but they'll work for one market. And then just because I got one market, it doesn't help me at all.

Speaker 3

顺便说一句,你们可能有大约200万人,但其中一部分人会想‘我希望你消失’,并且会投票推动俄勒冈州修改法律禁止这种产品。这就是每个人面临的现实。

And then by the way, you have like 2,000,000 people, but call it a subset of those 2,000,000 people who are like, I want you dead, and I will vote to change the law in Oregon to ban this product. So this is what everybody's up against.

Speaker 0

听着,我认为这是个难题,所以至今无人解决,很多聪明人都研究过这个问题或至少是其子领域。我认为存在三个结构性缺陷基本上扼杀了所有尝试。第一个是:让我先解决其中最小、最盈利的部分——这种方法每次尝试都客观地失败了。亚马逊起步时并没有说‘卖书利润不高,但这是获取库存的好方法,因为你能拿到所有书的库存’。

Look, I think it's a hard problem, which is why no one has solved it, and lots of smart people have worked on this problem, or at least sub parts of it. So I think there's been three structural flaws that have basically killed every attempt to solve this. The first one is, let me solve a part of it. Let me solve the tiniest, most profitable part of it first, which objectively has failed every single time it's been tried. When Amazon started, they didn't say, hey, let me solve selling books is not that profitable, but it's a really good way to get inventory because you can get all inventory of all books.

Speaker 0

你拿到一个PDF,里面 literally 有每一本书。所以第一个问题本质上是把自己局限在单一事物上。第二个问题基本上是渠道问题,即‘我要通过传统渠道解决这个问题’——这种方法每次也都惨败。第三个问题是,有些人相对……(Starlock?),有些相对大型的企业在世界某些角落做这类业务。

There's a PDF you get, and it has literally every book. So the first one's essentially yourself down to one thing. The second problem has been basically a channel problem, which is that, Hey, I'm going to solve this problem through the traditional channels. And that objectively just has failed miserably every single time. And a third problem, is some people have gone relatively, Starlock, some relatively large businesses that do this in some pockets of the world.

Speaker 0

但它们基本上都失败了,因为它们通过把人力投入来解决这个问题,这就像一个运营问题。就像三个问题桶,为什么没有人能解决这个问题。我认为,在Carvana为汽车解决这个问题之前,完全相同的问题就已经存在了。完全相同的一系列问题,同样的方式也存在于汽车行业。我要说,Carvana大概占美国汽车市场的3%?我不确定具体多少,但大概就在那个范围。

But they all essentially tip over and fail because they've solved it by throwing human beings in the tree and it's like an operational problem. It just like three buckets of problems why no one's kind of solved this. And forth with, I think before Carvana solved it for cars, this exact same problem was So the exact same set of problems, same way was existed for cars. It's a very I'm gonna say, carvana is, what, 3% US car market? I don't know how much, but, like, probably somewhere around there.

Speaker 0

所以我认为存在非常真实的相似之处,有些事情可能在十年前无法以经济高效的方式解决。我总体上认为这确实是个现实问题。还有其他问题被错误地解决了,因为有一段时间钱是免费的,每个人都做出了所有可能错误的决定。但我确实认为我们正处在一个特殊的时期,这个窗口期基本上所有解决这个问题所需的工具都存在了。

So I think there's a very real, like, parallels of, like, there are things that probably could not have been solved in a way that was affordable and efficient like ten years ago. I generally think it's actually a real thing. And there were other problems that were solved the wrong way because for a brief period of time, money was free. And everyone made all the wrong decisions they possibly could. But I do think we're in this special time, this window where basically all the tools you need to solve this problem exist.

Speaker 2

我们稍微深入一点。房地产在多大程度上像医疗保健,那种监管环境扭曲了市场并阻止了规模化——你甚至可以质疑这种对医疗保健的框架描述。或者这只是市场动态本身难以处理,就像你描述的那样,这是房地产自然形成的吗?

We just get deeper there for a second. How much is real estate like healthcare where sort of the regulatory landscape has distorted the market and prevented mass and feel free to quibble with that even framing of healthcare. Or is it just a hard is it like the market dynamics you were describing, is that just emergent in how real estate

Speaker 0

算是这样运作的吗?我认为它更类似于汽车行业,而不是医疗保健。

sort of works? I think the I think it's far more similar to automobiles as to health care.

Speaker 2

同意。

Agree.

Speaker 0

就像,基本上完全一样。说实话,如果你看特斯拉出现之前汽车是怎么销售的,每个人都有经销商网络。因为一旦你有了经销商网络,就必须维持。但特斯拉说,等一下,如果我没有一个经销商,我是不是就可以完全没有经销商?

Like, it's just, like, basically identical. Honestly, if you look at how cars were sold basically till Tesla, everyone had a dealer network. Because once you had a dealer network, one was required. But Tesla's like, hold on a second. If I don't have one dealer, I don't have to have any dealers?

Speaker 0

答案是肯定的。除了新泽西州,我想。对吧?

And the answer is yes. Outside New Jersey, I think. Right?

Speaker 3

我认为德克萨斯州就是这样。除非通过汽车经销商销售,否则你不能购买汽车。是的。所以,再次强调,监管现金流是这些事情的组合。各个地方。

And I think Texas Yeah. You're not allowed to buy a car unless it's sold at a car dealer. Yeah. So, like, again, regulatory cash flow is a couple these things. Places.

Speaker 0

例如,在北卡罗来纳州、佐治亚州和路易斯安那州,我认为这三个州,你不能以数字方式完成房地产交易。必须有亲笔签名。这有点烦人。这是真实存在的。但这完全不是医疗保健系统的问题。

So, for example, in North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, I think those three states, you can't close a real estate transaction digitally. You have to have a white signature. That's kind of annoying. That's a real thing. But it's not at all the healthcare system.

Speaker 0

它更相似。有各种法规,有些是好的,有些很糟糕,但本质上更类似于汽车行业的处理方式。

It's much more similar. There are regulations, some of them good, some of them terrible, but they're in nature much more similar to how cars were dealt.

Speaker 2

但为什么我们在汽车领域解决了这个问题?仅仅是因为

But how come we've solved this in cars? It's just because it's

Speaker 0

直到五年前我们才解决这个问题。我们销售新车时,特斯拉解决了这个问题;销售二手车时,Carvana解决了这个问题。要知道,Carvana确实面临着非常实际的操作挑战,而这些挑战在房产领域不存在。对吧?比如,Carvana要移动他们购买的每一辆车。

We hadn't solved this in until five years ago. We sold this car for new cars, Tesla solved this, And for used cars, Carvana solved this. And keep in those are actually there are very real operational challenges that Carvana has that don't exist for homes. Right? Like, Carvana moves every single car they buy.

Speaker 0

而Opendoor并不移动房屋。房屋就待在原地。是的。所以,尝试在房产而非汽车领域解决这个问题有非常实际的好处。当然也有明显的缺点。

Like, Opendoor does not move homes. Like, homes stay where they are. Yeah. So there's a very real like, there are upsides to trying to solve this problem in homes other than cars. There are obvious downsides too.

Speaker 0

但我认为这是非常真实的,而且就其价值而言,承保过程是相似的。汽车的承保很困难。房屋的承保也很困难。它们并非完全相同,但困难程度相似。就像是不同的问题,但有着相似的难题。

But I think it's a very real and the underwriting for what it's worth is like similar ish. The underwriting of a car is as is difficult. A home is difficult. They're not they're similar ish difficult. Like different problems with similar ish problems.

Speaker 3

嗯,好的一点是你可以真正细分市场。我的意思是,我们可以花上十个小时讨论医疗系统为何一团糟,但根本原因在于没有价格透明。比如,这个要多少钱?医生自己都不知道。然后又说,哦,我们会向你的保险公司收取这么多费用。

Well, this is the nice thing is that you can really sub segment the market. Mean, the reason why we could talk for like ten hours about why healthcare is messed up, but fundamentally, there are no prices. It's like, how much does this cost? The doctor doesn't even know. And then like, oh, well, we're gonna bill your insurance company this much.

Speaker 3

保险公司不会付那么多,然后因为他们不付,医生就收更多。整个系统都乱套了。而在这里,价格透明度是肯定的。我知道每样东西具体要花多少钱。

They won't pay it. And then because they won't pay it, like the doctor charges more. It's like the whole thing is messed up. And here you have price transparency for sure. It's like, I know exactly how much everything is gonna cost.

Speaker 3

你可能会被一些中介误导,他们说买方是免费的,因为卖家付钱等等。但你可以把这个市场分成不同的部分。对吧?所以,理解这一点很有帮助,比如销售5000万美元的豪宅以及如何定价。比如,一栋5000万美元的投机房可能只卖2500万。

You get a little bit misled by some of the agents who say like, oh, buy side is free because the seller pays blah, blah, blah. But there are you could you could chop this up into different markets. Right? So, I mean, this is what's very helpful to understand, like, selling $50,000,000 luxury homes and, like, how to price those. Like, a $50,000,000 house that's a spec home could sell for 25.

Speaker 3

其实并没有,但这就是酷的地方。对于房地产来说,因为几乎比汽车更甚。人们需要住的地方,他们要么租房,要么买房。当然,中间还有不同的模式,比如租购。

Like, there's not really but this is the cool thing. Like, for real estate, because you are almost more so than cars. Real estate, people need to live somewhere, and they either rent or they own. And then, of course, there are different models in between. You can rent to own.

Speaker 3

你可以让朋友免费给你一个地方住,不收费。但你要么租,要么买。估值的底线是租金价格,以及它如何与资本化率相比较?如何与资本成本相比?所以美国绝大多数房屋,首先,它们符合所谓的合规抵押贷款。

You can get your friend to give you a free spot and not charge you anything. But you either rent or you own. And then the floor on valuation is what's the rental price and how does that compare going back to cap rates? How does that compare to the cost of capital? So the vast majority of homes in America, number one, they qualify for what are called conforming mortgages.

Speaker 3

所以已经有这个概念,比如非常昂贵的房屋,我觉得需要大额抵押贷款,然后还有其他一切。其他一切的定价更像汽车。

So there already is this idea of it's like where they're like really expensive homes, I feel like get like a jumbo mortgage, and then there's like everything else. And the pricing of everything else is a lot more like cars.

Speaker 0

实际上也更透明。比汽车透明得多。汽车维修方面非常不透明,很难真正知道具体情况,非常困难。

Actually more transparent too. It's far more transparent than cars. There's very real thing about repair of cars where it's very opaque. They can't really know. It's just very hard.

Speaker 3

结构性损坏。

Structural damage.

Speaker 0

结构性损坏。或者像你的风扇皮带。我不知道风扇是什么样的,有些东西很复杂,还有原厂件,这整个事情,比如原厂件、非原厂件。各种因素使得决策矩阵变得大得多。而对于房屋来说,相对透明。

Structural damage. Or like your fan belt. I don't know what a fan like, there's things that are difficult, and there's OEM, this whole thing, like an OEM part, not OEM part. There's a variety of things that make the decision matrix is much bigger. Whereas for homes, it's relatively transparent.

Speaker 0

顺便说一句,要称赞一下 Open Doors,这是 Open Doors 特别擅长的事情。Open Doors 非常擅长定价翻新和变更。他们对我来说毫无信誉可言。他们已经完全掌握了这一点。而且方式出奇地好。

And by the way, to Open Doors credit, this is a thing that Open Doors exceptionally good at. Open Doors exceptionally good at pricing renovations and change. They have just zero credit to me. They've dialed this in. And a way that's actually surprisingly good.

Speaker 3

这很合理,因为谁会获得更好的 UPS 运费?我一年只寄一个包裹,还是像亚马逊那样最终获得如此好的运费,以至于除非他们开始自己的配送网络叫亚马逊配送,否则无法再更好。所以你有规模经济,这些永远不会流向代理商,永远不会流向客户,但应该流向公司。

Which makes sense because who's going to get a better shipping rate with UPS? Me who ships one package a year, or like Amazon who eventually got such a good shipping rate that they couldn't get any better unless they started their own shipping network called Amazon Delivery. So you have economies of scale that never go to the agent, that never go to the customer, but that should go to a company.

Speaker 0

是的。我想真正的问题是,这实际上是真正的问题。这就像我对此相对有意识形态。认为你可以让 Opendoor 成为一个非常好的业务,普通人买房花的钱更少,普通人卖房赚的钱更多。这里的数学并不难。

Yeah. I guess the real thing, and this is actually the real thing. This is like I'm relatively ideological about this. Think you can make it such that Opendoor is an exceptionally good business, and the average person pays less for a house and the average person sells a house for more. The math here is not that difficult.

Speaker 2

你怎么做到这一点?

How do you do that?

Speaker 0

房屋交易中有太多摩擦。让我给你举个例子。如果 Open Doors 什么都不做,只帮你安排买新房和卖旧房的交割时间同步。如果 Opendoor 只做这一点,你现在平均会省下大约三个月的房贷付款。比如,谁在赚那笔钱?

There's just so much friction at home. Let me just give you an example. If Open Doors does nothing else than help you time your closing of your new house with buying your new selling of your old house with closing of your new house. If that's all Opendoor does, you would now have a void on average about three mortgage payments. Like, who was getting paid that money?

Speaker 0

为什么?这是一个真实存在的情况——几乎每个人都会额外支付至少一笔抵押贷款或租金,而且往往更频繁。这只是其中一个例子。我把它纳入考虑,就像Opendoor可以提供的一项服务,甚至无需购买他们的房子。这是非常真实的情况。

Why? And that's a real thing that everyone everyone pays at least one extra mortgage payment or one extra rent payment as frequently more. That's just one thing. And I put it in, it's like a service that OpenDoor can deliver to most people even without buying their house. They're a very real thing.

Speaker 0

所以我认为存在许多这样的实际问题,代理问题确实存在。关于资本成本的真实情况是,当你整合大量房产时,你的资本成本往往会更低。因此,这也是一个真实优势。在保修承保水平方面也非常真实——Opendoor能提供七天房屋试用期,正是因为我们拥有大量房产。如果你不喜欢这套房子我们收回后,你很可能会从我们这里购买另一套。

So I think there's a bunch of these things that exist, and the agency problem is real. The very real thing on cost of capital, which when you aggregate lots of homes, your cost of capital tends to be lower. Therefore, that's a real thing. The very real thing about the level of underwriting you can do on warranties, Like, the reason Opendoor can offer a seven day trial of a home is because we own lots of homes. You don't like this one if we take it back, the odds are you're gonna buy another house from us.

Speaker 0

所以存在所有这些摩擦的原因有三:第一,整个系统都处于规模不足的状态;第二,存在太多委托代理问题;第三,因为这些交易中有太多都是一次性交易。

So there's all these frictions that exist because the system everywhere is subscale, one. Two, because there's so many principal agency problems, the second one. And third, because there's so many of these transactions that are one time transactions.

Speaker 2

好的。让我们暂时回到公司层面。Alex,你进行了这项投资,对公司和发展机遇有着自己的愿景。根据公司表现,我们对这个机遇的可行性有了哪些认识?

Yeah. Okay. Let's zoom back into the company for a sec. So, Alex, you you make the investment and you've got this vision for the company and the opportunity. What have we learned about the feasibility of the opportunity based on the company performance?

Speaker 2

换种方式问——对于没有一直关注公司发展轨迹的人来说,情况进展如何?我们学到了什么?经历了哪些起起落落等等?

It's another way of asking, like, for people who haven't been following the company trajectory, you know, how have things gone? What have we learned? What have the ups and downs been, etcetera?

Speaker 3

嗯,曾有一段时间Opendoor看起来是个绝佳创意。我们在风投圈常说:你要投资那些看似糟糕实则优秀的想法。因为如果看起来是个好主意,反而会变成坏主意。Opendoor介于两者之间——当Zillow的Rich Barton回归、Spencer离开时,他们突然觉得必须跟进Opendoor的模式。

Well, so, there was a point in time where Opendoor was such a good idea. You know, there's a saying that we use a lot of venture capital. It was like, you know, you want to invest in a bad idea that something that looks like a bad idea that's actually a good idea. Because if it looks like a good idea, then it becomes a bad idea. And Opendoor was somewhere in between the two of these because Zillow was like, oh my god, like, you know, Rich Barton comes back to Zillow, Spencer leaves, and it's like, I have to go do what Opendoor does.

Speaker 3

当时所有人都涌入iBuying领域,Offerpad也出现了,但Zillow才是最大的玩家。

Everybody was getting into iBind, and Offerpad popped up, but like Zillow was the big one.

Speaker 2

他们做不到。

They couldn't do it.

Speaker 3

好吧,但这就是他们做不到的原因。这是个有趣的故事。而故事的另一个部分是,本·汤普森写了一篇文章,几乎更雄辩地总结了我所说的内容,比如,如果你获得了所有供应或只是一小部分专有供应,你就能获得所有需求。一旦你拥有了所有需求,那么你就可以拥有自己的供应,然后供应就会主动找上门。这就是你最终建立市场的方式。

Well, so But here's why they couldn't do it. It's an interesting story. And like the other part of the story is like Ben Thompson wrote a post that almost like kind of summarizes in a more eloquent form like what I was talking about with like, if you get all the supply or just a small sliver of proprietary supply, you get all the demand. And once you have all the demand, then you can have your own, then supply just comes to you. And that's how you finally build the marketplace.

Speaker 3

而且我听说里奇·巴顿会读本·汤普森的文章,就像每个人都应该读一样,因为本·汤普森非常非常聪明。我当时想,天哪,我们必须这么做。于是他们开始这么做,并且赚得盆满钵满。但这就是队列数学如此重要的地方。因为首先卖出的房子是那些优质的选择。

And I think rumor has it that Rich Barton reads Ben Thompson, as everybody should, because Ben Thompson is very, very smart. I was like, holy shit, we have to do this. So they start doing this, and they're making infinite money. But this is where cohort math is so important. Because the first homes to sell are the positive selection homes.

Speaker 3

想象一下,现在是什么时候?现在是十月。卡兹和我今天买了1000套房子。最好的房子明天就会卖掉。然后两年后我们剩下的那些房子,就像有鬼住在里面,或者像是白蚁,像是超级白蚁。

So imagine that, what is it? It's October right now. Kaz and I buy 1,000 homes today. The best homes will sell tomorrow. And then the homes that we're stuck with two years from now, like, there are ghosts that live in those homes or like the termites, like, they're like mega termites.

Speaker 3

就像,这些房子有问题。所以Zillow作为一家在公众视野下运营的上市公司,他们认为,我们在iBuying上赚了很多钱,因为我们以资产净值持有所有未售出的房产,并且一路都在产生利润。但你必须让整个队列‘治愈’,用行话来说,然后就会发现,哎呀,我们在那个队列上亏了很多钱。所以发生的事情是,Opendoor现在被出价更高的人抢走了生意,因为这个主意太好了,每个人都觉得这是个好主意,但在市场形成之前,它开始变得有点糟糕。Zillow开始出更高的价格。

Like, there are things that are wrong with it. So Zillow thought as a public company operating the public limelight, they're like, we're making so much money on iBuying because we're holding everything that hasn't sold at NAV, a net asset value, and then we're yielding profits all along the way. But you have to let the whole cohort cure, as the term goes, and then it's like, uh-oh, we lost a lot of money on that cohort. So what happened was Opendoor now is getting outbid by, because this is such a good idea, everybody thinks it's a good idea, kind of started becoming a little bit of a bad idea, pre marketplace. Zillow starts paying more.

Speaker 3

事实上,Zillow甚至有过这样的宣传:嘿,别卖给Opendoor,卖给我们,我们多出一美元。你必须始终意识到,如果你和任何股市专业交易员交谈,他们会说,你必须假设这是一个对抗性的过程。也就是说,任何时候有人接受你的出价,就像,有什么不对劲,对吧?你应该假设你即将被占便宜。Zillow并没有真正理解这一点,但他们把水搅浑了,影响了其他人。

In fact, Zillow even had like, hey, don't sell to Opendoor, sell to us, we'll pay a dollar more. And you always have to realize, if you talk to anybody who's a professional trader in the equity markets, they're like, you have to assume that it's an adversarial process. Is that anytime that somebody hits your bid, like, there's something wrong, right? It's like you should assume that you're about to get taken advantage of. Zillow didn't really understand that, but they kind of muddied the waters for everybody else.

Speaker 3

最终,Zillow退出了这项业务。钱开始不再免费。如果你被困在大量库存中,作为一个做市商,我的意思是,如果你看看世界上最赚钱的公司,Jane Street是做市商,Virtu是做市商,Citadel Securities是做市商,他们并非每次都赢。因为如果他们每次都赢,那他们可能在做一些非法的事情。他们大多数时候是赚钱的。

Eventually, Zillow pulled out of that business. Money started becoming not free. And if you're stuck with a huge amount of inventory, being a market maker, I mean, if you look at the most profitable companies in world, Jane Street is a market maker, Virtu is a market maker, Citadel Security is a market maker, they don't win all of the time. Because if they did, then they were doing something probably illegal. They make money most of the time.

Speaker 3

他们有一个加权硬币,并且持有库存,他们通过买卖价差赚钱,希望不是有人占他们便宜,这就是为什么他们想要零售流量。但问题是,就像股市中的许多做市商一样,他们不喜欢隔夜持仓,因为情况可能会变化。而Opendoor持有大量头寸,不仅仅是隔夜,然后利率从0%涨到了4%。4%在世界历史上并不算高,但在几个月内从零涨到4%确实很高。

They have a weighted coin, and they hold inventory, they're making money on this bid ask spread from somebody who's hopefully not taking advantage of them, which is why they want retail flow. And what happens though is that if you Like a lot of the market makers in the equities world, they don't like to hold positions overnight because things could change. So Opendoor is holding a lot of positions beyond just overnight, and then interest rates went from 0% to 4%. And 4% is not high in the history of the world, but is really high to go from zero to 4% in a few months.

Speaker 0

利率上涨的情况,我认为我们可以事后说,这就像英国脱欧一样,对国家来说非常不负责任。就像,我不认为……我觉得这非常像,我不……

The case at which interest rate increased were I think we can say in hindsight, this was a Brexit, which were deeply irresponsible for the country. Like, I don't think I I think it was very like, I don't

Speaker 3

知道,所以硅谷银行破产了。我认为资产价格下跌了。

know So Silicon Valley Bank went bankrupt. I think asset prices went down.

Speaker 0

是的。我认为这就像……看,我不认为Opendoor不管利率如何都犯了很多错误,但是,确实发生了一件非常真实的事情,公司不应该为宏观因素邀功或担责。但美国利率发生的情况基本上从未发生过,我认为以后也绝对不会再发生,因为这明显太愚蠢了。

Yeah. I think this is like look. I don't think Opendoor had made lots of mistakes regardless of interest rates, but, like, there's a very real thing that happened, which and companies shouldn't take credit or blame for macro. But what happened in The US with interest rates had basically never happened before, and I think will literally never happen again because it was so obviously stupid.

Speaker 3

所以基本上发生的情况是,你留下了所有这些库存。关键在于,如果你只是买卖,51%的时间赚钱,你赚取的是最高买价和最低卖价之间的差价,中间有这个利润空间。如果你持续买入卖出,实际上可以运作下去。这再次说明了为什么Jane Street或Citadel Securities或你听说过的任何这类公司能赚很多钱。他们非常频繁地进行这种操作。

So basically what happens, you're left with all this inventory. And the whole point is if you're just buying and selling and you make money 51% of the time and you're earning a spread between basically you have the top bid and the lowest ask, and then there's this margin in between. And if you just kind of keep buying, keep selling, you can actually make this work. And this is again how this is why Jane Street makes a lot of money or Citadel Securities or any of these companies that you've heard of. They're doing it very, very frequently.

Speaker 3

他们通常不会长期持有资产。有些公司作为固定规则,从不隔夜持有资产。而Opendoor有很多资产。然后当资产……抱歉,当利率上升时,资产价格会发生什么?它们往往会下跌。

They're typically not holding on to assets for a very long period of time. Some of them never hold on to assets overnight, just as a standing rule. And Opendoor has a lot of assets. And then what happens is when asset Sorry, when interest rates go up, what happens to asset prices? They tend to go down.

Speaker 3

因为现在就像,从抵押贷款支付的角度来想。以前我的抵押贷款支付可能是每月一千美元,我只有一千美元从租金转向买房,因为我可以付首付。但等等,现在每月要花两千美元,所以我不想买房了。当总需求下降而价格下跌时会发生什么?

Because now it's like, think of it in terms of like a mortgage payment. Like, well, before my mortgage payment used to be a thousand Like, I only have a thousand dollars a month to switch from like my rental payment to buying a house because I can make a down payment. Well, wait a minute. Now it costs me $2,000 a month, so therefore I don't wanna buy the house. What happens when aggregate demand goes down while prices go down?

Speaker 3

实际上,在房地产领域并没有像预期那样大幅下跌,因为我们存在住房短缺问题,这是另一个话题。但总体资产价格确实下跌了。比如硅谷银行(SVB)就因为利率上升而破产。如果你持有一堆类似75个基点的十年期国债,它们的价值只有之前的一半。现在你不得不抛售它们。

And actually, didn't happen as much in housing as would have been anticipated because we have a shortage of homes, and that's a separate topic. But asset prices in general went down. Like SVB, Silicon Valley Bank went bankrupt because interest rates go up. And if you're stuck with a bunch of like 75 basis point ten year T bills, they're worth half as much as they were before. Now you have to go sell them.

Speaker 3

糟糕,你破产了。所以这种情况发生的速度非常非常快。没有人真正...我的意思是人们预料到了,好吧我们的利率很低,但感觉就像'哦,美联储会再加息25个基点,再加20个'...不像突然爆发那样。这就像是五西格玛事件——虽然西格玛数量是我编的——但就可预见性而言,这远远超出了许多个标准差。然后所有风险资本...实际上这算是双重打击,因为风险资本,比如风险投资就是风险资本。

Uh-oh, you're bankrupt. So the pace that this happened was very, very high. Nobody really I mean, people anticipated, okay, our rates are low, but it's like, oh, well, Fed will raise by 25 basis points by another 20 Like, it wasn't like boom. And that was the like five sigma, or I'm making up the number of Sigmas, but it was many, many standard deviations beyond the norm in terms of what you can anticipate. And then it's like all of the risk cap Actually, was kind of a double whammy because risk capital, like venture capital is risk capital.

Speaker 3

所以当利率低时,人们不愿意只赚取国债75个基点的收益。我会投资风险更高的东西。我会投给风险投资,投给私募股权。因此风险资本就会收缩。

So when interest rates are low, well, don't want to earn 75 basis points on T bills. I'm going to invest in riskier things. I'm going to give it to venture capital. I'm going give it to private equity. So risk capital kind of pulls back.

Speaker 3

资产价格下跌。因为利率上升,住房需求下降。我的月供...所以这就像是所有事情同时出问题了。而公司的愿景,至少我作为投资者的愿景(我不是创始人),我认为你们有机会建立一个市场平台,但这需要时间。你不能只是打个响指就突然拥有一个市场平台。

Asset prices go down. Demand for homes goes down because interest rates went up. My monthly So it was kind of like this everything went wrong at the same time. And the vision of the company, at least my vision of the company, I'm not the founder, but like my vision as an investor was like, you guys have a chance at building a marketplace, but it's gonna take time. You can't just like snap your fingers and boom, you have a marketplace.

Speaker 3

亚马逊花了多长时间才建立起市场平台?杰夫·贝佐斯在平台出现之前写了多少非常非常悲伤、沮丧的股东信?花了很长很长时间。然后Opendoor,我认为本来是在正确的轨道上,但却遭遇了这个三重、四重,也许是五重打击。

Like how long did it take Amazon to build a marketplace? How many like very, very sad, despondent shareholder letters did Jeff Bezos have to write before marketplace appeared a long, long time. And then Opendoor, I think, was on the path, but then just kind of got hit with this triple, quadruple, maybe quintuple wham it.

Speaker 0

这也是个现实问题。看,当公司因错误受到指责时其实是件好事。对世界来说是好事。我希望所有公司都犯过我们的错误,因为这就是我们学习的方式。亚马逊更早时候也发生过同样的事,Carvana大约在同一时期也经历了类似情况。

It's also a real thing, look. It's very good when companies are blamed for the mistakes. Actually, good thing for the world. I wish all had made our mistakes because that's how we learned. The same thing happened to Amazon much earlier and to Carvana around the same time.

Speaker 0

是的。亚马逊和Carvana对那件事的反应不同。亚马逊和Carvana的态度是:好吧,最初的想法是个好主意吗?好的。那么错误在哪里?

Yeah. Amazon and Carvana reacted differently to that thing happening. Amazon and Carvana were like, cool, was the original idea a good idea? Alright. What was the mistake?

Speaker 0

我们就放下错误继续前进吧。我认为Opendoor那位公开所做的实质上就是放弃了最初的使命。就像是,好吧,我们要大幅降低公司的风险。我们要在整个业务板块全面降低公司风险。

Let's just shed the mistakes and go. I think what Opendoor guy publicly did was essentially abandon the original mission. It was like, cool. We're gonna de risk this company a lot. We're just gonna de risk the company across the entire segment.

Speaker 0

我认为这实际上是一个很难摆脱的恶性循环,因为你已经对自己是谁犯了范畴错误,这让其他所有人都很容易犯同样的错误。然后,我...我不...我认为如果Opendoor是一家老式的运营型炒房公司,它可能还有意义。但它不是那样的

I think that actually is a very hard spiral to recover from because you've now made a category mistake about who you are, which makes it really easy for everyone else to make the same mistake. And then, like, I I don't I think if if Opendoor is an old fashioned operational house flipper, It could be meaningful. It's not that

Speaker 2

大生意。而且他们对最初的愿景及其可行性失去了信心,或者有什么能解释

big a business. And they lost faith in the original vision and the feasibility of it, or what would explain to

Speaker 0

这种...我认为上市公司有一个非常现实的问题,就是你必须处理那些在上市公司中被放大的问题。但我认为私营公司基本上都有完全相同的问题。在私营公司,这些问题是在董事会桌上和你的风投讨论的。而在上市公司,它们是在Reddit上被讨论,并且会登上《华尔街日报》。所以如果你非常在意《华尔街日报》对你的评价,经营上市公司就会极其困难。

this sort of I think there's a very real thing about being a public company that there are things you have to deal with in public companies that are amplified. But I think private companies basically all have the exact same problems. In public company, these problems are discussed with your VCs at a board table. A public company, they're discussed on Reddit, and it's found in The Wall Street Journal. So if you care a great deal about what's said about you in The Wall Street Journal, running a public company is incredibly difficult.

Speaker 0

就是非常困难。幸运的是,我根本不在乎。这样就稍微容易一点。

It's just very difficult. Luckily, I just don't care. It's slightly easier.

Speaker 2

所以,你回来了,你加入了公司,并且说,嘿,我们回去吧。最初的愿景是个好主意,我们把它

So, you've come back and you've joined and you've said, Hey, let's go back. The original vision was a good idea, Let's bring it

Speaker 0

你怎么...听着,我认为这个使命是值得的。我认为Opendoor在前进道路上犯过错误,我们应该从错误中学习。但公司不会因为变得畏首畏尾而变得更好。这是一个非常现实的问题。我们还会再犯错误吗?

how do you Look, I think the mission is a worthwhile one. I think Opendoor has made mistakes along the path, and we should learn from our mistakes. But the company is not made better by becoming meeker. That's a very real thing. Will we make mistakes again?

Speaker 0

百分之百。我们肯定还会再犯错误。就像我们刚刚在德克萨斯州达拉斯推出了为期七天的房屋试用服务。今天是第一天,我不知道会进展得如何。

100%. We will for sure make mistakes again. Like we just launched try before this seven day trial of homes in Dallas, Texas. It's day one. I don't know how it's gonna go.

Speaker 0

我们会知道的。但今天早上我跟我们的一位产品经理说了这个。我到了Opendoor,感觉就像——你看过《勇敢的心》吗?有一个场景是梅尔·吉布森站在苏格兰军队前,英格兰人带着武器来了,梅尔·吉布森站在那里说,稳住,稳住。而我心想,别稳住。

We'll find out. But I was telling this to one of our product managers this morning. I got to Open Door and I felt have you ever watched Braveheart? There's a scene where Mel Gibson is standing in front of the Scottish army, and the English are coming with weapons, and Mel Gibson is standing there saying, hold, hold. I'm like, don't hold.

Speaker 0

进攻。我到了Opendoor,感觉就像过去三年里,有人一直站在公司前面说,稳住,稳住,等待。就等着宏观环境好转。但你这样往往建不成伟大的软件公司。我觉得你可以那样建一个很棒的对冲基金,但Opendoor不是对冲基金。

Attack. I got to Opendoor and I felt like for three years, someone had stood in front of a company saying, Hold, hold, wait. Just wait for the macro to recover. And you just don't tend to build great software companies like that. I think you can build great hedge funds like that, but Opendoor is not a hedge fund.

Speaker 0

如果是对冲基金,那应该是纽约六个家伙带着笔记本电脑。我们不是那样的。我们是一家软件公司。而软件公司基本上需要一直处于进攻状态。是的。

If it was a hedge fund, it needed to be six guys in New York with laptops. We're not that. We're a software company. And software companies need to be basically always on attack. Yeah.

Speaker 0

就像,一直,一直,一直在进攻。我们会攻错一些山头。我们会不小心损失一些船只,但,就像,一直在进攻。

Like, always, always, always on attack. We'll attack some wrong hills. We'll accidentally, like, lose some ships, but, like, always on attack.

Speaker 2

是的。Alex,你给了Kaz什么建议,或者你在考虑必须做出哪些战略决策,如果你接任CEO,什么是最重要的?

Yeah. Alex, what advice you given to Kaz, or what would you be thinking about in terms of what strategic decisions you have to make, or what's important if you were taking over as CEO?

Speaker 3

我觉得很多方面,当我第一次听说他接任这个职位时,我想我发给你了我的YouTube视频。那实际上是我观看次数最多的视频,主要是恨我并想杀我的房地产经纪人看的。这就像在传播,说到Reddit,你知道,《被讨厌的勇气》。这是一本好书,叫

I think a lot of it, I think when I first heard that he was taking the job, I think I sent you my YouTube video. It's actually my most viewed ever video largely by real estate agents who hate me and wanna kill me. This was like circulating, speaking of Reddit, you know, The Courage to be Disliked. A It's good book called

Speaker 0

《被讨厌的勇气》。这是一本非常棒的书。太棒了。我带了摄像机。《被讨厌的勇气》是创始人必读的最佳书籍之一。

The Courage to be Disliked. It's an excellent book. Excellent. I took a camera. The Courage to be Disliked is among the best books to read as a founder.

Speaker 0

你一定要读一读。太棒了。

You must read it. Excellent.

Speaker 3

它采用阿德勒心理学模式的苏格拉底式对话。非常非常有趣。所以那次演讲之后,天哪,收到了那么多房地产经纪人的仇恨邮件。我都不知道还有房地产经纪人仇恨邮件这种东西,因为我基本上是在说这些人就像社会的寄生虫。然后,你瞧,他们不喜欢被叫做不喜欢

It's this whole Socratic dialogue in this Adlerian psychology mode. It's very, very interesting. So after giving that talk, oh my God, the number of real estate agent hate mail. I didn't know that there was a such thing as like real estate agent hate mail because I was basically saying like these people are like leeches on society. And, like, lo and behold, they don't like being called don't

Speaker 0

不喜欢被叫做社会的寄生虫。

like being called leeches on society.

Speaker 3

我认识一些房地产经纪人,但整个过程就是不合理。不应该有6%的佣金,顺便说一句,我在演讲中也提到了这一点。这是美国独有的。你去世界上任何其他国家,佣金率远没有这么高,也没有所有这些监管俘获现象。这完全不合理。

And I know some real estate agents, but it's just, like, the whole process doesn't make sense. There should not be a 6% tax, which, by the way, I make this point in the presentation. It's unique to America. You go pick any other country in the world, it's nowhere near that level of spread, and you don't have all this regulatory capture. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 3

所以我认为我的主要观点是,如果你有一个房屋市场,它是世界上最大的市场,对吧?我们知道股票市场很大。但你知道吗?住宅房地产市场更大。更大。

So I think my big thing was it's like if you have a marketplace for homes, it is the biggest marketplace in the world, right? Like we know that the stock market is big. But you know what? The residential real estate market is bigger. Bigger.

Speaker 3

我们都知道,为什么纽交所和纳斯达克价值很高?为什么eBay有价值?所有这些平台什么都做,就是不做房屋交易。如果你专注于这个领域,我认为Eric Wu的公司就是致力于此,但这变成了一个难以维持的局面,在公众视野下很难做到

We know that everybody, why is the NYSE and NASDAQ worth a lot? Like why is eBay worth? Like all of these things that do everything but homes. If you stick to that, which I think the company I mean, this is what Eric Wu was kind of committed to doing, and it just became it was an untenable situation where it's like all of your public it's hard to do it in the public eye

Speaker 0

当然。因为虽然我不认为它必须如此,但我认为公司本可以在公众视野中完成这件事,只是公司吸取了一堆错误的教训。

for sure. Because it's but I don't think it's like, I think the company could have still done it in the public eye, but just the company just had learned a bunch of wrong lessons.

Speaker 3

这就是关键所在。当资金唾手可得时,成功反而成了糟糕的老师,就像,哦,我们通过炒房赚了这么多钱。而真正的魔力在于,如果像opendoor.com这样不承担房屋的本金风险,那才是关键。这意味着它是销售成本最低的方式,也是最佳的购买方式。

And that was the point. It's like when money is free, like success is a terrible teacher, and it's like, oh, we're making all this money flipping homes. And the real magic is going to happen if it's like opendoor.com does not take principal risk on a house. And it just means that like it's the lowest cost to sell. It's the it's the best way to buy.

Speaker 3

顺便说一句,这就像在亚马逊上购物一样。我是说,eBay已经有点失去光彩了。但即便如此,如果我在巨人队的比赛中接到了一个全垒打球,我会去哪里卖掉它?谁有最深的流动性?那肯定是eBay。

And that's what, by the way, like buying stuff on Amazon is. That's what buying stuff I mean, eBay has kinda lost its luster. But still, if I catch a new home run at a Giants game, where do I go sell that? Who has the deepest liquidity? It's gonna be eBay.

Speaker 3

我会在那里卖掉它。所有想买棒球的人都会去eBay。而且eBay不需要实际拥有那个棒球。这就是为什么他们有一个惊人的业务。他们可能雇佣了太多员工。

And I'm gonna sell it there. And everybody who wants to buy a baseball, they go to eBay. And like eBay does not have to take possession of the baseball. That's why they have an amazing business. They probably have too many people that work there.

Speaker 3

你知道,它已经大不如前了。显然,它还在使用1997年左右的同样的.NET库。所以那里有各种各样的问题。但是,我对这个愿景感到兴奋:拥有一个住房市场,然后还能想出一些创造性的融资方案。因为金融就像你说的,所有这些都是一次性的。

They have you know, it's a shadow of its former self. Apparently, it's still using the same dot net library in, like, 1997. So all sorts of issues there. But, like, I'm just excited about this vision of having a housing marketplace and then also kind of coming up with creative financing options. Because finance is like all of these are one offs to your point.

Speaker 3

顺便说一句,还可以想出更好的保险方案。如果你控制了整个流程,并且像你说的,如果你与客户建立了终生的关系,你能做的事情太多了。

And then by the way, can come up with like better insurance options. Like, if you control the entire thing, and to your point, if you have a lifelong relationship with that customer, there are so many things that you can do.

Speaker 0

这非常……我的意思是,看,为抵押贷款评估房屋、为保险评估房屋以及为购买评估房屋,从根本上说,这些操作并没有太大不同。它们真的没有。但这个领域的所有参与者对这些问题的答案都不同。这就像所有这些显然应该由一个人来完成。显然应该由一家公司来做这件事。

This is very I mean, look, underwriting a home for mortgage and underwriting a home for insurance and underwriting a home for buying it, Fundamentally not that different as exercises. They really aren't. But all the players in this space come up with different answers to these questions. It's just like this all should very clearly be done by one person. It's very clearly one company should do this.

Speaker 0

你和我都是理财爱好者,所以我在美国出版了一本相关的书。因此总的来说,我对这件事感到兴奋。我认为,正确的模式实际上更接近亚马逊而非eBay。因为Opendoor将在很长一段时间内承担其大部分库存的主要风险。但它应该只承担这些风险吗?

And you and I are money nerds, so I've labeled a book about in The US. So I think I'm generally excited about this. I do think for what it's worth that the right model actually is much closer to Amazon than to eBay. Because think Opendoor will have principal risk on quite a lot of its inventory for a very long time. Now should it only have that?

Speaker 0

显然不是。而且这也不是非此即彼的事情。不是零风险或100%风险。这是一个梯度。你可以在链条的任何位置运作,提供不同的价值。

Obviously not. And it's also not a binary thing. It's not like zero risk or a 100% risk. There's like It's a gradient. You can live anywhere along the chain, you can deliver different values.

Speaker 0

我们不必与卖家就房屋价格达成一致。我们可以说,好的,我们同意至少这个价。我们至少给你这个价,然后我们来销售。你承担剩余的风险。

We don't have to agree with a seller on the price of the home. We can say, Cool, we agree. It's at least this. We'll give you at least that, and then let's sell it. You take the rest of the risk.

Speaker 0

我们将承担最初那部分风险。在这方面有很多可以做的,不完全是二元的,更像是用户体验问题而非承保问题,但都是可以解决的。

We'll take the risk for the first bit. And there's a lot you can do here that's not quite binary and becomes like a UX problem rather than underwriting problem, but fixable.

Speaker 3

嗯,关键就在这里。就像有市价单和限价单一样。

Well, that's the thing. It's like there's a market order and a limit order.

Speaker 0

是的。是的。

Yes. Yes.

Speaker 3

两者都有存在的空间。在最高买价和最低卖价之间有很多流动性。那里总是有很多流动性,那些就是限价单。

And there's a place for both. And there's a lot of liquidity beneath the top big and the lowest ask. There's always a lot of liquidity there, and those are the limit orders.

Speaker 2

展望未来,在最重要的优先事项、决策或战略方向上,你还能暗示些什么?

Gearing towards the future, what else can you hint at in terms of the biggest priorities or decisions or strategic directions that you're focused on?

Speaker 0

我在Shopify期间深深钦佩的一点是,就像如果你观察象棋棋手,回溯过去,开始学棋时,他们会教你开局策略。开局就像,这是你应该做的。但如果你看现代棋手,他们下的是所谓的局面棋。对吧?就是始终让自己处于更有利的位置。

The thing I admired, deeply admired about my time at Shopify is that, like, if you actually if you watch chess players, like, back in time and, like, start chess, they'll teach you, like, opening strategies. Opening like, this is what you should do. If you look at modern chess players, they do something called positional chess. Right? Like, always put yourself in a better position.

Speaker 0

就像,为下一步棋、再下一步棋布局,只是给自己更多选择。这实际上是以透明方式打造公司的正确方法。就像,你不想把战略抓得太死。不是使命,而是战略。所以我没有一套秘密技巧,但我认为Opendoor确实存在一个问题:它为卖家做得太少,为买家几乎什么都没做。

Like, play for the next position, the one after that, and just, like, give yourself more options. And that actually is the right way to build a company transparently. Like, you don't wanna, like like, you wanna hold the strategy very loosely. Not the mission, but the strategy. So I don't have, like, a secret bag of tricks, but I think there's a very real thing where Opendoor does too little for its sellers and does almost nothing for its buyers.

Speaker 0

就像,我们将解决这两个问题。我认为还有一个很现实的情况,由于一些糟糕的建议,公司曾一度试图只购买定价错误的房屋。我们只买那些定价偏差20%的房子。结果发现,再次强调,这样做可以建立一个对冲基金,但无法真正打造一个软件公司。

Like, it's like, we'll solve both of those problems. I think there's a very real thing where, like, I think due to some bad advice, the company tried for a little while to essentially only buy homes that were mispriced. We will only buy homes that are mispriced by 20%. And it turns out just Again, you can build a hedge fund doing that. You can't really build a software company doing that.

Speaker 0

我们的目标是以公平的价格买卖房屋。以公平的价格,我们将买卖房屋。我认为这三方面大致是每个人的方向。然后我们要做的就是请大家根据这一使命来监督我们。监督我们践行这一使命:我们的目标是在房屋买卖中成为你频繁交易的对象。

Our goal is to buy and sell homes for a fair price. For a fair price, we will buy and sell homes. And I think those are three big everyone that way ish. And then what we'll do is we'll just ask people to hold us to account against this mission. Hold us to account against this mission that what we are going to do out there is try to be the person you transact with quite frequently when buying and selling homes.

Speaker 0

不只是0.5%的时间,而是相当大比例的时间。然后,嗯,我认为这就是——顺便说一下,我们已经——我加入Opendoor时,它只在美国48个市场运营。现在已覆盖全美所有市场,因为推送像素相对容易。是的。所以有一大堆这样的事情。

Not just 0.5% of time, but a significant percentage of time. And then well, I I I think that's like and by the way, we've already like, I started at OpenDoor, OpenDoor was only available in 48 markets in The US. It is now available in every market in The US because you can push pixels relatively easily. Yeah. So there's a bunch but a bunch of that stuff.

Speaker 0

就像,我认为人们应该期待我们成为一家更有雄心的公司。

It's like, I think I think you should people should expect us to be a much more ambitious company.

Speaker 2

那么,在问责方面,这家公司与其他公司相比的一个显著特点是,互联网上有如此多的人对这家公司充满热情,即开放大军。我们如何解释为什么Opendoor是一家让这么多人如此热情的公司?这对业务或您的思考方式有何影响?

Well, in terms of holding you to account, one thing that's so remarkable about the company among other things is how many people on the Internet feel so passionate about the company, the Open Army. How do we explain why Opendoor is a company that so many people feel so passionate about? And how does that impact at all the business or how you think about it?

Speaker 0

我从没在华尔街工作过,直到开始这份工作之前,我只持有一只股票。曾经是Shopify,所以现在我持有这只股票。是的,一旦你知道,我是被允许的。我不像……我不是股票分析师。

I never worked on Wall Street, and until I started this job, I owned one ticker. It was Shopify at some point, so now I own this ticker. Yeah. Once you know, I'm allowed to. I'm not like a I'm not a stock analyst.

Speaker 0

我只是不是。我以打造产品为生。但我认为有一个非常真实的现象,即人们觉得普通美国人的自然直觉是判断真相的很好指标。就像威廉·巴克利曾经说的,他宁愿拿起马萨诸塞州波士顿的电话簿,也不愿去哈佛教授的书里寻求建议。是的。

I'm just not one. I build products for a living. But I think there's a very real thing that happens where people feel like the natural intuitions of the average American is a very good indicator of what's true. Like William Buckley used to say, he used to rather grab the phone book of Boston, Massachusetts than go to Harvard professor's book for advice. Yeah.

Speaker 0

因为关于人们自然直觉的事情是非常真实的。我认为人们审视房地产及其交易方式,然后说,嗯,这很愚蠢。是的,就像,这不该是这样的。我觉得这就是原因所在。

Because it's a very real thing about the natural intuition of people is real. And I think people look at real estate and how those transactions are done, and they say, well, this is stupid. Yeah. Like, this is not how this should be. And it makes it like I think that's what it is.

Speaker 0

我认为人们看着并说,嘿,这不该是这样运作的。有一家公司声称要解决这个问题。我们希望他们去解决它。顺便说一句,我认为最棒的是,如果你与普通人交流,他们往往非常理性,提出很好的问题,有很好的想法。而如果你与所谓的专家交流,他们则有感知偏见,而且通常是错的。

I think people are looking at and say, hey, this is not how this should work. There's a company out there who's supposed to who has told us they're gonna fix this problem. We want them to go fix it. And by the way, think the most wonderful thing about this is that if you engage with the average person, they tend to be deeply reasonable, ask really good questions, have really good ideas. Whereas if you engage with supposed experts, they have perceived biases, and they're usually wrong.

Speaker 0

存在一种全然的假装懂行的现象。所以我认为,对公司来说,实际上非常有帮助的是更像……你知道我想向谁请教吗?是那个持有这只股票并即将买卖房屋的普通人。我想向那个人请教,因为他们更有可能拥有更广阔的视野。就像,前几天有人问我,嘿,为什么不能像在亚马逊上退货一样退掉房子?

There's a whole pretense of knowledge thing that happens. So I think it's actually deeply helpful for the company to be a company more like, You know who I want advice from? The average person who owns this stock and is about to buy or sell a home. I want advice from that person because the odds are they have a wider aperture of possibility. Like, this is a real question that someone asked me the other day saying, hey, why can't return what I buy on Amazon and not a home?

Speaker 0

就像,那真是个相当不错的问题。说实话,从有人问那个问题到我们推出产品,可能只用了十二天。因为这里有些东西是 broken 的,那就是直觉。直觉是结晶的知识,而许多人的直觉实际上是大量人群的知识,我认为这很重要。这个世界上的人们买不起自己的房子,这是一件坏事。

Like, That's a really decent question. Honestly, the time someone asked that question to the time we launched the product was maybe I think twelve days. Because there's certain amount of like, there's something broken here that is intuition. Intuition is crystallized knowledge, and intuition by lots of people is literally knowledge of a significant number of people, and I think it's important. It is a bad thing for the world that people in this country can't afford to own their home.

Speaker 0

就像拥有住房的人一样。在父母拥有住房的家庭中长大的孩子会有更好的生活成果。住在自己房子里的人拥有更好的社区环境、更低的犯罪率和更高的健康水平。如果你有兴趣和我们一起解决这个问题,我的私信是开放的。

Like people who own homes. Kids that grow up in homes that are owned by their parents have better life outcomes. People who live in homes have better communities, lower crime, higher health results. If you're so inclined to solve this problem with us. My DMs are open.

Speaker 0

来找我吧。我们将打造软件领域最具进取心的团队,并且我们一直在招聘。

Find me. We are going to build the most aggressive team in software. And we're always recruiting.

Speaker 1

感谢收听本期a16z播客。如果你喜欢这一期,请务必点赞、评论、订阅、给我们评分或留言,并与你的朋友和家人分享。更多节目请前往YouTube、Apple Podcasts和Spotify。在X上关注我们@a16z,并订阅我们的Substack:a16z.substack.com。再次感谢收听,下期节目再见。

Thanks for listening to this episode of the a 16 z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or a review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Follow us on x at a sixteen z, and subscribe to our Substack at a16z.substack.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Speaker 1

提醒一下,此处内容仅供信息参考,不应视为法律、商业、税务或投资建议,也不应用于评估任何投资或证券,且并非针对任何a16z基金的投资者或潜在投资者。请注意,a16z及其关联公司可能在本播客讨论的公司中持有投资。更多详情,包括我们的投资链接,请参见a16z.com/disclosures。

As a reminder, the content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business, tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a sixteen z fund. Please note that a sixteen z and its affiliates may also maintain investments in the companies discussed in this podcast. For more details, including a link to our investments, please see a 16z.com forward /disclosures.

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