Office Hours with Spencer Rascoff

Jun 02 2023 103 ep. 30 mins 581

Office Hours with Spencer Rascoff Podcast artwork

Spencer Rascoff is a New York Times bestselling author who co-founded four tech companies, invested in over 50, and was CEO of Zillow for a decade. His first start-up, Hotwire, sold to Expedia for $685 million, and his second start-up, Zillow, is now a real estate colossus, worth around $10 billion dollars. Now, he’s cofounded dot.LA, a media company covering the cutting-edge LA tech scene. Hear Spencer speak with CEOs, start-up founders, venture capitalists, and prominent thought leaders about how to manage, how to lead, and how to win in business.

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Los Angeles-based Startup Apex Is Tapping Into the Small Satellite Market by Making Buses for Spacecraft

Jun 02 2023 33 mins

Spencer speaks with Ian Cinnamon, the CEO and co-founder of Culver City-based startup Apex, which manufactures productized, configurable satellite buses for the expanding space industry. As access to space becomes democratized, Apex's is poised to offer its scalable solutions to both commercial and government customers. Prior to Apex, Ian founded Synapse, a startup that built AI s

From the Vault: How Eddy Lu and his Co-founder Built The GOAT App Based on a Love of Vintage Air Jordans

May 19 2023 26 mins

Eddy Lu, CEO of GOAT, explains his pivot from a restaurant meet-up app, the ups and downs of working with his co-founder, and how insight into the sneaker vertical on eBay helped build the start-up into what it is today. This episode was originally released in February of 2011.

Howie Liu, Co-founder and CEO of Airtable, Shares How Selling His Start-up to Salesforce Led to Building their Unique Product

May 05 2023 39 mins

Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of tech decacorn Airtable, a connected apps platform that lets users build and customize apps using shared data. As a no code platform, Airtable has iterated and innovated their product by combining the features of a relational database by using an interface that looks like a spreadsheet. Since it's founding in 2012, the company has raised nearly

From Bootstrapping as a Solo Founder — Shiloh Johnson Talks About Building ComplYant

Apr 07 2023 30 mins

In this episode of Office Hours, Spencer speaks with L.A.-based entrepreneur Shiloh Johnson, the CEO and founder of ComplYant, a digital tax assistant tool. The technology platform offers small business owners and entrepreneurs an easy way to handle business taxes. The fintech startup was originally bootstrapped by Johnson, who as a Black female founder thought she'd be overlooked

From The Vault: Bill Gurley Drops Knowledge on Startups, Venture Capital And Scaling

Mar 24 2023 44 mins

Bill Gurley, Legendary Silicon Valley VC, is a general partner at Benchmark and famously known for investing early in trailblazing companies including Uber, GrubHub, Zillow and so many others. Hear this conversation with Spencer from the dot.LA Summit where they discuss marketplace-based companies, how work-from-home will accelerate business opportunity, and why startups—thoug

Airvet Founder and CEO Brandon Werber Discusses Pet Telehealth and Shifting to B2B

Mar 09 2023 30 mins

Growing up as the son of a nationally renowned veterinarian, Brandon knows first-hand the importance of having access to experts when your pet is sick. In 2018, Werber launched Airvet, a Beverly Hills-based digital health company for pets. Airvet works with employers and business partners to make sure pet parents get affordable and fast access to virtual vet care via video and chat

The Ford Foundation's Roy Swan on Leading the Foundation's Growth

Feb 23 2023 27 mins

Roy Swan, Director of The Ford Foundation's Mission Investments team, is committed to increasing the impact of their portfolio of mission-related investments (MRIs). He works alongside the organization's leadership to identify opportunities and guide decision-making processes as they relate to its global activities. Prior to joining the Foundation, Roy served as managing director

‘Life Beyond Likes’: Isa Watson Speaks About Her Social Audio Platform, Squad

Feb 10 2023 37 mins

Spencer speaks with Isa Watson, the Founder & CEO of Squad. Watson, author of the upcoming book, "Life Beyond Likes: Logging Off Your Screen and Into Your Life." In the book, she raises awareness around how social media has impacted our daily lives, self-worth, and real life relationships. With so much of our lives lived online, Isa argues, we’ve never been more connected—or di

Community’s Diankha Linear on Scaling a Company for Enterprise

Jan 27 2023 39 mins

Diankha Linear, CEO of Community, an SMS marketing platform for business, speaks with Spencer in this episode of Office Hours. Ms. Linear was an officer and early executive team member at Convoy, serving as General Counsel and corporate secretary—overseeing one of Seattle’s largest VC transactions with a Series D Round of $400M, among other roles in the startup. Diankha comes f

Legendary Tech Entrepreneur Steve Case Speaks About Why Great Ideas Come From Everywhere, and How the Next Generation of Founders Won't be from Traditional Tech Hubs

Jan 12 2023 32 mins

Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and CEO of Revolution speaks with Spencer about his current mission to locate compelling investment opportunities outside of the traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley. Case's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund is a Revolution initiative aimed at accelerating the growth of early-stage startups across the country. The ideas is that there's more opportunity f