How Rich Barton Built Expedia and Zillow — Audacious Goals, Provocation Marketing, and More

CNBC

“It's my favorite source of news because business news is generally happy. Yeah. Got it. They just don't wallow in the”— Rich Barton

Pocari Sweat

Otsuka Pharmaceutical (inferred)

“My favorite electrolyte is picari sweat. Japanese one. Oh, the blue can. My nutritionist says that's the one.”— Rich Barton

Hyperice Venom (back)

Hyperice

“I'm wearing that Venom. Oh my god. That loosens everything up, too. I have it on repeat. I'm wearing that Venom.”— Rich Barton

eBoys

Randall E. Stross (inferred)

“a book was recommended to me called E Boys. it was incredibly inspirational. Super entertaining and so entertaining.”— Tim Ferriss

Peloton

Peloton (inferred)

“My knees kind of are not great running, but a softer treadmill works, but the Pelaton is my favorite one there.”— Rich Barton

The Oceans and the Stars

Mark Helprin

“Recently, I gifted The Oceans and the Stars. Do you know Mark Hellprin? this latest one I highly recommend.”— Rich Barton

Winter's Tale

Mark Helprin

“The only one of his that I've probably reread is A Winter's Tale ... It's just a beautiful, beautiful story of early 20th century life”— Rich Barton

Polostan

Neal Stephenson

“Neil Stevenson ... his latest book Polaron. But his latest Polo Stump, I highly recommend.”— Rich Barton

Cryptonomicon

Neal Stephenson

“It's not like Kryptonomicon or something like which I loved. Side note, me too.”— Rich Barton

Stories of Your Life and Others

Ted Chiang

“Ted Chang ... has two collections of short stories ... It's like stories of your life and other stories. one of those short stories was the basis for the movie Arrival”— Tim Ferriss

Arrival

“one of those short stories was the basis for the movie Arrival with Jeremy Rener, amazing movie.”— Tim Ferriss

Exhalation

Ted Chiang

“Then a second collection came out, Exhalation ... And the second is just unbelievably good.”— Tim Ferriss

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Ken Liu

“Kenneth Leu ... has the paper managerie ... blends or alternates in a sense between sci-fi and fantasy in this really compelling way. highly highly recommend.”— Tim Ferriss

The Lincoln Highway

Amor Towles

“Lincoln Highway, which I mean, it is such a page turner. It's so beautifully architected.”— Tim Ferriss

Bowfinger

“that movie Bow Finger ... It's a cult classic ... I highly recommend it. It's Eddie Murphy Tour to Force.”— Rich Barton

Procreate

Savage Interactive (inferred)

“I took a Procreate painting on my iPad during co and it's so I'm so I feel so good.”— Rich Barton

Taco Cat (Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza)

Dolphin Hat Games (inferred)

“Taco Cat. That is a funny game, isn't it? So stupid. So fun. That was so good.”— Rich Barton

iPad

Apple (inferred)

“I've got my iPad set up next to it rolling, you know, CNBC quietly. Mhm. On mute.”— Rich Barton

iPhone

Apple (inferred)

“now I have a folder called the Breakfast Club, my iPhone pictures, and I have like a thousand pictures”— Rich Barton

DOS for Dummies

IDG Books (inferred)

“the book that the dummies series was founded on was DOSs for dummies. it was like the bestselling book about software of all time.”— Rich Barton

MS-DOS 5

Microsoft

“We were working on MS DOS5 ... it was a really big operating system for Microsoft at the time and we made an upgrade”— Rich Barton

Windows 95

Microsoft

“this was during the Windows 95 launch. I left the Windows 95 team and I went to the consumer division at Microsoft”— Rich Barton

Windows NT

Microsoft

“He also liked that we could rebuild all the mainframes on Windows NT which was a different conversation.”— Rich Barton

Microsoft Encarta

Microsoft

“these things were like Wikipedia before Wikipedia was called In Carta. Multimedia CDROM”— Rich Barton

Microsoft Office

Microsoft

“as long as Windows NT the operating system succeeded or Office Microsoft Office succeeded they could make a lot of money”— Rich Barton

easySABRE

Sabre (inferred)

“I demoed Easy Saber on Prodigy. Easy Saber was a tool for travel agents to use at home on Prodigy to access the airline reservation systems.”— Rich Barton

Prodigy

“I demoed Easy Saber on Prodigy. Prodigy was an online service. and I could get access to it on Prodigy.”— Rich Barton

Hotels.com

“they kind of pushed us to buy the number two player which was Hotels.com. And so we mashed those things together”— Rich Barton

Match.com

IAC (inferred)

“I think he owns most of the popular dating apps ... and then spun it out as Match.com”— Tim Ferriss

Netflix

“Including the IA board, which had bought Expedia, and Netflix, where I'd been on the board since like 2000”— Rich Barton

Uber

“I was one of the first three advisers when it was called Uber Cab LLC. Way back in the day.”— Rich Barton

Dropbox

“He went off on one that was kind of Dropbox before Dropbox is like it was obvious that the kind of cloud storage thing was going to be huge.”— Rich Barton

Google AdWords

Google

“The magic business model that they sort of discovered ... was the AdWords, you know, the digital auctionbased market.”— Rich Barton

AWS

Amazon

“So, at the time, was it just rentable infrastructure, AWS? AWS didn't exist.”— Tim Ferriss

TripAdvisor

“It was just kind of like Trip Adviser for attorneys. You kind of trip adviser for anything, right?”— Rich Barton

Die Hard

“did you see Die Hard? You remember Die Hard where the the German terrorist leader ... he said, Ladies and gentlemen, I'll give you the FBI.”— Rich Barton

Stripe

“the forever startups now, like I'm sure Stripe directors make a lot of money.”— Rich Barton

WordPress

Automattic

“Matt Mullenweg, generally associated with WordPress, founder and CEO of Automatic ... and pioneer of distributed workforces.”— Tim Ferriss

Shopify

“And there are some other standout examples. I mean, Shopify did really well. Yep.”— Rich Barton

Kindle

Amazon (inferred)

“I have gifted Oceans and Stars, but I'm such a Kindle person and so many of us are digital readers now.”— Rich Barton

A Soldier of the Great War

Mark Helprin

“a beautiful, luscious pros writer, really smart, wrote Soldier of the Great War and A Winter's Tale and Freddy and Frederica.”— Rich Barton

Freddy and Fredericka

Mark Helprin

“wrote Soldier of the Great War and A Winter's Tale and Freddy and Frederica.”— Rich Barton

The Last of the Mohicans

James Fenimore Cooper (inferred)

“I read Last of the Moheakans just to beautiful. It's beautiful. Take a walk through that area in that time period.”— Tim Ferriss

Snow Crash

Neal Stephenson

“He's the one who wrote Snow Crash. Oh yeah. Okay. So you know him. Snow Crash.”— Rich Barton

Starlink

SpaceX (inferred)

“Starlink and traveling Starlink and Starlink at my surf camp and Starlink on my Airstream like it's harder and harder to disconnect”— Rich Barton

Airstream

Airstream (inferred)

“Starlink at my surf camp and Starlink on my Airstream like it's harder and harder to disconnect”— Rich Barton