Founder & Executive Chairman, Cargurus
Search every verified E. Steinert interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Langley Steinert, founder and executive chairman of CarGurus, has described the company as a shopping platform that uses data to rank car listings by price relative to market value, labeling them as "great deal," "good deal," "fair deal," "poor deal," or "overpriced." He has stated that the company had about 20 million unique visitors a month in the United States and more average daily traffic than competitors such as Autotrader, Kelly Blue Book, Edmunds, and Cars.com. Steinert has said that CarGurus had been profitable for eight consecutive years as of 2016 and 2017, and that this profitability allowed the company to control its own destiny without raising large venture capital rounds. He has noted that the company's board consisted of longtime associates rather than investors demanding short-term returns. Steinert has discussed his background as a co-founder of TripAdvisor, which he said raised only $4.5 million in capital before reaching a $9 billion market cap. He has expressed a preference for being in control when starting companies and has described himself as a leader rather than a manager. On the automotive industry, Steinert has stated that mobile traffic had grown from about 40% to 65% of CarGurus' traffic over two years, and he has argued that eliminating dealers entirely would be a mistake because they provide service and a tactile buying experience. He has said CarGurus had no plans to sell and expected to become a public company.
“I think the only true form of conviction for me was when we turned profitable, which I think was like in it's a bit of a high standard for conviction. You know that is the goal to be clear. You know, if venture capitalists use that conviction standard, we'd never invest in anything, right? Well, maybe it's old-fashione...”
“We have been profitable for eight straight years, never missed a month. It has allowed us the flexibility to get more aggressive in marketing. But probably more importantly, it allows us to have control of our destiny because we haven't raised a monster 60 or 100 million venture round.”
“The board of directors for CarGurus actually is, I jokingly refer to them as friends and family. I've got Steve Coffer from TripAdvisor. I've got the former co-founder of eBay Motors. These are people that I've known through my life. We still have a very spirited board meeting, but there's no one on my board who's poun...”
“I personally like when I start companies, be it with Steve or on my own, I like to be in control. So if you know the history of TripAdvisor, we only raised in the history of the company like $4.5 million of capital. Let that sink in for a second. 4.5 million of capital and the company has a $9 billion market cap.”
“CarGurus is a shopping platform that allows consumers, no matter how they search anywhere in the United States, whatever cars they want, we will do the math for you in terms of finding which cars are priced lowest below the market. We ordinate those cars not based on who pays us the most money, but based on which car i...”
“We have about 20 million unique visitors a month. We have more average daily traffic than Autotrader, Kelly Blue Book, Edmunds, Cars.com, or any of our competitors. So we seem to be reaching some consumers. The best answer would be that we haven't yet, I stress the word yet, done more kind of mass media marketing. Toda...”
“I don't think there's any right or wrong answer to the question of when to invest in branding. It's a question of style, control, and iterative evolution. At TripAdvisor, we were really frugal and focused on getting to profitability as quickly as we can. The same philosophy applies at CarGurus. Once we got to profitabi...”
“I don't like managing full-time. You're a leader, not a manager. I like to do stuff. I want to go do deals or meet with customers or talk with developers about products. I don't want to be managing people.”
“The biggest trend in the car industry over the last 20 years is mobile. The percentage of our mobile traffic has grown from about 40% two years ago to about 65% now, not including iPads. If you're developing anything on the web, the desktop is dead. It should be almost pure mobile experience.”
“Being an entrepreneur is so much better than having a job because the worst thing that happens if it fails, you go get a job. The pros are no one tells me what to do every day. I get up in the morning and do what I want to do. The bad side is it's a 24/7 job. You're always on. You don't get a day off. You're always wor...”
“We thought there was a real opportunity to provide this level of transparency to consumers in the United States around automotive shopping, especially information about how much a car is worth or what the dealer's reputation is.”
“We have about 21 million unique visitors a month in the US and more average daily shoppers than any other platform, making us the largest online automotive shopping site in the United States.”
“Our pricing analysis looks at make, model, trim, options, mileage, geographic market, and vehicle condition to determine if a car is overpriced, fairly priced, or a good deal using a linear regression model.”
“It's not a race to the bottom; it's a race to the mean. Dealers should price their cars fairly, not necessarily the lowest or highest, to avoid being overpriced or underpriced in the market.”
“We rank cars not just on price but also on dealer reputation, which is based on consumer reviews after interaction, ensuring that dealers with poor reviews don't get top exposure.”
CarGurus is an automotive shopping website that uses data, technology and community to help consumers find the best car deals ...
Watch this week's show in association with CarGurus. The company has now been launched in the UK for more than six months ...
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