Modern companies become like very meek. They're afraid of themselves. Like it's wartime. Public markets were created so that average Americans could have a say in the companies and could actually pick companies and invest their dollars in capitalism. And most companies do this thing where they use the word retail investor as if it's a swear word. We're deeply proud, genuinely deeply proud that Open Door is one of the most broadly held companies. Not many companies really get a chance at a second or kind of third birth like this. This mission matters so much. But to have people who have been here for a while is recognizing how broken the existing process is and the fact that we believe that our solution is not just important to our customers but to America like generally.
If you were a door, what kind of door would you be?
I'd be open. Molly, come on.
Cass, welcome to Sourcery. Thanks for coming by. Let me show you around.
It's been... I'm a fan. I'm actually a fan. I'm like really excited to have you here. Welcome to Open Door San Francisco.
So, where are we going? What's the plan?
I'm going to show you... first of all, I'm going to show you my messy desk.
But also like we do these... the merch for every earnings call and like they get... like my assistant literally packs them and sends them out. Like this is like literally them. We try to get them out before the earnings call because I wear a new t-shirt on every earnings call.
So your team is literally physically packing this right now.
It's like... and do we have... do we have any other merch? Is there like a... we have on the merch? But there's some over there.
That's... that's my desk. You can actually see it's my desk because...
In the middle of the open office.
Yeah, I know. It's like... like actual desk you can see because like there's always random books on it. Yes. It's like this shirt I'm going to wear. That's my shirt that I'm wearing at earnings call and the open.
We have like more... It's actually hilarious because like everyone has seven jobs here. Like everyone has like multiple jobs.
We're merch shop. They're like... open door caps. We have... Oh, we have the open army.
Oh wow. You guys are making lasers.
Yeah, there's like actually like... like the merch is cool here. I'll take you to... Don't look there.
Okay. Is that... not legal?
No, we bolt... we bolt... when I got here there were no dashboards on the wall. I'm like, 'Fuck that. Lots of dashboards, please.' So, we bolted... That's the actual model that is running one of our war rooms right now. Like I... like it's hilarious because our chief growth officer tracks them and has a sticky says 'grow more' and he puts them under whatever chart he's like 'I'm focusing on that this week.' That's a hilarious thing.
Just for context, this is day of earnings. This is earnings day, your financial open house.
Yeah, it's our earnings day. It's like a... Well, we're actually going up in like a couple of... our head of engineering with his dog.
Our lawyers were all... I think these guys were in a room last night. I think literally these three people have not left the office in a week. I'm not kidding. I don't think... I'm actually being like relatively serious. Like when did the deal get done? 2 a.m.? Yeah. And like I think... I think they've been up, I'm not kidding, for like three or four days.
And then here I'll show you. This is my conference room. They're not going to hang out that long. My sword.
Oh, you... Oh, you actually have a sword.
No, not like... I wasn't kidding. Like as... like as an homage to like Elon. We all have to have swords.
Like... like you think I was kidding. I'm like not kidding. It's like... she like... it's like real.
That's great. And you keep it in yours.
I mean like... So you know what the hilarious thing is? So, I wanted to get throwing stars. But they're very illegal in California.
Like you cannot have throwing stars in California. So, that's the weapon.
Oh, it's not. It's just a... It's an Arabian sword. Actually, hilarious story. I told my assistant, 'I want a sword.' Show you the Slack thread. I'm like, 'I want a sword.' She's like... she's like put the question mark because I think she thought I had a typo. She's like, 'What? What do you mean?' I'm like, 'No, this sword, please.' No, I think... look, I think the very real thing that happens is that like modern companies become like very meek. They're afraid of themselves. Like, it's wartime.
Do you think it's important that the best public company CEOs have swords?
I mean, Elon has one, Alex has one, I have one. I'm not going to say we're all the same. I'm not saying that we're all similar people with similar styles and similar companies. I mean, other people might say that, but yeah, I think weaponry is important. It's actually very real. Like most companies actually... like one of the saddest things about capitalism is that if you go back to the start of public markets, public markets were created such that average Americans could have a say in companies and could actually pick companies and invest their dollars in capitalism. And most companies do this thing where they use the word retail investor as if it's a swear word. We're deeply proud, genuinely deeply proud that Open Door is one of the most broadly held companies in America. And I think it actually does an important thing, which is the average American believes in our mission because the average American thinks it's unfair that people can't afford a home to live in, that the system is stacked against average people having average jobs. So no, we're like... we're not hiding it. Like we're deeply proud of the army. And I think everyone in the company is like... if you actually walk around, you'll see people wearing army jackets and army shirts and like army swag all over.
I love how Keith once tweeted it out spelt incorrectly because it's the workout class that he goes to.
It is. I think... I think... I think the motto is... it'll be army till 82. It'll be double A army till 82.
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All right, so we're here with Jud, Michael Jud, and we're going to talk a little bit deeper on Open Door lore because he's been here the longest. So Jud, what are they like?
What is it like? It feels like a book with many chapters, but none of the chapters have been exactly the same, but with a common through line. See, I joined in the fall of 2016. We were in two markets. I'm one of the very few people here who actually remembers the days when Keith was in the office every single day.
So, yeah, there's just a small handful of us there. But no, I started my career in New York in finance and really didn't have any plans to like leave that world. But I always kind of had in my head like, you know, if there's something that really speaks to you, that feels like worth kind of making a leap on, sometimes trust that instinct. And yeah, it's fall 2016, this little Series B company, Open Door, was revolutionizing the way that like homes are bought and sold in America. And what really like resonated for me was I could explain this idea to my grandpa. He would understand what it was and understand why it was needed. And so that was kind of what initially drew my interest. Once I kind of like dug under the hood and saw what they had built so far and what the kind of vision looked like, I figured, hey, this might be worth, you know, shipping across the coast and trying something new out on. And yeah, obviously as you've kind of been able to tell from the kind of outside lens, there's been, you know, ups and downs and, you know, kind of in equal measure here at Open Door over that decade or so. But what I feel really grateful for is, you know, with kind of Cass coming online and just the momentum that came from this past fall, you know, not many companies really get a chance at a second or kind of third birth like this. And I think this mission matters so much and that's what has kept me around so long and what's kept the people who have been here for a while is recognizing how broken the existing processes are and the fact that we believe that our solution is not just important to our customers but to America like generally. And just having again another chance at, you know, kind of cracking that code is just something I'm really grateful for.
I'm just so curious from a cultural standpoint. So, you're head of IR.
But I've also heard everybody here has multiple hats. So, what other roles do you have? And is that like... what is it like working here now under Cass in that transition?
It's been pretty incredible. Yeah. So, depending on the day, it's investor relations. I kind of came up doing capital markets, a little bit of corporate development, some finance and strategy. Really just kind of depends on the task for the day. I think what's been really remarkable and what Cass has honestly like taught me is that we're all probably a little more capable than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. So when Cass came in, he joined at the end of September and we did our Q3 earnings call just a couple weeks later. And you know, before Cass, we had done things pretty much, you know, by the books. We had the boring just, you know, dial-in audio call. It was, you know, shareholder letter with like very like basic script. Cass came in and day one was like, 'Guys, we're doing video live stream. I want to stream it on Robinhood.' Which we were the first company to actually stream our earnings on Robinhood other than Robinhood themselves. You know, we're getting rid of the shareholder letter. We are going to do say Q&A. And it was like one of those like... I would have thought that we could do one of those every quarter and like that that was like the most that we could do, but Cass set a high target and said, 'Hey Jud, I know that, you know, this sounds like a lot, but I know you guys can do it.' And sure enough, you know, we got to production. It wasn't without some long nights and some stress along the way, but we were able to get that done. And I think what was really important about that is kind of conveying to the people who are paying attention to our story and who are giving Open Door a second chance is that like if an IR team of one is able to pull off all of these changes in like five or six weeks, imagine what our engineers are doing in that time. Imagine what our kind of AI-enabled and AI-built like ops folks are able to build. The idea is that like you're often more capable than you would think you are if you set like a quarterly cadence for yourself.
Why is it so important to innovate on IR in such a digital world?
No. I mean, you know, you and your audience I feel like are a great testament. It's, you know, retail is a word that, you know, I feel like other companies like refer to with, you know, a different like taste in their mouth. But for us, our mission is to change the way that like Americans like think about their houses. And I think that's such a core kind of just part of the American dream. And so with the advent of this summer and the, you know, kind of heightened attention that the business got, I think that us being able to show that we can meet the narrative where it is rather than asking the narrative to kind of come to us on these boring, more institutional, more kind of classic like Wall Street forums and really feeling like people have a say in how management speaks and kind of what kind of questions we answer. And so I think for us it's really about just continuing to drive the transparency and acknowledge that this second birth came on the back of people believing in us and so meeting those believers where they are rather than forcing them into old Wall Street corners.
What's the hardest challenge you face?
Keeping up with Cass. Honestly, he... the pace is pretty incredible. And I think like I said, he kind of pushes each of us to expand what we think we could do both in terms of the quality of the materials and, you know, just the different hats. Like I was saying, I used to have a few hats. I picked up more with Cass joining, which is normally the opposite when a company grows like this. And I think just remembering again how important that mission is and like using that as kind of the fuel to continue to get the things done that you can. So yeah, it's... he sets a... he sets a fun pace.
Is it cool to have an open army? What is that like?
It's very fun. I don't have a sword to, you know, lead them into battle. I just get to read the safe harbor disclosures at the start of our earnings call. But no, we're incredibly grateful. We certainly don't take it for granted. And I think that, you know, we launched that website accountable.com and we really believe that because we want to be held to account. One, again, because we recognize how critical this community has been to giving us this second birth. And again, I, you know, I've been here at Open Door for 10 years because I believe in this mission so much. And I think that you're kind of hear me keep going back to it so often is that yeah, the mission matters. And so having people who believe in that same mission being able to hold us accountable is just kind of table stakes for the way we talk to our community.
Seeing what you've seen with a company sink down to a 50-cent share price, almost get delisted, get resurrected, and then go full speed ahead. How do you think about all of these other companies that are in zombie land that need some sort of like hail mary to get to the next state? What kind of companies do you think are going to fail? And what do you think, I guess to reposition it, what do you think is most critical for companies to accelerate and meet this next innovation cycle?
Look, I think for us, or at least from what I've learned, like in my experience, it's we got this tremendous opportunity from this community that found us on the back of a couple years of beleaguered stock price and, you know, declining sentiment. And when you're given a gift like that and a chance at a second act, you don't take it for granted or you don't hide from it or run away from it. And so, you know, not what happened to us isn't going to happen to every company, but every company should have their mission. And, you know, hopefully the employees there believe in what that business is building. And when that, you know, mindset gets picked up from an external community, whether it's, you know, institutional investors or a retail community or the media or, you know, kind of existing employee base, like it's don't squander that opportunity. Don't like run away from it. It's like lean into where people are believing in you and continue to earn their trust as they kind of put it in you.
Since you are the arbiter of compliance, what is the most exciting thing that's going to get launched?
Look, I think what, you know, when Cass became CEO, we were all excited across all these dimensions. You know, just, you know, the quality of the work that he did at Shopify and like his brand recognition. But I think what's really powerful about what he built over there is what he did on the merchant services side of the business. So Shopify kind of pre-Cass was mostly a software business and by the time they left it was the software no one else could kind of compete with on a price basis and then they offered so many value-added services on the other side that it just created a real lock-in but also providing value to the people on that platform. And I think at Open Door, we have an amazing opportunity ahead of us for we have thousands of people who use our product to either buy or sell their home. And in the Open Door 1.0 model, there really wasn't a whole lot we kind of like did with them after or in addition to the transaction. And again, I'll let Cass do the product launches, but I think him taking that same mindset of within this customer transaction, what else can we do that is going to be helpful to help you move on to life's next chapter? Because there's just so much that goes in with moving on to life's next chapter. And I'm just really excited with what we're kind of building on that side of everything.
Okay. Well, lastly, if you were a door, what kind of door would you be?
I'd be open, Molly. Come on.
Why are some of these doors closed?
Well, I'm also the head of compliance, so there's sometimes I have to close them.
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We have very limited windows in which we can like spend resource shift better. I don't want anyone focused on the fourth thing like... like unless like these are like the requirements stated must all be fully fulfilled in the order they were stated, right?
Like I don't want like... before like we move to number three, number one and two need to be true.
And I'm okay with number four being zero. In fact, it's actually ideal if number four is zero.
Because then no one will... for like... if something looks kind of good, it's very easy to ignore it, but it looks like... We will never ignore it. We'll fix it eventually.
So, please don't like... don't... wallpaper over holes is a bad idea. Like... holes is fine. Like... like the most important thing for all of us to do is make it very like that order.
Yeah. So that's exactly what we're trying to say, right? So we're going with the priority. So the first two, one is a priority for us. The last one is more... it's... I'm not saying subjective, it's more experience-driven. That's... that's an ongoing thing. So but... we'll get back to that. For now our primary focus is one or two. Make it a friendly... probably next two weeks we'll spend more time testing this.
My... my unit test for this will be this. To be very clear, I want to be very transparent. I think it's important. Unit test for... like in my code, like my unit test will be this. I will take a page that is not on Bricks Next. I will pick the URL out. I will take a screenshot. I will go into... I will say this is the URL. This is the screenshot. Give me the output of it in Bricks Next. If that works, I will stop complaining about this.
That's what we did for this test. Actually, we did... we did like a... we did like an A/B and like was...
