Lessons from Eric Wu

Eric Wu, the visionary co-founder of Opendoor, has left an indelible mark on the real estate industry. Through his journey of building a multi-billion dollar company that transformed how people buy and sell homes, Wu has shared a wealth of knowledge for entrepreneurs, leaders, and anyone striving to disrupt the status quo.

On Vision and Disruption

On the core mission of Opendoor: "In 2014, a small group of us dreamt of a future where you could buy and sell a home at the tap of a button." [1]
On the broken state of the traditional real estate transaction: "I spent the greater part of a decade trying to help bring content to consumers so they can make better decisions when moving. But at the core, the transaction was still broken and the process and experience of buying and selling a home itself hasn't improved." [2]
The ultimate goal for the consumer: "Buying and selling a home should be as easy and simple as buying and selling stock." [2]
On the long-term vision for a frictionless experience: "We'll have eliminated all the friction. That may take 10, 20, 30 years.” [3]
On the potential of iBuying: "Opendoor is the leading business in the “iBuying” market, a relatively nascent industry that lets homeowners quickly offload their houses to the company, which then lists them on its platform." [1]
On the future of real estate: "I would invest in projects and ideas that help us get to a carless future faster. I believe the next generation will not own personal vehicles, and real estate, housing, and the way we live will be dramatically different as a result." [2]
On not rebuilding existing systems: “Our goal is not to rebuild the MLS. That's the central repository of information and data of homes for sale and it's unrealistic to think our market share would command a displacement of that system.” [4]
On the inevitability of vertical integration: "Imagine going onto Amazon and wanting to buy something and you can't pay. That's the experience if you don't integrate payments.” [4]

On Entrepreneurship and Strategy

On hiring the right people: "Only hire missionaries; I think that's really really important. They're not really there for the mission or to solve the hard consumer problems. Greatness comes late at night when no one's looking, willing to do the hard work in service of the mission of the consumer." [5]
On identifying missionaries: When asked how to identify missionaries, Wu explained that he looks for people who are passionate about the problem space and have a history of working on similar challenges. [5]
On the compounding value of knowledge and networks: "Invest early in knowledge and networks. They have a tendency to compound similar to the way compound interest works and become very valuable in the later years." [2]
On the importance of momentum: "Momentum helps with hiring the right talent, which in turn helps you build the best experience and allows you to raise the capital necessary to grow and invest in the future." [2]
On the two engines of the business: Wu described Opendoor as having a "growth engine" (buying and selling real estate) and a "profit engine" (ancillary services like title and mortgage). [6]
On being frugal with capital: "The more you can build a culture of frugality. the better off you'll be there's no reason to spend your hard-earned dollars or your hard raised dollars from VCs in a sloppy way." [6]
On the early days of a startup: "Early on you just tell the company. hey everyone's existence today is to find product market fit and like that's the only thing that matters." [6]
On using adversity as fuel: "I I I I use that as fuel...in in in my life and I actually think a lot of the reason why I I put in the time and work is because I I need to overcome adversity uh when I was when I was younger." [7]
On the power of resilience and work ethic: Wu credits his mother's persistence as an immigrant and the challenges he faced growing up for instilling in him a strong sense of resilience and work ethic. [7]
On the transition from founder to CEO: "It's a different skill set than like you know managing and setting KPIs and and kind of like running an organization...That's like you have to make the transition. it's been difficult for me because I'm still kind of like more in the weeds." [6]
A CEO's evolving role: “My job (as CEO) is to hire myself out a job every single year.” [8]
On the importance of staying close to the customer: "I think it's important for me to do things again that don't necessarily scale things that keep me close to the customer and make me understand okay how are our internal processes working." [9]
On balancing speed and scale: In a podcast, Wu discussed the challenges of building a capital-intensive business across multiple geographies and how he balances the need for speed with the demands of scaling. [10]
On the influence of poker on business: Wu has spoken about how his experience with poker influences his outlook on business, likely referring to calculated risk-taking and reading situations. [10]
On the decision to leave Opendoor to return to his roots: “After ten years, I am called to get back to my startup roots and create and build again.” [11][12]

On Leadership and Culture

Leading with head and heart: "I mentioned that the best leaders lead with their head and their heart. It's with a heavy heart that I share this news today." (in an email to employees about layoffs). [13]
On building a network of future colleagues: "Build a network of executives early that you want to work with. I have hired many people that I originally sought advice from years ago." [2]
On the importance of a growth mindset: "The best advice I've been given is to have a growth mindset and learn and improve every day. Seek feedback, and adopt and edit your behavior and habits based on where you find truth in the feedback." [2]
The value of humility: "And be humble." [2]
On creating a strong company culture: "We've built a culture and community of #oneteamonedream and worked tirelessly together to serve our customers." [13]
On taking responsibility as a leader: "I understand the burden and responsibility you all have placed on my shoulders...And, that burden weighs heavy as we now have the task to ensure your hard work carries forward and we accomplish our mission." [13]
On his desired legacy: "I want my legacy to be a a kind of viewed as an individual that had uh a Relentless focus on the right. things...which in our case...our North Star is is the customer." [7]
The broader impact of his work: "It's about impacting people in my life in a positive way." [7]

On Real Estate and the Customer

The customer-centric approach: "If you start with the customer and and walk through the logic. actually we can all be partners in that." [6]
On providing customer choice: "It's really just about giving the customer choice and putting them first at every step." [6]
On the pain points of the traditional process: "There's so much pain in selling a house today that people will pay quite a bit for certainty and convenience which are kind of the two main vectors that we kind of compete on." [6]
On not competing on price initially: "At that time we didn't compete on price." [6]
On the partnership with real estate agents: "Our system works perfectly with the MLS and other realtors who use the MLS to find our homes.” [4]
A non-zero-sum view of the industry: "Wu said he doesn't view real estate as zero sum; instead of only competing against traditional brokerages, the goal is to make buying and selling easier and then increase the number of Americans who own property instead of renting." [4]
On the accessibility of Opendoor homes: “We think that if you just want to browse and visit houses, we should make that as simple and on-demand as possible.” [3]
On the emotional needs of customers: As a product person, one of his principles is to "really need to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and and and really understand how they think about the functional needs uh about about their functional needs and their emotional needs in that journey." [4]
The personal experience that fueled his mission: Having gone through the home buying and selling transaction over 20 times himself, he "felt customers deserved a better solution." [2]

On Personal Growth and Reflections

On valuing time: "Place an extremely high value on your time and treat it as very scarce. Then invest the scarce time on the things that generate the most value or give you the most happiness." [2]
The importance of celebrating moments: "Take time to celebrate moments and practice gratitude." [2]
On personal sacrifices for professional success: When asked if his 12-year-old self would be pleased with him today, Wu responded, "I think he'd be impressed by my professional progress but very disappointed by my personal progress." [7]
His early entrepreneurial spirit: At the age of 19, Wu used his college scholarship money to buy his first house and rented out the garage as two studio apartments. By the time he graduated, he owned about 25 houses. [3]
On his early career aspirations: "I really wanted to be a scientist uh when I was younger. I I was really curious about all things science and math when I was young." [7]
On his early ventures: Before Opendoor, Wu founded Movity.com, a geo-data analytics company acquired by Trulia, and also co-founded RentAdvisor.com. [10]
On his recent return to the Opendoor board: In September 2025, it was announced that Eric Wu, along with co-founder Keith Rabois, would be returning to Opendoor's board of directors. [14][15]
Investing in the future of Opendoor: Alongside his return to the board, Wu and venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures invested $40 million in Opendoor. [14]
A commitment to an "AI-first company": Upon his return, the company's new direction was described as being an "AI-first company." [14]
On his distinctive taste in real estate: "What originally drew me to the home was its one-of-a-kind architectural design that stands apart from conventional box-shaped propertied...I was searching for something distinctive and this home immediately captivated me with its artistic vision." (referring to his "propeller home"). [14]

Learn more:

Lessons from Eric Wu

On Vision and Disruption

On Entrepreneurship and Strategy

On Leadership and Culture

On Real Estate and the Customer

On Personal Growth and Reflections

Written by Antoine Buteau

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