Venture Capital
Rocket Mortgage CEO: Here’s How to Fix the Housing Crisis
•November 12, 2025
Original Description
The Empire State Building took 110 days to build—today, changing a window would take two years.
Alex Rampell (a16z) and Varun Krishna (Rocket CEO) expose how asset inflation turned housing from the American Dream into a wealth transfer machine where the median homebuyer age jumped from 30 to 38 in just fourteen years. While Silicon Valley burns billions on products people use daily but never pay for, Rocket quietly assembled a $10 billion profit engine and is now buying up the entire housing funnel—from Redfin's 50 million monthly searchers to one in six US mortgages—betting they can crack the code everyone else gave up on: turning a once-in-a-lifetime transaction into an everyday relationship.
Timecodes:
00:00 "All the Old People Have All the Money"
00:37 Houses Are Cheaper... If You're Paid in Apple Stock
04:35 Empire State Building: 110 Days vs Forever Today
07:19 Starter Homes Tripled from 985 to 2,500 Square Feet
13:54 "Nobody Pays to Wash a Rental Car"
16:15 The T-Shirt That Cost $10 Billion
22:12 "For the Mortgage"
26:51 The Model of Rocket Mortgages has Evolved
31:40 Toothbrush Test vs $10 Billion Profit Engine
35:45 Acquisitions, Integration, and Company Strategy
46:56 The Fourier Transform Business Model
46:43 Counterbalancing Business Models
48:43 Real Estate Search vs. Monetization
52:29 Fragmentation, Regulation, and the Long Game
Resources:
Follow Varun on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varun-krishna-30019a22
Follow Rocket on X: https://x.com/RocketOTD
Follow Alex on X: https://x.com/arampell
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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