First Commerce announces Zillow Co-Founder, entrepreneur Spencer Rascoff as Power Forward speaker
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Hotwire and Zillow Co-Founder Spencer Rascoff grew his startup tech businesses into multimillion and multibillion-dollar successes.
And he’s coming to Tallahassee to drop gems on how he did it as the next Power Forward speaker.
The Power Forward Speaker Series – Tallahassee’s largest annual business event that usually draws over 1,000 attendees – will take place on Feb. 16 at 3:30 p.m. in Florida State University’s Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, sponsored by First Commerce Credit Union and the FSU Office of Research and the Tallahassee Democrat.
The 9th annual event will bring successful celebrity entrepreneurs together in the state’s capital to share their experiences in the business industry, while providing local business leaders with takeaways on how to advance their own ventures.
While attendees can look forward to 47-year-old Rascoff’s overarching message of gaining success in the business world, his words of wisdom will include the challenges he faced in co-founding and building Hotwire and Zillow as well as how they led to him building a successful team with a shared mission.
“As co-founder of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff transformed the real-estate industry by putting home values at our fingertips,” First Commerce CEO Cecilia Homison said in a prepared statement. “We believe his journey to incredible success as a world-class entrepreneur is just the inspiration our business leaders need to keep powering forward in these challenging and ever-changing times.”
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A 1997 Harvard University alumnus, Rascoff co-founded travel website Hotwire in 1999.
He then went on to be the co-founder of Zillow in 2005 before its official launch in 2006, and his multiple positions within the real-estate marketplace company – which is now worth around $10 billion – included being CEO for almost a decade.
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But playing significant roles in Zillow and Hotwire’s expansions have not been Rascoff’s only entrepreneurial accomplishments.
Besides being a renowned businessman who radically changed the home-buying and travel industries, Rascoff continues to be an active entrepreneur as he contributes to other tech businesses through his investment in over 100 companies. He is also the co-founder of other businesses such as a media company called dot.LA.
With the 2023 Power Forward Speaker Series being held at FSU, the university’s Vice President for Research Stacey Patterson expressed what it means to have Rascoff on campus in just a couple of months.
“Hearing from world-class entrepreneurs like Spencer Rascoff is an excellent opportunity for FSU and the wider Tallahassee community to learn about the twists and turns of innovation and entrepreneurship,” Patterson said in a release.
The Power Forward speaker during last year’s event was Chris Gardner, author of “The Pursuit of Happyness,” which became a lauded autobiographical film starring Will Smith. Other past speakers include ABC Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, Airbnb’s Chip Conley and Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak.
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Tickets for the speaker series event in February have started going on sale Tuesday, Dec. 13 through FSU’s Fine Arts Ticket Office website. All tickets are sold at $11 – a significant change compared to last year’s base prices of $40 for main level seating and $30 for balcony seating.
Individuals can also purchase tickets in person at the office, located in the lobby of the Fine Arts building at 540 West Call Street. More information on the event can be viewed on First Commerce’s website.
Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on twitter @tarahjean_.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: First Commerce: Zillow co-founder Spencer Rascoff on tap for Power Forward
