- In today’s CEO Daily: A playbook for blending two business cultures
- The big leadership story: The AI darling of Big Oil
- The markets: Mixed globally as investors await news of a Iran deal.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. Varun Krishna is running one of the boldest culture experiments in corporate America—and every CEO managing a legacy workforce should be watching. The Silicon Valley veteran has spent three years as CEO of Rocket Companies deliberately fusing West Coast talent density with Detroit grit, a bet he’s now scaling across $16 billion in acquisitions and a 500,000-listing alliance with Compass.
“Silicon Valley places a premium on intellect and intellect alone with the idea that, if you get a group of smart people together, you’re likely to win,” he told me. “Detroit’s success is a function of that, but it is also a function of tenacity, grit, perseverance, and belief.”
Krishna’s goal has been to blend the best of both. He’s come to appreciate the loyalty and commitment that characterizes Rocket’s culture. In Silicon Valley, he says, “you start to realize a lot of the talent is job hunting every 18 months.” But given that he estimates it can take five years to build something that’s truly transformative, loyalty is the virtue he’s trying to cultivate. “People work here because they like the culture. Mortgages are more the how, whereas the what is around home ownership.”
At Rocket, “data and evidence win all arguments,” Krishna says, pointing to Rocket’s acquisitions of Redfin and Mr. Cooper for $16 billion last year as examples of big bets. The company’s recent alliance with Compass to bring more than 500,000 new listings to the Redfin platform and transform the seller experience is another example.
And what can Detroit learn from Silicon Valley? A lot. “The beauty of Silicon Valley is you have this extremely high density of brain power, this mix of startups, venture capital and education,” he says, adding that it’s also the environment of meetups, incubators, late-night dinners, and constant learning. “We have to create that kind of environment, to get more of that sort of youthful entrepreneurial energy here.”
Half of Krishna’s leadership team came from places like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. “It’s not just about doing everything in kind of the homegrown way, but it’s about blending it together with outside talent. And that culture is a function of one man.” He’s of course referring to Rocket founder Dan Gilbert who has “invented and reinvented this company.”
I’m thrilled that Gilbert will be joining us as a speaker at the Fortune 500 Innovation Forum in Detroit on November 16 and 17. Other speakers include General Motors President Mark Reuss, Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks, Craig Newmark of craigslist, Penny Pennington of Edward Jones, Macy’s chief Tony Spring, Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur, NYSE’s Lynn Martin, Dave Bozeman of C.H. Robinson, Ford Foundation’s Heather Gerken and many more. You can learn more here. Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at [email protected]