Weekly Transmission

Real Estate Skunk Works in the AI Era (Transmission #352)

Geek Estate Team

11 Jun 2026 • 6 min read

Back in 2017, I wrote a piece about skunk works departments and why the real estate industry desperately needed them. At the time, I'd already spent more than a decade building startups while watching large real estate companies sit on their hands as smaller teams nipped at their heels.

My argument was simple: if you aren't disrupting yourself, someone else is.

That was nine years ago. I've since spent the last seven years at eXp Realty and now serve as Chief Innovation Officer, where my entire job is focused on AI application across the company. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that everything I wrote back then was just a warm-up for what's happening right now.

The threat is here.

💡

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Here's the mental exercise that I keep coming back to, and it's become the lens through which I approach everything in my role at eXp: