- Glenn, the speaker, discusses his experience with building a board for his company Redfin.
- He initially had a difficult relationship with the board but eventually found a great partnership.
- Glenn advises founders to carefully choose board members based on personal connection rather than the reputation of the firm.
- He emphasizes the importance of having operators on the board who understand the challenges of the business.
- Glenn encourages founders to write job descriptions for board members and recruit individuals with specific expertise.
- He acknowledges his initial rage and resistance towards authority but realizes the value of the board's support.
- Glenn shares advice from Mark Singer to view the board as the radio in the car, reminding founders that they are ultimately responsible for the company's success.

- The speaker discusses their realization of their responsibility for the company's success.
- They share a story about intentionally failing to execute a board idea to prove a point.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of being accountable as the leader.
- They highlight the need for open communication with the board and finding someone to talk to.
- The speaker discusses the process of recruiting a board and the importance of finding people who align with the company's mission.
- They mention the value of diversity on the board and the positive impact it can have on employees.
- The speaker advises spending time with board members before bringing them on and being selective in the hiring process.
- They discuss the importance of rejecting board candidates personally and the potential consequences of not doing so.
- The speaker mentions a positive change in board mentality when a specific board member joined.

- Bob Milod from Priceline has brought a sea change in the board mentality
- Board meetings have specific governance responsibilities
- Avoid making decisions on the spot, take time to think and send a note later
- Engage the whole management team in board decisions
- Use documents instead of slides for board meetings to encourage deeper thinking and truth-telling
- Get everyone to agree on one version of the truth before the board meeting
- Answer questions with "yes, no, I don't know, or a number" to sound direct and crisp
- Admit when you don't know something and be willing to find out
- Bring in backup materials to be precise and relevant in the conversation
- Follow up with board members and provide feedback on the meeting
- Encourage board members to provide input and suggestions after the meeting
- Clearly communicate what you want to get out of the meeting to board members.

- The speaker had a conversation where they expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of helpfulness in a meeting.
- James advised the speaker to clarify their perspective and goals for the meeting.
- The speaker now spends time thinking about their desired outcomes and evaluates if they were achieved.
- The speaker's advice is to do the same.

Glenn discusses his experience building a board for Redfin and advises founders to carefully choose board members based on personal connection. He emphasizes the importance of having operators on the board and encourages founders to write job descriptions for board members. Glenn acknowledges the value of the board's support and advises founders to view the board as the radio in the car. He highlights the importance of being accountable as a leader and having open communication with the board. Glenn discusses the process of recruiting a board, the importance of diversity, and the positive impact it can have on employees. He advises spending time with board members before hiring them and being selective in the process. Glenn mentions a positive change in board mentality when a specific board member joined. He provides tips for effective board meetings, such as using documents instead of slides, answering questions directly, and following up with board members. Glenn shares advice on clarifying goals and desired outcomes for meetings.

Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin, talks through how he built his board of directors, and shares lessons-learned.

Topics discussed:

-What you’re really looking for: What to look for in an investor who’s joining your board — good board members should love your mission, listen more than they talk, and attend every meeting in-person. Glenn also discussed why it’s good to bring on a fellow operator who can relate to you as a peer (talking about Selina Tobaccowala joining the board.

-Take the time to draft a job description: This should cover the background and skills needed in your next board member. Use it to guide your recruiting process. Consider asking founders at similar companies for advice, and use executives and board members from your company to source candidates.

-Diversity: Incorporate diversity in the board early on.
Interviewing: When interviewing potential board members, don’t focus on being impressive or being impressed. You cannot truly listen in either mode.

-Problems are your problems: At the end of the day, the CEO is the one in charge of operating the company. If the product is not selling or working, that is the CEO’s problem — not a board problem.

-How to get the most from your meetings: Board meetings should always be held in-person and include printed documents. The act of projecting a powerpoint can diminish participation, and you can lose a lot of people. Afterward, Glenn also recommends that you share most board meeting documents internally with the whole company to maintain transparency.

This conversation took place at The Scaleup Offsite, a private CEO gathering hosted by Y Combinator Continuity and Greylock Partners in April 2017.

And I'm here to talk about building the board.

I was surprised that James Slavitt, the Greylock partner, asked me to discuss this topic because I've actually had sort of a fraught relationship with our board.

And in fact, I really didn't have much experience about what a board should be like, just because my only experience had been watching movies.

Originally, I tried to style my hair like Richard Gere because the only board meeting I'd ever seen was in Pretty Woman.

But then later, I found myself acting more like Willem Dafoe in Spider-Man, who is fired despite inventing this amazing, crazy suit.

So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how we came to have such a great board and how it's become such a great partnership.

But first, James wanted me to explain Redfin.

I don't know if any of you noticed, but there was a Redfin yard sign for a house for sale across the street, and then a giant red SUV parked in front of it.

And we've had it towed, so you should be able to see that sign when you walk outside.

But we're a technology-powered real estate brokerage.

We invented map-based real estate search.

And then we decided to hire our own real estate agents, which was very controversial at the time, they're about 3 times more productive than a traditional agent, they charge half the fee, we have a net promoter score, which is a measure of customer satisfaction that's about 50% higher than the traditional industry.

The business has a few hundred million dollars in revenue and it's just been an absolute passion project for me.

I think 1 reason the board originally found me so ungovernable is that I cared so much about the business.

I was just crazy about it, and I still am, but I found a board that is equally crazy about it, and it has been my partner, and I think I would be lost without that board.

So I wanted to talk to you about how I came to that state with our board and how lucky it has been for the company and for me.

So the board consists of some venture capitalists, and the hard part about the venture capitalists is, especially if you're desperate for money, you don't always get to choose who's going to be on your board.

You get to choose the people who are willing to give you money.

And in the early days, there was exactly 1 firm willing to give us money, and so they got a board seat.

And now when I meet young founders, I try to tell them that while you're tap-dancing for money, You should evaluate the partner and decide if it's someone you want to spend the next 3, 05:10, maybe 15 years with because it's very hard to fire board members.

It is almost impossible for you to fire them.

And so I would really spend some time getting to know the people you're raising money from, and I would not necessarily choose the firm that has the biggest name, although I've heard Greylock has a good name.

I would choose the firm that employs a partner where you really feel a soulful connection.

And if you evaluate people for that, they will feel flattered by it until, of course, you decide that he's not right for you or she's not right for you.

But I would not be focused on the brand of the firm.

I would be focused on the quality of the partner.

What's great about the venture firms is they sit on other technology company boards, either that partner or his partners do, and it just gives you access to all sorts of companies that you can learn from.

But the other important thing is that when you're raising money, they have been on the other side of that game for 100 deals.

I think venture capitalists on boards, when you have to raise money from venture capitalists, are amazing.

James has written this email that I'm not allowed to forward to anyone, but you need to ask him, how should I be, how should I conduct myself when meeting board members?" And he will send you the email because he said, this friendly, goofy, Jewish, menschy thing, that's gotta stop.

We need to try a different persona, and I'm going to lay out a very specific spec for you on what that person is.

Like it changed me, not just in money raising, but in all things, I try to be more like that.

So ask James for that email, because I'm not allowed to send it to you.

But then, we actually recruited a bunch of operators onto the board.

And the great thing about these folks is they have a lot of different experiences.

And our initial impulse was really to get people from the biggest possible companies.

We weren't that cool, so we wanted to get someone who was cool from Google, from Facebook, from any number of big name brands, but those folks have no idea what we're going through.

They spend money like there's no tomorrow.

They have a brand that everyone recognizes.

They haven't been singing for their supper for a decade, and they are not the right fit for you.

In fact, we actually recruited Selena as 1 operator.

And I've never told you this, Selena, but several employees were hung up on the idea that Selena worked for a company with monkey in the name.

They said, it just doesn't seem that cool, like Facebook or SurveyMonkey.

And I was like, they make a lot of money and Selena's amazing.

And so we hired Selena and it turned out to be the best thing because that company was at about the same scale as we were but a little bit ahead.

And Selena was a peer, not just to me but to other people.

And by that I mean not that we don't have anything to learn from her, but that she was a similar age, was someone who had kids that were my kids' age, and I just found that I was having dinner with her, or calling her, or getting a drink with her, or grabbing a croissant, and really explaining to her exactly what was going on in the business and feeling like she immediately understood it.

Because I wasn't talking to someone with a polo pony or a stable of polo ponies.

I was talking to someone who was working on the exact same problem that I was.

So we were really deliberate about what we wanted and I would encourage you to write job descriptions for the board members that you're seeking because at first the only job description I ever wrote was big shot and then I called Jeff Markowitz and he said you're going to have to do better than that.

And so we thought about the kinds of expertise we wanted from different companies And what Greylock brought to us was this absolute swagger.

James said that I couldn't say this, but I did get the feeling that if I wanted to meet President Obama and recruit him, I could.

That Greylock would make that introduction, that they would find a way.

And so they worked backwards from what the ideal company would be on the presumption that if there's a perfect fit between what you're doing and what a board candidate has done in the past, that person will consider you even though he or she might otherwise not.

CarMax is the Costco of used cars or it is the Redfin of used cars.

And when we called Austin Ligon, the founding CEO of CarMax, he started chuckling and he said, I've been waiting for this call.

I'm surprised you haven't called me before.

And I thought that when we called, he would say, who's Redfin, I'm not interested, I have a stable of polo ponies.

So we went out and got different types of experience that were very focused on what we needed to build the company and what we needed to help the team.

So sometimes I felt like we needed someone to help our head of product.

Sometimes I felt like we needed someone to help our CFO.

And In fact, the line executive who needed a mentor, who needed someone from a peer organization would often participate in the process, which I found really helpful.

But this skips over the problematic part of our board history.

It's just a fact that Phase 1 of our history was my rage.

I did quote Colonel Jessup and a few good men, saying, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.

And only then did a small voice inside my head say, why do you sound crazy?

If you start companies or run early-stage companies, you have a problem with authority.

The whole reason you do this is you don't like having someone tell you what to do.

And you may deeply resent it that these people you needed money from are not able to tell you what to do, that you didn't get to choose your own team.

But mostly it's just stressful starting a company.

You don't have any money, you don't have any way to make money, and you can develop this siege mentality where it's you against the world and you does not include your board and it prevents them from being really helpful to you.

And what really surprised me is I once told the board that something was going to take a little longer than I thought and we were going to need more money And I really expected them to pull the plug, to just say it's over.

Emily Melton said, actually, I know we're not supposed to tell you this, but we've heard this before.

In fact, we hear it all the time, that something took a little longer and took a little more money.

So why don't we try to help you out?" And I had my dukes up and then I said, oh.

And I don't think I actually started crying, but it's how I felt.

And what I want to tell you is that often I go on walks with CEOs where they start complaining about their boards.

And they're doing this even though they have a product that doesn't work, no customers who actually want to buy it, employees who aren't that happy.

Like, if that is your main problem, Something is wrong with you.

You have gotten wrapped around the axle about the wrong issue.

And really what helped me get through phase 1, rage, was when Mark Singer told me, you should just think about the board as the radio in your car as you're driving down the road.

Maybe it's playing an annoying country western song, but you are still the 1 driving the car.

And that song, you can't turn it off, but just keep driving the direction that you're gonna go.

And I started to realize that I was responsible for the success of the company because once actually I did something that the board had been on my case to do and of course I made sure that it failed because I hadn't seen Jason's presentation, I disagreed and didn't commit, and we executed in this half-assed way, and then I came back to them and said, see, it didn't work, and nobody on the board remembered that it was their idea in the first place.

They just looked at me like, so why did you do it?

And then I realized that I was accountable either way, so we were going to do it my way on most things.

We'll get to some areas where it doesn't get to be your way.

But if you're in a situation where your board is driving you crazy, just remember that you're still the 1 in charge.

And if your product isn't selling, if your product isn't working, it's not their fault, it's your fault.

Most of the time, if you have a board problem, that's not the real problem.

That is actually a picture of Mark Singer and those are his kids and my kids.

We're just hiking halfway up Mount Rainier.

Where I got to is a place where I could actually tell the board what was going on, what was really bothering me.

And that's when the board stopped becoming an annoying song on the radio because this job is hard as hell and it's incredibly lonely and half the time you're not doing a very good job of it and you need someone to talk to.

And if you don't have someone you can tell the real truth to, it's just not going to work.

I used to try to construct problems for the board almost the way you'd create a game for a child, where it would be just hard enough to interest the child, but not so hard that the child would become frustrated.

And then the board would help me solve these fake problems and as soon as the meeting was over, I'd go back to my real problems.

But what you need to do is present it in all of its ugly, bizarre detail to them and include all the ways that you've been a jackass or weird or unfair so that they can actually address the real problem.

And if you have enough faith in yourself and in them, you can get something amazing out of the board.

Before every board meeting, we went on a run.

And for the next 10 miles, I would just say, well there's this and there's this, and I screwed this up, and I don't know how to handle this and I don't want anyone to know but and he would just listen and then he'd say well what about this and what about this and what about that and it just really really helped me so he had an interest that was similar to mine we both enjoy running And we just found a way to spend time with each other where we could really build enough rapport to talk about what was really going on.

That's a picture of a lodge at Mount Rainier.

If you ever get a chance to visit Washington State, I recommend it.

We drove a van, we busted out the sunflower seeds, we were eating sandwiches in the back and shooting the shit, and I just felt like it was 1 of the best days of my life at Redfin because I got help on so many different things.

And when I made this slide, I remembered that we had to come back to it.

So I wanna talk to you quickly about recruiting a board.

You've gotta find people who really love your mission.

The first requirement is not that they're a big deal, it's that they love what you're doing.

Because the original challenge that I had with the board is that actually we weren't aligned on what the mission of the company was.

Some folks wanted us to just be a real estate website instead of a brokerage.

And so if Folks just aren't immediately connecting with that.

There's so many people who are professional board members, who are looking for easy money, who are trying to gauge whether you're successful so they can jump on the bandwagon.

But you want the people who just really believe that real estate is deeply messed up and that the mission of trying to reinvent it in consumer's favor is a totally good 1 because when the shit hits the fan, they're still excited about the business.

And you can talk to them about it because if you have this weird foot fetish, you want to find someone else with a foot fetish, right?

They're the only people who understand you.

In the same way you need to find someone with a red fin fetish or whatever your company name is, fetish, so that you have that thing in common.

The other thing that you have to worry about is they have to listen more than they talk because most people who have been in charge for a while, they haven't listened to anybody in ages.

And I still remember we were interviewing this board member, and he just wouldn't stop talking.

And afterwards, I was saying to James that I'm not sure this person is going to be able to hear me, is going to understand how our problems are different.

And James said, he's a king without a kingdom.

And it's so true about half the people you meet when you're recruiting boards are folks who used to be in charge, who are used to having the world kneel at their feet and listen to their wisdom, and they aren't gonna understand what's different about your problem, they're just gonna apply everything that was relevant from their world.

And the world just keeps changing, and you need someone who's smart enough and who listens well enough to do that.

Jeff Markowitz, by the way, what's so funny?

Oh yeah, Jeff Markowitz, that's even on the slide.

If you are a Jewish person, it is like better than being Superman to be a mensch.

He is wise and deep and soulful and he will help you and he's opinionated.

Like you've got someone who's got this incredible resume and he's like, don't do it, bad user interface.

And I wonder what he says about me, but that's why I'm saying good things about him now.

We've already talked about the first 2 items.

The only other thing that I would say is just about diversity.

You know, we hired Selena as a board member.

We had a female board member early in the history of the company, and she left because she went to another venture firm.

But for years, we didn't have anyone but white males on the board.

And I just didn't think the employees even knew who the board was.

Like, they kind of come up in a special elevator and quickly get into a little conference room and yell at you and then leave.

But in this case, it seemed like the management team and really the employees deeply cared about it.

And when we brought on someone who was just damn good but also happened to be a woman, A lot of women came forward and said, it really meant something to me.

And so I know you've got a million problems to go solve and diversity on your board might be the last 1 that you're thinking about, but I really, really wish I'd done it sooner.

Your employees will feel better about the company when you make that investment.

If I had to go back in time, I would have addressed that much earlier.

1 thing that Reid really helped us with, he gave a talk to the employees, excuse me, to some of the senior managers, and he was actually talking about the process he went through to hire his successor at LinkedIn.

I think he spent about 40 hours with Jeff Weiner.

And that just seemed completely unreasonable, but it really gave me the leeway, the latitude, to spend more time with board members.

I used to think that they were so cool and I wasn't cool enough that I had to just hurry through it and make the best use of their time.

But if they're not willing to spend hours and hours with you, potentially auditing a board meeting, which was really successful in our recruitment of Julie Bornstein from Stitch Fix, they're not gonna be there for you later on.

So I would just make time yourself and make sure that the candidate makes time too to really get to know you and your business and hopefully some folks on your team.

Because if you don't find yourself calling that person a lot, you're not getting your money's worth.

I call our board a lot because they actually really help me.

And the only way I found people who could really help me was by slowing the process down and really spending time with those board members before we brought them on.

And I was always surprised that they were willing to do it.

The ones who were not willing to do it, you shouldn't have them on your board anyway.

So the thing that was hard for me in interviewing board candidates was that I had 2 impulses.

Just say, holy cow, you started E-Trade, I can't believe, I actually didn't talk to the person who started E-Trade, just fake example.

And I was so busy looking ecstatic as they talked to me that when I debriefed with James or with Jeff and they said, what'd they say?

Like, I don't know, but it was really impressive.

And then the other part of the conversation was me being impressive.

Instead of saying what I want out of a board member, the problems that we're trying to solve, I was just tap-dancing my fanny off.

And at the end of it, we'd exchanged no real information.

And so during that interview, I really try to ask myself, am I listening?

Have I thought precisely about what we need?

And then listened to that question, and then asked another question, and another question.

So I would just really try to be thoughtful about it.

1 thing that Jeff will offer to do for you that you should never accept from him.

The 1 thing that Jeff will offer to do is reject board candidates for you.

It's unpleasant, and he wants to make sure to close the loop.

And it is shocking how often you run into people you've rejected.

You should take the time to do it yourself.

So just do it, because you're going to run into these people later on, and actually a lot of times when you're recruiting a board member later, they'll say, oh, well, I know someone.

And the hard thing about rejecting someone is most of these people are extremely successful.

The moment you start talking to them, they assume they've got the job.

They just start, some of them especially, just assume that it would be such an honor, the distance between me and you is so vast, that of course you want to work with me.

And it's just a question whether I want to work with you.

And you sort of have to level set, this is going to be a process, several board members are going to interview you, and then you can blame other board members when you don't hire them.

1 thing that has really changed, this is Bob Milod from Priceline, and I do think there was a sea change in our board mentality when he came on board.

He was the CFO at Priceline, but also worked for a private equity firm.

He's not interested in having a good relationship with you so that he can get the next deal.

And he is not as focused on growth at any cost.

So let's talk about the board meeting very quickly.

I said that you're mostly in charge, and it's your fault if the company doesn't work out.

There are some areas where the board has really very focused governance responsibilities.

They need to see the budget and they need to approve it.

They need to go over any financial transactions where if you buy a company or do a financing and then they get to decide whether you keep your job.

But the things that I wanted to talk to you about, I used to feel because I wanted to be like that guy and pretty woman Richard Gere, you know in the movies they never say I'll think about it, they decide on the spot.

You want to seem cool, you want to seem in charge, you want to seem decisive.

We've been talking about this for 45 minutes, and now, Glenn, what do you want to do?

And you say, do it, because it sounds good, but then you walk out of the board meeting and you're like, I don't know I don't know.

That was really helpful This has deepened my perspective I'm gonna send you a note in a couple of days and tell you what I've decided.

Because first of all, you've reminded them that what did George Bush say?

And second, you've given yourself some space.

If they've actually given you a new perspective, you need to account for that properly.

And so just in general, I try to avoid making decisions on the spot.

You want to favor speed in everything you do, but you should make the right decision, especially if you're talking about at the board, it's a major issue.

The other thing that I've really, really gone to town on at Redfin, sometimes people say, well we're doing this because the board wants it.

You want your management team to see the inner workings of the board, so we actually have the whole management team at the board.

And I want to do something, and the board wants to do something, and we all do it.

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Building Your Board | Glenn Kelman