{"id":566,"date":"2006-10-23T12:55:33","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T19:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=566"},"modified":"2007-05-13T20:08:54","modified_gmt":"2007-05-14T03:08:54","slug":"identifying-mavericks-socrates-jesus-cyrano-and-glenn-kelman-we-dont-have-to-love-the-truth-we-just-have-to-live-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/566\/identifying-mavericks-socrates-jesus-cyrano-and-glenn-kelman-we-dont-have-to-love-the-truth-we-just-have-to-live-with-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Identifying mavericks: Socrates, Jesus, Cyrano and — Glenn Kelman?!? We don’t have to love the truth, we just have to live with it . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is me in a comment at Mike’s Corner<\/a>. Mike Price is looking for nominations for the most influential mavericks in the real estate industry, individuals and companies. Share your thoughts with him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, although the words I use in my own mind are closer to “renegade” or “heretic.” And the context is immense, at least to my way of thinking: The story of The West, in capitals, as against The East, is the story of Socrates, the man who chose to die rather than bend to the will of the mob. The Nazarene was the key popularizer of the tale, but if you look for it, you will find it reflected in every enduring story of The West.<\/p>\n

Most fundamentally, The West is<\/i> the heretic, the renegade, the maverick, the man or woman who stands — “not high it may be but alone” — for new truth, standing down all of received wisdom. This is why<\/i> The West is so outrageously dynamic, where The East, broadly defined, celebrates and venerates that which is traditional and unchanging.<\/p>\n

So who would I pick as the maverick individual and company bringing the most change to the real estate industry right now?<\/p>\n

Glenn Kelman and Redfin.com.<\/p>\n

My experience of the man has been overwhelmingly negative, and I don’t care for the way the company operates: It foists its agency responsibilities onto listing agents, then publicly vilifies them if they object to this cowbird-like behavior.<\/p>\n

But someone at Redfin.com — or possibly some unknown maverick — figured out that the contradiction of the listing agent compensating the buyer’s agent could be exploited to market advantage, and this one innovation, in due course, will — at a minimum — divorce the two commissions from one another, resulting in a true buyer’s agency at last. It may also serve to eliminate the proprietarian idea of the MLS, a serendipitous side-effect.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Redfin.com can survive as a business, at least not in its present form. Its head-count is huge for the volume it is doing. The proportional rebate system makes it impossible for the company Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is me in a comment at Mike’s Corner. Mike Price is looking for nominations for the most influential mavericks in the real estate industry, individuals and companies. Share your thoughts with him. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, although the words I use in my own mind are closer to “renegade” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6,5,27],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-disintermediation","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","10":"category-redfincom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9477,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9477\/from-the-gift-of-fire-by-richard-mitchell-who-is-socrates-now-that-we-need-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":566,"position":0},"title":"From The Gift of Fire, by Richard Mitchell: Who is Socrates, Now That We Need Him?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Quoted from Mark Alexander's wonderful Richard Mitchell web site: \u00a0 When Benjamin Franklin was hardly more than a boy, but clearly a comer, he decided to achieve moral perfection. As guides in this enterprise, he chose Jesus and Socrates. One of his self-assigned rules for daily behavior was nothing more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2659,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2659\/do-you-want-to-understand-what-web-20-means-in-your-own-life-on-the-internet-socrates-would-have-lived\/","url_meta":{"origin":566,"position":1},"title":"Do you want to understand what Web 2.0 means in your own life? On the internet, Socrates would have lived","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I just wrote this in a comment to Kevin Tomlinson, but it's important, so I want to address it in the larger arena: On the internet, everything is Kevlar. This is for real, and it\u2019s a lesson people are slowly learning all over the globe:Muscle power accumulates, brain power does\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2819,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2819\/splendorquest-jesus-christ-superstar\/","url_meta":{"origin":566,"position":2},"title":"SplendorQuest: Jesus Christ Superstar","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"[I wrote this at Easter in 2003, just short of five years ago. --GSS] Tomorrow is Easter, and all good Catholics will go to Mass. In our parish, every Mass will be packed, and there will be overflow Masses in the school cafeteria. But Catholic or not, Easter calls our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":773,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/773\/im-it-and-i-dont-want-to-be\/","url_meta":{"origin":566,"position":3},"title":"I’m it — and I don’t want to be . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"December 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I first heard of the idea of memes in 1986 or so. Analogized to a gene, a meme is a transmissible idea. We're apt to think of things like \"Dood!\" or \"Dyn-o-mite!\" when we think of memes -- linguistic fads -- but the idea can run much deeper than that.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1774,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1774\/sun-microsystems-draws-free-pictures-of-the-twenty-first-century-to-be-shown-to-barbarians-to-illustrate-the-path-to-relevance\/","url_meta":{"origin":566,"position":4},"title":"Sun Microsystems draws free pictures of the twenty-first century; to be shown to barbarians to illustrate the path to relevance","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"What's the opposite of an antiquated product in a useless form-factor being hoarded behind a paywall? Sun Microsystems has developed the world's fastest microprocessor -- and is making all of the design details available by Open Source:To add fuel to the fire, the blueprints for our UltraSPARC T2 (I personally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13563,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13563\/attention-brad-inman-i-dont-want-your-dipshit-most-influential-citation-again-this-year-either-but-it-is-beyond-obvious-that-i-am-by-far-the-most-influential-voice-in-the-on-line-world-of-rea\/","url_meta":{"origin":566,"position":5},"title":"Attention Brad Inman: I don’t want your dipshit “most influential” citation again this year, either, but it is beyond obvious that I am by far the most influential voice in the on-line world of real estate.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's start with some music, just to set the mood: So: If you run in the wrong circles, these are the kind of \"arguments\" you can expect to hear about me:Greg Swann is mean. Greg Swann is rude. Greg Swann is vulgar. Greg Swann is angry. Greg Swann is cynical.Here\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}