About

I started Expedia inside of Microsoft in the mid-90’s then spun it out into EXPE in 1999 and was CEO until 2003.  After living in Italy for a year, I co-founded Zillow with a friend from Expedia, Lloyd Frink.  Zillow is an indispensible tool if you are interested in real estate or mortgages and is the market leader online and on iPhone, Android, and iPad.  I also co-founded Glassdoor in 2007 with another pair of Expedia alums, Bob Hohman and Tim Besse.  Glassdoor gives you an inside view of what it’s like to work for a company, allows you to understand salary specifics, and is the best way to search for a job.  In 2010, I co-founded a mobile discovery app called Trover with my friend and brother-in-law, Jason Karas, and a small team of creative folks in Seattle.  For some wackiness go visit King of the Web, which i co-founded with a group of friends in Seattle.  I also sit on the boards of Netflix, Avvo (lawyer and doctor ratings and Q&A,) and Realself (ratings and reviews of “aesthetic” procedures and products).   Finally, I am a venture partner at Benchmark Capital, an early stage venture capital firm in Menlo Park.

My wife and I support hope, education, and the arts through our philanthropic foundation, the Barton Family Foundation.  A few noteworthy “.orgs” we support and sit on the boards of which you should check out include Summer Search, Year Up,  Common Sense Media, and the Henry Art Gallery at University of Washington.

My family consumes my free time, but for relaxation I love to fly-fish, surf, and snowboard.  The blog’s name, HopperAndDropper.com, comes from fly-fishing and refers to a fly combination designed to lure the big one.  A “hopper” is a grasshopper, which floats on the surface, while a “dropper” is a sinking fly, like a Copper John, that dangles a foot or so below the hopper.  Give it a try.