"data is fungible?" i think the author does not understand what fungibility means. if something is fungible, that means that any unit of it is exactly the same as any other unit of it. fungible data would be random data, which wouldn't help you predict or model anything.
i think zillow also did not understand what fungibility means. real estate is not fungible. in fact, it's anti-fungible- that's why there are huge diligence processes that exist around most real estate transactions. maybe floors in an office building may be fungible, but residences are definitely not- with all their quirks, customizations and problems.
this whole argument that they failed because the ceo of zillow didn't have big balls is pretty putrid. pair this with the word salad of misused words and twisting of quotes and i'd say this is probably one of the worst pieces i've ever seen posted here. i feel worse for having given it any time at all.
the simple fact is that the ceo of zillow didn't know what they were doing, had a team that (supposedly) applied facebook's infrastructure scaling prediction library to house prices and then attempted to apply a market making mindset to the real estate market at scale. not only is this probably something nobody should try to do, considering we contribute so much in tax dollars to first time homebuying incentives as it's recognized that the housing market is where j q public can start to build wealth, it's also probably something that nobody could do (well, at scale, with machines) given that housing is not fungible.
sure, financial instruments are fungible, maybe even late model cars, but definitely not houses. doesn't take a scientist to spot that.
i think zillow also did not understand what fungibility means. real estate is not fungible. in fact, it's anti-fungible- that's why there are huge diligence processes that exist around most real estate transactions. maybe floors in an office building may be fungible, but residences are definitely not- with all their quirks, customizations and problems.
this whole argument that they failed because the ceo of zillow didn't have big balls is pretty putrid. pair this with the word salad of misused words and twisting of quotes and i'd say this is probably one of the worst pieces i've ever seen posted here. i feel worse for having given it any time at all.
the simple fact is that the ceo of zillow didn't know what they were doing, had a team that (supposedly) applied facebook's infrastructure scaling prediction library to house prices and then attempted to apply a market making mindset to the real estate market at scale. not only is this probably something nobody should try to do, considering we contribute so much in tax dollars to first time homebuying incentives as it's recognized that the housing market is where j q public can start to build wealth, it's also probably something that nobody could do (well, at scale, with machines) given that housing is not fungible.
sure, financial instruments are fungible, maybe even late model cars, but definitely not houses. doesn't take a scientist to spot that.