Story
Dan Gilbert sold his mortgage company to Intuit, then bought it back
Sam recounts how Dan Gilbert started Rock Financial in 1985, took it public around $80M in revenue, sold it to Intuit for roughly $600M, then bought it back two years later and grew it into a giant that went public again as Rocket Mortgage.
“in like 1985, he started a mortgage business where they would originate loans for mortgages. And I don't know if that means they're the bank or if they're connecting you with the bank. It was called Rock Financial and he grew it. And I think in year 11 it went public with like $80 million in revenues, like a really good company.”
Story
Vlad started Webflow 4 times over 7 years before it worked
Vlad Magdalin first tried to build Webflow as a college senior project in 2005, then attempted it solo, then with Intuit coworkers — each time fizzling out as trademarks fell through, co-founders lost motivation, and life events intervened. He persisted across roughly 7 years of false starts.
“I started Webflow 4 different times starting in early 2005, back when I was still in college. Ended up being my senior project. Then I started, tried to start it solo a couple times, you know, incorporated, tried to build this thing based on .NET.”
Story
A Brett Victor talk made Vlad quit Intuit the next morning
In early 2012 Vlad watched Brett Victor's 'Inventing on Principle' talk about direct manipulation, then read Victor's 'Magic Ink' paper that same night. The next morning he put in his notice at Intuit — the video both gave him Webflow's core concept and forced him to ask why he did his work.
“And then I saw this video early-ish in 2012 called Inventing on Principle by this guy Brett Victor, and it was all about this concept of direct manipulation. But more broadly, it was like that he asked this question to all creators, like, why do you do the work that you do? And it made me question everything. Like, literally, that— I saw that video, I read one of his papers called Magic Ink that same night. It would like— took me like 2 hours. The next morning, I put in my notice at Intuit.”