Pete Flint

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Pete Flint
Born25 July 1974 (1974-07-25) (age 49)
Essex, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Oxford, Stanford University
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, internet executive, investor
Employer(s)Managing partner at NFX, formerly board of directors at Zillow
Known forMost successful British entrepreneur in SF Bay Area; founding two billion dollar businesses
Websitenfx.com

Pete Flint OBE (born 25 July 1974) is a British internet entrepreneur and investor based in San Francisco. He is the founder and former chairman and CEO of Trulia. Formerly, he was part of the founding team at lastminute.com. He is currently a managing partner at NFX, the early stage venture capital fund focused on network effect businesses.

Education and early career[edit]

Flint earned his bachelor's degree and master's in physics from Oxford University[1] and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.[2]

Shortly after graduating from Oxford University, Flint joined Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox to start lastminute.com. He had previously worked alongside Hoberman at LineOne, a joint venture between New International and British Telecom, where he worked for less than a year.[3]

Flint spent five years at lastminute.com, helping to scale the company from a business plan to a public company with 2,000 employees and operations in 11 countries. Flint left lastminute.com to attend Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2003. lastminute.com was then acquired by Sabre Group for $1.1 billion in cash in 2005.[4]

Trulia[edit]

While looking for off campus housing in 2004, between the first and second year of his MBA course at Stanford, Flint conceived of Trulia.[5] He observed that the number of consumers researching real estate was growing rapidly, yet all the major websites in the category were not focused on delivering a compelling consumer experience. These websites also failed to provide compelling advertising products because they did not tap into the billions of dollars being spent on advertising in the real-estate newspaper classifieds.[6] Flint wrote the original business plan while at Stanford. Flint recruited a team of Stanford students to turn Flint's concept into a company. Of the original students that worked on the project, Sami Inkinen joined Flint to incorporate the company in June 2005.[7]

Flint scaled Trulia to become one of the leading online real estate companies in the US. He raised Venture Capital from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital,[8] and took the company public with an IPO[9] on the NYSE in September 2012. In 2014 Trulia merged with Zillow in a $3.5 billion acquisition to create the world's largest real estate company.[10]

Investor[edit]

Flint has been an active angel investor and advisor to consumer Internet and network effect businesses. In December 2016 it was announced that he joined NFX as a managing partner.[11] NFX is an early stage venture capital fund based in the San Francisco Bay Area focused on network effect businesses.

Recognition[edit]

A frequent speaker at technology and entrepreneurship conferences, Flint is featured regularly on CNBC, FOX, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He also is a guest lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

In 2014, Flint was named Northern California EY entrepreneur of the year.[12] He has also been named one of Fortune magazine's top tech disruptors,[13] most admired CEO in the San Francisco Bay Area according to the San Francisco Business Times,[14] and one of Forbes magazine's most powerful CEOs under 40.[15] Flint was named one of the 100 most influential people in real estate by Inman magazine in 2013[16] and one of the most powerful people in real estate in Swanepoel power 200.[17] In 2016, Flint was named a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute.[18]

Flint was awarded an OBE for services to entrepreneurship in the 2021 Queens Birthday Honors list.[19]

References[edit]

  1. ^ David Goldman (2014). "Trulia: US property search website" (PDF). Floreat Magdalena.
  2. ^ Richard Feloni and Drake Baer (9 September 2014). "The 25 Most Successful Stanford Business School Graduates". Business Insider.
  3. ^ "Mercury News interview: Trulia CEO Peter Flint". San Jose Mercury News. 19 October 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  4. ^ "Sabre to Buy British Online Travel Firm Lastminute.com". Los Angeles Times. 13 May 2005.
  5. ^ Kuchler, Hannah (14 January 2014). "A UK web pioneer cracks the US". Financial Times. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  6. ^ Needleman, Sarah E. (17 July 2013). "Trulia CEO says aspiring entrepreneurs need to be customer-obsessed and the very best in their industry". The Wall Street Journal.
  7. ^ "Investor FAQ - Trulia". Archived from the original on 12 December 2014. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
  8. ^ "Sequoia Leads Trulia's $10 Million Series C". Techcrunch.com. 24 May 2007. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  9. ^ Benoit, David; Dietrich, Chris (20 September 2012). "Trulia IPO Opens Up 30%, Leading IPO Wave". The Wall Street Journal.
  10. ^ Cao, Jing (28 July 2014). "Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5 Billion in Stock". Bloomberg.
  11. ^ Martin, Scott (12 December 2016). "NFX Guild Lands Trulia Founder for Software-Focused Investing Team". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  12. ^ "Trulia CEO and Founder Pete Flint Named a 2014 Northern California EY Entrepreneur of the Year™". Yahoo Finance. 11 June 2014. Archived from the original on 13 November 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  13. ^ "36 of tech's most powerful disruptors". Fortune. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  14. ^ "Bay Area's Most Admired CEO Awards". The Business Journals. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  15. ^ Smith, Jacquelyn. "No. 18 Peter Flint – In Photos: America's Most Powerful CEOs 40 And Under". Forbes. Archived from the original on 17 February 2013.
  16. ^ "Inman News Names Trulia CEO Pete Flint Innovator of the Year". Marketwatch.com. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  17. ^ "2019 Swanepoel POWER 200". Swanepoel.com. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  18. ^ "Programs - Henry Crown - Class XX". AGLN - Aspen Global Leadership Network. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  19. ^ "Birthday Honours 2021 Overseas and International List: Knight Bachelor and Order of the British Empire". GOV.UK. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
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