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Fortune
Fortune
Emma Burleigh

Zillow's CEO says his friends were shocked when he quit a cushy Microsoft job—but Steve Jobs led to his success at the $10.5 billion real estate firm

Steve Jobs (Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

The 2008 financial crisis burned bad memories into the back of Americans’ brains: employees being laid off in droves, families struggling to put food on their tables, and a housing market in peril. 

But Zillow’s CEO, Jeremy Wacksman, says the time was the start of a new beginning. Less than one year later, he ditched his job as a marketing and product manager at Microsoft Xbox to join the real estate startup, despite nervous looks from his friends. 

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