The writing on the wall is evident: we’re in for some rocky financial occasions, Zillow CEO Wealthy Barton predicted in a brand new interview revealed Thursday.

However amongst his warnings of additional disruption within the housing market, Barton’s forecast comes with a silver lining: monetary alternative.

“I truly love a storm,” Barton advised the web site GeekWire in a wide-ranging interview that additionally touched on the well being of Zillow as an organization, the choice to shutter the iBuying platform Zillow Gives and his personal early profession. “Warren Buffett likes to say: you don’t know who’s swimming bare till the tide goes out. Lots of people (are) swimming bare proper now, getting uncovered.”

Barton mentioned Zillow — which held $3.4 billion in money and investments on the finish of 2022 and boasts almost 200 million month-to-month guests to its web sites — is properly ready to climate any storm, together with the banking fallout spurred alongside by the failures of Silicon Valley Financial institution and Signature which can be nonetheless unfolding now.

“Loads of cruft is getting washed out to sea,” he advised GeekWire, referring not solely to the banking whiplash but additionally rates of interest reaching 20-year highs and layoffs throughout all sectors of the financial system. “And in the event you’re a corporation or an organization that’s carrying a washing go well with and a wetsuit, you’re all good. And that’s sort of how I really feel proper now.”

“I’m actually feeling higher than I’ve felt in a very long time proper now,” Barton added.

Zillow reported fourth quarter revenues of $435 million, beating most analysts’ estimates and trimming its internet losses to $72 million.

The corporate posted income 19 % decrease than the fourth quarter of 2021 — the identical quarter by which the corporate ended its nascent iBuying enterprise Zillow Gives, earlier than the iBuying sector started to buckle beneath the burden of heightened rates of interest that prompted Zillow competitor Redfin to shutter its iBuyer RedfinNow almost a 12 months later.

“We have been forward, fortunately, of what’s occurred within the housing market this 12 months,” Barton mentioned. “I really feel fairly good about that call.”

For the financial system at massive, Barton mentioned he thinks current layoffs within the tech sector — which embody 10,000 eradicated positions at Fb mum or dad Meta — indicators that the true laborious occasions are nonetheless to come back.

“The true ache might be coming,” he mentioned. “All organizations ought to be ready for that.”

Barton mentioned he relishes the chance to guide throughout powerful occasions, wanting again at his profession in tech that has included co-founding the journey large Expedia,  the corporate evaluations website Glassdoor and the journey pictures web site Trover.

“The stuff that I actually love essentially the most is after I’m deep within the trenches in a disaster scenario with a crew of individuals I really like and we’re doing one thing essential,” he mentioned.

Barton drew a comparability to the “swing” pulled off by the College of Washington’s males’s crew crew within the 1936 Olympics — who narrowly defeated Germany and Italy although the chances have been stacked towards them to convey house a gold medal — to explain the sensation of efficiently main a enterprise by means of uneven waters.

“It simply seems like magic and it feels easy and you’re feeling euphoric,” he advised GeekWire.

Talking of his work mentoring younger entrepreneurs, Bartson mentioned he tries to behave as a “ballast weight” throughout good occasions and dangerous.

“, this too shall go. We are going to get by means of this,” he tells his mentees. “Do the precise factor, talk clearly, don’t conceal something, get it on the market, get the precise folks round you, and you’ll make it by means of.”

The simplest leaders are happiest throughout powerful occasions, based on Barton.

“I truly suppose in stormy climate, it’s when leaders are the happiest,” he mentioned. “It’s when the worth of what we do as leaders is excessive.”

E mail Ben Verde