Zillow; Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images; Taylor Borden/Business Insider
Zillow CEO Rich Barton has made a career of disrupting closed-off industries on the internet.
First, he undermined airlines' and travel agents' control of the travel industry by launching Expedia; then, he gave homeowners access to information about housing stock and property values that was once closely guarded by real estate agents; and later, he helped job seekers share their salaries and workplace horror stories anonymously with Glassdoor, Forbes reported.
Now, Barton is a billionaire, according to Forbes estimates. Shares of the homebuying site surged on February 20 after it posted a strong earnings report, reportedly vaulting Barton into the three comma club.
A representative for Barton at Zillow declined to comment on Barton's net worth; career at Expedia, Zillow, and Glassdoor; or personal history.
Keep reading to learn more about one of America's newest tech billionaires.
Zillow
Barton was born in New Canaan, Connecticut, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Barton now lives in Seattle with his wife Sarah, Forbes reported. The couple met while Barton briefly worked in Boston, where Sarah attended medical school. The pair have three children.
Barton dresses like "a 1950s sitcom dad — glasses, preppy haircut, V-neck sweater," The Atlantic's Kevin Maney wrote after interviewing him in a coffee shop in 2010. The New York Times described him as "tanned and athletic." He also prefers to go barefoot, according to Forbes.
Expedia
He was a product manager for Microsoft's Windows operating system, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Barton told Forbes that he was recruited to Microsoft by a friend, and that he'd hated his consulting job. Barton was later assigned to work on a project for a CD-ROM based travel guide, which helped give him the idea to create a travel booking system that later became Expedia.
Microsoft's then-president Steve Ballmer originally envisioned Expedia to be sold on CD-ROMs, but it was Barton's idea to put the service online, according to Forbes. The site was an instant success, and Microsoft eventually spun it out as a separate, publicly listed company. Barton was 27 when the company went public in 1999, Forbes reported.
Expedia was later acquired by IAC chairman Barry Diller in 2001, who appointed now-Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as chief executive in 2003, according to Forbes.
Forbes also reported that Expedia made Barton quite wealthy, but did not disclose how much he made from the sale.
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"[The web] was giving consumers access to information and databases that they knew existed because they either saw or heard professionals over the phone clacking away on a keyboard accessing that information," Barton told Wired in 2013. "I remember I wanted to jump through the phone and look at the screen myself, turn it towards me and just take control."
Zillow was founded in December 2004 and officially launched in 2006, Forbes reported. Both Barton and his Expedia colleague Lloyd Frink invested $5 million into the company, a representative for Zillow told Business Insider.
Barton often collaborates with original members of the Expedia team, The New Yorker reported; he cofounded Glassdoor with another former Expedia executive. The New Yorker's Lizzie Widdicombe described them as "a genial group that reminded me of the all-male crew of actors who regularly work with the movie director Judd Apatow."
Zillow was a near-instant success, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. Zillow's Zestimates, or computer-generated estimates of a particular home's value, are its most popular feature, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
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