Power to the People: Revolutionizing Businesses with Transformative Ideas

Rich Barton is the founder of Expedia, which he started within Microsoft in 1994 at age 26. He spun out the company in a successful IPO in 1999 and served as CEO until 2003. He went on to cofound Zillow, and later Glassdoor and Trover. He is also a successful angel investor and a venture partner at Benchmark. He serves on the boards of Netflix, Nextdoor, RealSelf, and Avvo, as well as the nonprofit Year-Up. In April 2014, President Obama named Rich an inaugural member of the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship, a position in which he spends time inspiring entrepreneurs around the world. He can be followed on Twitter@Rich_Barton, or through his blog, hopperanddropper.com. This essay is adapted from a keynote speech Rich delivered at the 2013 Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kuala Lumpur.