Ben Miller – Forging Technology into Real Estate Investing (Part 1) (#19)

“Fundrise will be the Amazon of real estate investing.” Ben Miller Bio Ben Miller is CEO and co-founder of Fundrise, the leading online real estate investment platform. Now with over 100,000 active individual investors and more than $1 billion worth of equity under management, Fundrise has made high-tech, low-cost real estate investing available to everyone. Founded in 2012, Fundrise is on a mission to build a better financial system by empowering the individual. With over 20 years of experience in real estate investment and development, Ben Miller’s responsibilities cover day-to-day management, real estate investment oversight, and corporate finance, as well as setting the long-term strategy and goals for the company. Prior to Fundrise, Ben was managing partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corp., one of the largest mixed-use real estate development companies in the Washington, DC metro area. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he sits on the board of National Center for Children and Families. Show Notes Current Role Lead long term strategy road map and oversee asset management and senior leadership team (3:40)Ben Miller sees himself as the person that “pushes” at the company that takes people to their limits and drag people out of their comfort zone (4:30) COVID 19 Issues Human tragedy (6:20)Believes crisis is more like 2008 as it will be a debt crisis, but much more serious (7:55)Since Yesterday (book about Great Depression) (7:25)Demand Shock causes deflation (7:35) Origins Ben Miller grew up in DC (8:35)Dad is Herb Miller, one of DCs greatest landmark developers- Western Development (8:50)Dad is in “his own head” quite a bit (9:45)Went to UPenn yet by Jr. year he preferred going to work (10:20)Interned at Lubert Adler (11:45)Sharp edge view of properties (11:30)Alignment of interests- Win/Win relationship (11:45)“Organs in the game” (12:40)Economics Major (12:55) Macro understanding needs to be there to understand opportunities (13:10)Mother is opposite of Dad- a skeptic (14:05) Career Arc Ben Miller joined Western DevelopmentEarly on wanted to join his Dad (15:00)His Dad is absolutely relentless- indefatigable (15:20)Dad recruited him after Lubert Adler (16:10)Put “talented person” “over their head” and to “sink or swim” (16:45)Grew into role of President (17:40)Gallery Place (18:00)Redevelopment of Georgetown Park (18:15)Sources of money were the most distressed in 2008 (19:00)Left Western in 2009 to do small scale retail (19:35)Buy in emerging neighborhoods in DC (20:00)Looked in LA, Brooklyn, Detroit, etc. (20:15)Reversion to the mean of city redevelopment (20:40)New generation w...