Unemployed in Greenland

An email sent to Redfin at 9:30 a.m. on January 13, 2026.

Hi Redfin,

As you just read in Varun's email, the time has come for me to leave Redfin. Redfin just completed our first phase as a Rocket company, integration. We'll start the second, much-longer phase at next week's all-company meeting, which is much-greater scale. Approaching that, I had to decide whether to be at Rocket for years.

A Fork in the Road

Instead, I want to try finding another mission-driven enterprise outside of real estate. I'm grateful that Rocket has turned out to be such a good owner of Redfin, and that Varun has been such a kind leader.

I Love Redfin

It's just hard to go because I love Redfin. The billion dollars in commissions we saved our customers have helped hundreds of thousands of families afford a new home. More than any other broker, we've been accountable for ensuring it wasn't just any home, but the right home.

Redfin Is in Good Hands

Starting today, Varun will run Redfin until we find my successor. Redfin will be in good hands. Jason, Christian, Bridget, Keith, Mary and Chris are stars. Varun's involvement will give Redfin a new level of strategic thinking, and access to Rocket resources. The support we've already gotten since joining Rocket has let us innovate faster than ever.

Redfin and Rocket Are The Future

And America has never needed that more. We're the only real estate company to take full responsibility for our customers, from click to keys. For most of Redfin's history, our website expansion was slowed by our brokerage, and our brokerage expansion was slowed by employing our agents. But standing behind our service was always worthwhile. Now with portals, lenders and brokers racing to stitch together their services, our patient approach has turned out to be the best way to help people all the way home.

What I've Loved Most About Redfin

On the day our sale to Rocket closed, I wrote in a Redfin tribute that you taught me that the true meaning of love and work isn't just in Silicon Valley. It was a carnival of Russian spies, pot farms, Netflix shows, alpine death marches, congressional hearings, destroyed hotel shuttles, 60-Minutes shoots, cancer warriors, Mad-Max picnics, miraculous adoptions, all-rubber houses and FedExed horses. But still it didn't capture what I've loved most about Redfin, which is just solving problems with all of you.

Run, Redfin, Run

Running so fast with people so smart made me feel free when I once viewed the business world as a prison. The whole miracle of human ingenuity starts with the simple act of thinking for yourself, but that depends on finding people to whom you can say what you really think. I discovered those people while Redfin was still based out of an apartment, and that grew a thousandfold into our culture.

Last Day in the Office: Friday

My last day in the office is on January 16. My job now is letting go, which I'm not good at. I'll be available through April 1 to support Varun, though mostly I think we'll text one another pictures of our dogs. We'll always be friends.

A Gungan Life Debt

That goes for me and you, too: we'll always be friends. I'll be friends with the people I've gotten to know through the years, and to everyone else here I was still hoping to meet. I haven't deserved to work with so many good people for so long, and now I'll spend the rest of my life trying to repay you for it. Any one of you could show up at my door with a new baby or after a flat tire in the rain, or just to say hi. In my mind, you'll say one word, REDFIN, and I'll say COME ON IN.

Love, Glenn

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unemployed-greenland-glenn-kelman-nakzc/?trackingId=TGzLc0VYTOSjPlIWIBu21g%3D%3D