Pretty much every industry knows about Zillow’s acquisition of Trulia. The transaction finally closed yesterday, resulting in the newly formed Zillow Group. If you want some more robust thoughts on what this all means, Rob has a few here – but I wanted to touch on something completely different.

The 10 year journey.

I had an unbelievable first hand view of those first 5 years until my departure in 2010, and an external view over the past 5 years seen through the eyes of my many friends still working there.

It may surprise you, but I actually took a job without having any idea about what the product, business, or strategy was. All I knew was that it was started by the guys behind Expedia, and was in the real estate industry. I was young and wanted to learn, and dove in with all my energy to soak up knowledge. (Random side note: I didn’t even know what a blog was prior to taking that job — 10 years, 7 blogs, and 2,500+ blog posts later, here I am.)

2005 was a long time ago. I still remember hunkering away in my cubicle plotting neighborhoods on a map (in ArcView). Launch night in February 2006, and riding to the data center with Brian Milnes. A call with a CEO who told me he had no idea how I ever got him on the phone (pre Zillow launch). Sharing an office with Amy Bohutinsky, Michael Dougherty, and Mike McDevitt. Going from zero to 4 million visitors in 2 days (unheard of then and still today). The launch of the mortgage marketplace. I remember late evenings at the office. The early lay-offs in 2008. The financial crisis. One on ones with David Gibbons. DavidG getting up and walking around for 10 minutes, before sitting down to revise a blog comment. Late nights commenting on BloodHound and Sellsius. A phone call with Greg and BofA. The fierceness of Liam. Rich stopping in my office to ask what was happening in biz dev. Zillow Blog meetings with Amy, David, Whitney, Diane, Katie, Jill, Amanda, Sarah, and Alison. Spencer’s unbelievable ability to stay on top of email and social media 24/7. Phone calls with home owners angry their 4M Zestimate was “500k too low”. I remember holiday parties. Weekends spent cleaning up Zillow Discussion boards from trolls and spammers (while my friends were out partying). Z’all Meetings.

And…I remember competing fiercely with Trulia.

Of course, I can’t speak for the internal dynamics over the past 5 years since I’ve been off traveling and building Horizon (and Oh Hey World before that), but while I was inside those Zillow walls, the competitive battle with Trulia was very real — in social media / trade marketing, business development, product and in the eyes of the consumer — and I loved every second of it. They kept us on our toes by continually pushing the envelope with innovative work. We knew if we stepped off the gas, they would be right there to take advantage.

Of course, we competed in the business arena, but were very much friends in our personal lives…as witnessed by the following two photos:

Rudy and Me

And…

DavidG and Rudy

10 years after the journey began, Zillow’s now all grown up. Zillow Group includes Zillow, Trulia, StreetEasy, HotPads, ActiveRain, Retsly, Diverse Solutions, Mortech, Market Leader, and Postlets. Spencer Rascoff and Pete Flint, former fierce competitors, are part of one big happy family.

[Via Instagram]

All that said, Rob’s right: the newly acquired Realtor.com better give the Zillow Group some fierce competition — or this industry is going to get very boring, very quickly. At least, until the next start-up decides to ruffle a few feathers — which likely isn’t too far off.

What’s next for Zillow Group and the real estate industry in general? Maybe I will put some predictions out there sometime soon, though I’ve already written about one I see coming. I’ll end this by saying congrats to all involved; it’s been a fun ride.