Wacksman, a longtime Zillow executive, took the reins as CEO of Zillow Group in 2024, expanding his leadership at one of the industry’s most significant companies. The firm maintained its dominant portal lead, continued to grow revenue through its agent-focused business generation service and refined its high-quality suite of real estate professional tech products. The company also took additional steps toward developing an integrated real estate transaction experience.

Wacksman also continued Zillow Group’s legacy of taking clear stands on major industry issues by introducing its Listing Access Standards in June. The policy keeps listings off the portal if they were previously marketed to a subset of buyers.

And despite a sluggish housing market, Wacksman helped guide the firm to a return to profitability in 2025. Some 2025 highlights include:

• Reporting three consecutive quarters of profitability
• Delivering its comprehensive real estate transaction vision to over a third of its consumer customers in the third quarter
• Introducing a new product membership service, Zillow Pro, that bundles its tech into one subscription offering

Zillow has never been shy about taking a stance and seeing it through. Wacksman’s tenure is no different. While the firm has strong momentum, it faces some regulatory and legal hurdles heading into 2026: The Federal Trade Commission alleges that Zillow’s rentals agreement with Redfin violates antitrust laws, and newly merged consumer lawsuits claim its referral program lacks consumer fee transparency, while its real estate and mortgage service operation violate the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

This mix of dominance and scrutiny is nothing new for Zillow, or Wacksman, who joined the firm in 2009. The company he now runs increasingly sits at the center of the real estate universe, and, as such, Wacksman is the industry's second most powerful leader.