Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Zach Aarons
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Jennifer Nuckles is CEO of R-Zero, a physical AI platform that connects building data to continuously uncover energy savings and improve performance, delivering 20-40% HVAC energy savings with no major retrofit required. She previously served as EVP at SoFi and CMO at Zynga, and spent nearly a decade as a Global Business Lead at Clorox. She is a board member and chairperson of the American Lung Association and a trustee at UC Riverside. Based in San Francisco.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Sean Miller is the Chief Revenue Officer at Lessen, leading sales and marketing to expand its tech-enabled property maintenance, repairs, turns and capital improvement services platform, with 3 million work orders completed annually. With deep expertise in real estate technology and IoT, he currently serves as Built Environment advisory board member of SIA, and previously served as CRO at Sensor Industries, CEO and Co-founder of Griot, and President of PointCentral (an Alarm.com subsidiary).
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Brian Turner is the CEO of Adaptive Buildings (previously OTI), a master systems integrator that connects HVAC, lighting, and building systems into unified platforms to drive operational and energy efficiency, and ESG performance across the built environment. With over 30 years of experience in building automation, Brian has worked closely with major property owners to advance system integration and building data strategies.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Luis Poggi is the CEO and Co-Founder of HouseWhisper, a startup at the intersection of real estate and generative AI, building tools that transform how homes are marketed and sold. A seasoned tech executive with deep experience in product, marketing, and sales, Luis previously held leadership roles at Zillow and Expedia, where he helped scale industry-defining platforms in PropTech and travel.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Ryan Simonetti is the CEO and co-founder of Convene, a global hospitality company that owns and manages premium Meeting, Event & Workplace locations around the world. His unique expertise in real estate acquisitions, development, and finance has helped catapult Convene to become a pioneer in the commercial real estate industry.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Frederik Hendriksen is the co-founder of Rensair, pioneering the world’s first air quality ecosystem to cut carbon, costs, and pollutants through next-generation ventilation technology. Rensair’s connected solutions optimize existing HVAC systems, reducing energy costs while delivering cleaner, healthier indoor air—without expensive infrastructure upgrades.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Dillon Okner is the Founder & Partner of SiteRise, a retail development and construction platform helping brands streamline site selection, store development, and portfolio expansion. With more than 15 years of experience in retail construction and operations, Dillon previously helped support the expansion of major brands including Apple and Tesla.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Sukesh Shekar is the CEO & Founder at Altgage, the Google search of mortgages, bringing simply affordable mortgages to home buyers. . Sukesh believes in the American dream of homeownership. However, mortgages are more unaffordable than ever and most mortgage processes lack transparency. Altgage makes home buying more affordable with smart mortgages that build wealth over time. 💚 Learn more: ➡️Altgage's website - Mortgage deals that make home buying affordable.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
In this special episode of Tangent Proptech, Edward Cohen is on the red carpet at one of the most exclusive commercial real estate events of the year: the Real Estate Gala in New York City. This episode features rapid-fire conversations with founders, investors, brokers, developers, and operators across the proptech and commercial real estate ecosystem. A big focus of the evening was on AI. Namely, this question: how is AI being used in real estate right now?
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Stefan Schwab is the CEO of Enlighted (acquired by Siemens), a Proptech provider of IoT solutions at the intersection of people, space, and work. Enlighted combines cognitive environmental IoT sensors and lighting controls that connect to intelligent workplace experience apps, offering a singular, scalable, interoperable solution to address a spectrum of building, space, and productivity needs. Customers include AT&T, WWE and the UK's NHS.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Rishard Rameez is the Co‑Founder and CEO of Zown, an AI‑powered real estate platform that makes homeownership more accessible and affordable. Zown was born from a viral Reddit post where Rishard shared his frustration over paying over $70K in real estate commissions. The outpouring of support inspired him to flip the model: instead of paying big commissions, Zown gives buyers significant upfront cash to help with their down payment and closing costs, while offering sellers flat fees.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Brandon Wright is the Co-founder and CEO of Tongo, the company he co-founded to help Real Estate agents address cash flow challenges by providing financial tools such as a commission line of credit and a payroll solution to help stabilize their incomes and automate savings.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
This week, we're introducing Tangent listeners to another podcast in the commercial real estate ecosystem: In The Loop from LoopNet. How can workplaces endure ecologically, financially, and socially? In this episode of In the Loop, Jordan Goldstein, co-CEO of Gensler, explores the future of sustainable and resilient office design. From global design trends and innovative materials to the role of AI in commercial real estate, Jordan shares how the industry is rethinking sustainability.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Andreas Rotenberg is Co-founder and COO of Pulley, an AI-powered permitting platform helping developers and operators move projects through approvals faster. Before Pulley, he was part of the team at Honest Buildings through its acquisition, then served as Chief of Staff at Procore through its IPO. Pulley has supported over $15 billion in projects approved across the U.S. Live from ICSC+Proptech in Las Vegas.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Katharine Lau is the CEO and Co-founder of Stuf, a self storage startup delivering modern, tech-enabled storage to consumers and businesses. Stuf partners with real estate owners to monetize basements, garages, and other spaces in commercial buildings as storage, creating new cash flow opportunities for landlords while providing neighborhoods with a new amenity. Stuf was recognized by Fast Company as one of The World’s Most Innovative Companies in 2022.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Daniel Dorfman is the Co-founder at Roots, an Atlanta-based company aiming to help 1 million people create wealth through residential real estate investing and their innovative ''Rent it like you own it'' program.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Amir R. Korangy is an Iranian-American publisher and film producer, who founded the business magazine, The Real Deal, about real estate and finance news. He also produced the PBS documentary, "Building Stories", about architect Costas Kondylis.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Christelle Rohaut is the Founder and CEO of Codi (backed by a16z), where she's building the walk-to-work revolution. Codi offers turnkey, private office spaces with the most flexible terms on the market. In a matter of days, any company can find a space for their team, with full and part-time options, outsourced office management, and flexible leases. Codi has also created a Relief Fund to help businesses impacted by WeWork's struggles.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Raunaq Singh is the founder & CEO of Roam, the platform for purchasing a home with an assumable, low-rate mortgage included. Prior to founding Roam, Raunaq spent a decade in various product and operations roles across Uber, Opendoor and Culdesac. He received a Bachelor's degree in Political Economy from NYU and currently resides in New York City.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Alon is the Founder and General Partner of RE Angels, a real estate technology angel fund solely composed of real estate experts with deep and diverse industry expertise focused on early stage startups. Alon also owns and manages several multifamily portfolios throughout the southeast (FL, NC & VA).
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Ben Borton is a Co-Founder of PodPlay Technologies, where he oversees go-to-market strategy and leads the Sales and Marketing teams. He also serves as Chief Strategy Officer and was the first external investor in PodPlay's parent company, PingPod Inc. Before joining PodPlay, Ben held several leadership roles in the finance and technology sectors, including as Head of Digital Fund Services at Figure Technologies, Partner at Mountaineer Partners, and Partner at MM Capital.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Brendan Wallace is CEO & CIO at Fifth Wall, where he guides the firm’s strategic vision. Fifth Wall is the largest venture capital firm focused on technologies for the global real estate industry, including those which decarbonize the sector.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Show Notes Tangent on LinkedIn Tangent on Twitter Relevant links: Plotify website Anish Malhotra, Plotify Co-Founder & CEO Stimulus: One Rental at a Time, by Michael Zuber One Rental at a Time on Youtube The Product: Plotify The Industry: Single Family Homes The Vision: Democratizing Real Estate Investing for Global Investors 1:24 - Anish's Journey: From digitizing financial markets with Bloomberg Tradebook to digitizing real estate transactions at Plotify 5:24 - How Plotify was born out of...
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Austin is CEO of Pacaso and co-founded the company with Spencer Rascoff (co-founder and former CEO of Zillow) to make the dream of second home ownership a reality for more people after experiencing the profound effect it had on his own life. Pacaso is Austin’s second startup. In 2009, he founded dotloop in his hometown of Cincinnati, a company that created software to seamlessly manage real estate transactions.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Michael Rudin joined Rudin in 2008 and, together with his sister Samantha, represents the fourth generation to work at the family business founded in 1925. Michael focuses on new developments, capital markets, commercial leasing, sustainability and technology. He also helps lead the family’s alternative investing business, Rudin Ventures, where they've invested in companies like Bilt, Jones, VTS and Nantum OS. Rudin Management oversees the daily operations of 32 properties in New York City.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Taylor Hou is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer at APM Help, a company serving over 300,000 single family homes nationwide dedicated to professionalizing the single family property management industry by bringing clarity and efficiency for accounting and operations. A serial entrepreneur and tech investor, Taylor is passionate about applying lean startup principles to create process efficiencies in tech and startups.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Lior Abramovich is the Co-Founder & CEO of Blanket, a platform transforming the single-family rental market backed by RE Angels. With over a decade of experience, he's overseen $200 million in acquisitions for more than 1,000 investors. Beyond real estate, Lior is dedicated to impact-driven initiatives—he co-founded Golden, a nonprofit renovating homes for senior citizens in need, and a foundation committed to providing clean drinking water to children worldwide.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Eoin Matthews is the Co-founder at Point, a home equity investment company making home equity wealth accessible to homeowners without creating a monthly debt obligation. Homeowners get upfront funds from Point in return for a portion of your home’s future appreciation. Point recently announced an oversubscribed $141M securitization, which marked it's second rated securitization and third overall, with its collaboration with Atalaya Capital Management.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Robert Cooper is the President and CEO of Embue. After two decades in high tech, Robert decided to follow his passion and use his experience to help solve the climate crisis and improve people's lives. He decided to focus on Multifamily after recognizing the huge opportunity to simultaneously reduce carbon emissions, improve residents' health and comfort, and make the buildings' staff’s work easier across all Multifamily classes.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Salman Ahmad is the CEO and Co-founder of a16z-backed Mosaic, a construction technology company that builds software that makes homebuilding more scalable and efficient. Mosaic was founded in 2017 by Salman and Sep Kamvar, whom were two computer scientists working together at MIT and Stanford developing machine learning algorithms applied in the real world. Together, they developed a bold vision for the home building industry: construction as code.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
What is Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators? A podcast community for real estate and tech leaders, investors, operators and innovators. A new era is upon us. Tangent💚Proptech unites Proptech founders💡, Real Estate investors and operators🏢, Venture Capital investors, urban leaders🏙 and passionate creators🌎 who are improving our communities and cities. Join us to learn how we can solve present day challenges with innovative technology and greater collaboration.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Bryce Nyberg is the VP, Corporate Development at Berkadia and the Head of BeEngaged. Bryce focuses on advancing innovation in our industry through BeEngaged, partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. His influence in and out of Berkadia, business acumen, and effective program leadership skills lead to remarkable outcomes for the organizations he works with. Startups that have gone through BeEngaged include Esusu, Propexo, Rabbet, Market Stadium, Symmetre, Reffie and Embue.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Amit Gupta is the CEO of Aeroseal, a cleantech leader revolutionizing building efficiency through patented sealing technologies. Under his leadership, Aeroseal has secured nearly $100 million in private equity funding, including backing from Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company has sealed 300,000 homes, enhanced performance in 500M+ square feet of commercial properties, and expanded to 90+ countries with a 1,500+ dealer network.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Mike Schneider is the CEO & Co-founder of Acre Homes. Acre combines the ease of renting with the financial upside of owning. Acre is available in Raleigh-Durham, and will be launching in Atlanta and Nashville soon. Previously, Mike served as the VP of Technology Strategy at RE/MAX, and Co-founded First, a real estate tech company that leveraged machine learning to help agents win more business.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Connie Lee is the Founder of Reffie, a centralized leasing platform designed to help Multifamily operators streamline their leasing processes and lease units faster. Reffie helps automate the 'boring', so real estate operators can focus on closing more renters. Before launching Reffie, she served as Strategy & Operations at Mosaic.tech and also managed Finance and Business Operations at ZipRecruiter. Connie is also a Real Estate investor in Los Angeles and an angel investor in various startups.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Brent Wadas is the CEO at BotBuilt, a Y-Combinator Construction technology company based in Durham, NC that is revolutionizing building homes with robots to address the labor shortage and housing affordability crisis. Brent served in the US Army in Afghanistan after 9/11, where he fulfilled his patriotic calling. BotBuilt employs a methodology that makes homebuilding less capital intensive, creating less waste and enabling a much more sustainable building process.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Don Tepman, known as StripMallGuy, is the founder of TownCentre Capital, a private equity firm focused on buying neighborhood strip centers across the United States. With over 20 years of retail real estate investing, he has completed over 45 acquisitions and raised more than $150M in LP capital, and has built one of commercial real estate's most followed voices on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram with over half a million followers.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Julius Nyanda is the Founder and CEO of HouseKeys, unlocking housing opportunity for cities, developers, homeowners, and renters. HouseKeys is a civic tech platform that helps local governments manage affordable and mixed-income housing programs across ownership, rental, and finance.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Zach Schofel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cosign, a data-driven guarantor platform helping property owners and managers boost economic occupancy while expanding housing options for renters. Cosign aims to redefine renter underwriting and help multifamily owners convert more demand into leases. He is also a Principal at Eastman Residential, the largest buyers of distress student housing in the country.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Ryan Frazier is the Co-founder and CEO at Arrived Homes, the Real Estate tech company that Jeff Bezos and Marc Benioff invested in to make the wealth building potential of owning rental homes & vacation rentals more accessible. Ryan and the Arrived team believe they can do that by simplifying the process, and lowering the cost to get started. With Arrived anyone can buy shares in income producing rental properties starting at just $100.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Caren Maio is the CEO and co-founder of 100, a Proptech company tackling rental fraud for Multifamily owners and operators. A staggering 93% of operators have experienced fraud in the last 12 months, and Caren and the 100 team are on a mission to stop it. Prior to this role, she led Moved, and co-founded and led Funnel (previously Nestio), a leasing and marketing platform for Multifamily properties, where she served as CEO and President for 11 years.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Eliot Brown is the co-author of The Cult of We (with Maureen Farrell), a WSJ best-selling book, and winner of the Financial Times, Fortune, and NPR Best Book of the Year Awards. Eliot covers startups and venture capital for The Wall Street Journal in London. He joined the Journal in 2010, when he was hired to cover commercial real estate in the wake of the financial crisis. He previously worked at the New York Observer, where he covered economic development and local politics.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Ross Piermarini is the co-founder of symmetRE, a Chicago-based proptech firm specializing in automating data aggregation and reporting for commercial real estate investors. Prior to founding symmetRE, Ross worked in the Leveraged Finance group at BMO Capital Markets, focusing on real estate clients. His firsthand experience with the challenges of manual data aggregation and reporting in the real estate sector motivated him to develop solutions that streamline these processes.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
Rowland Hobbs is CEO and co-founder of Stake, a fintech platform that rewards renters with cash back, working to make renting financially rewarding. Before Stake, he led design and innovation at Teneo and served as head of product design for Accenture North America, and he founded Post+Beam, an innovation design firm, and Linea, a computer vision driven photo sharing app. Rowland is based in Dallas, TX.
Tangent: Conversations with Real Estate & Tech Innovators
James Harris built his real estate career from scratch after relocating from the UK to Los Angeles. His latest venture is Breezy, an AI tool for real estate agents designed to reduce the administrative load that eats into most agents' days. Breezy recently raised a $10 million pre-seed round led by Ribbit Capital with participation from Fifth Wall, DST Global, and others.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Zach
Contact Zach, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack