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Robert Reffkin

Biography

Robert Reffkin

Robert Reffkin is a husband, a father, and the founder and CEO of Compass, a real estate technology company that is now the largest independent brokerage in America, having helped clients buy or sell homes worth more than a quarter-trillion dollars since its founding. Reffkin graduated from Columbia in two and a half years, earned an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and worked at McKinsey, Lazard and Goldman Sachs. He ran 50 marathons, one in each U.S. state, to raise $1 million for charities --- including for America Needs You, the nonprofit he founded to serve young people living below the poverty line who are the first in their families to go to college. 

Robert Reffkin

Books by Robert Reffkin

by Robert Reffkin - Nonfiction, Personal Growth, Self-Help

No one expected a 15-year-old Black kid with dreadlocks who cared more about his DJ business than his homework to become the youngest-ever White House fellow, run 50 marathons and cofound a multibillion-dollar company. But Robert Reffkin, raised by an Israeli immigrant single mother after his father abandoned him and his maternal grandparents disowned him, has always defied the odds. As CEO of Compass, America’s largest independent real estate brokerage, Reffkin distills the wisdom he’s gathered from his mother and his 100+ mentors throughout his journey. Each chapter offers a part of his life story and an actionable lesson, such as: “Love your customers more than your ideas.” “Dream out your future on paper --- then tear the paper up.” And “Adapt like water and you’ll be unstoppable.”