Zillow and Hotwire founder Spencer Rascoff led his startups through major crises to massive profits

Spencer Rascoff knows a lot about running a company during a crisis.

He's the CEO of Zillow, which he ran through the housing crash. That was after he ran Hotwire, which survived the dot com crash only to learn it sold plane tickets to the 9/11 hijackers.

"There's the shadow of this weird connection to the actual tragedy itself, and then from a business standpoint, basically nobody traveled for like six months," Rascoff said on Business Insider's podcast, "Success! How I Did It." "And so it was a very difficult time and we had significant layoffs."

Through personal and professional tragedies, Rascoff and his companies bounced back. Zillow now has a market cap that exceeds $5 billion. On this episode, Rascoff tells how he did it. Plus, he tells what Uber's new CEO is like (they worked together twice), and what it was like touring with rock bands as a kid.

You can find the full interview transcript here. 

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, or your favorite app. Check out previous episodes with:

• Lyft president John Zimmer
• Celebrity chef Jose Andres
• Life coach Tony Robbins
• Hearst Magazines CCO Joanna Coles
• And a "Master Class" episode of advice from our guests