How Compass used technology to chart its course to the top

In 2017, Kyle Talbott and his wife Karen Talbott, who make up the Corcoran-brokered Talbott Team, were considering a move to Compass, after talk about the then 5-year-old brokerage’s technology had caught their attention.“We had a preview of the system that Compass started putting together back then, and we were both really impressed,” Kyle Talbott said.Fast forward nearly a decade later, and while the Talbotts ultimately chose to stay with Corcoran back in 2017, they now have access to Compass’s technology, known as the Home Platform, thanks to the Robert Reffkin-helmed firm’s $1.6 billion acquisition of Corcoran’s parent company Anywhere Real Estate earlier this year. “At Corcoran, we now [can] access to this system that I know has gone through multiple iterations and had the kinks worked out,” Kyle Talbott said. “Using it, it just feels right — like when you get to sit in a luxury vehicle with nice leather seats and everything is ergonomically correct and it does all the things you were hoping for and then some others that are an added bonus.” The Talbotts’ experience reflects a much larger shift taking place inside Compass. After spending more than a decade and billions of doll...