Fascinated by the history of one of the greatest changes to ever impact the real estate industry, Dr. Adam Gower conducted a series of conversations with dozens of people involved with the conception, development, passing, and implementation of the JOBS Act of 2012.

He spoke to advocates, lobbyists, politicians, staffers, real estate professionals, tech wizards, investors, developers, lawyers and dozens more.

In Leaders of the Crowd Adam recounts the stories of a baker's dozen of these leaders, those who were either the most influential or first to pick up the mantle of change and run with it.

In the introduction to the book, he contextualizes the stories that follow by discussing the background to the changes to the law and how real estate was to become the great beneficiary of the JOBS Act despite never having played a role in its formation.

Chapter 2 tells the story of the insights of David Weild IV, co-chairman at Nasdaq when the JOBS Act was conceived, and how he came to realize that small and mid-cap companies needed greater access to capital - and how he famously became known as the "Father of the JOBS Act."

https://www.weildco.com/

David is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Weild & Co.   The studies that he co-authored have documented the long-term decline in equity capital formation in the United States and provided the core arguments that gave rise to the JOBS Act and many of the specific provisions contained in the JOBS Act.   For these reasons, he has been called “The father of the JOBS Act.”  David has also called for a “JOBS Act 2” or “JOBS Act Part 2”  -  language increasingly heard on Capitol Hill.  The work has been cited by a broad range of legislators, regulators, academics, the IPO Task Force and the White House Jobs Council leading up to the JOBS Act.  David has testified in Congress (most recently in June 2013) and at the SEC (most recently at the Roundtable on Decimalization) on these and other market issues and attended the signing of the JOBS Act by President Obama in the Rose Garden on April 5, 2012.

​David was also recently asked to author a study for the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was entitled, “Making Stock Markets Work to Support Economic Growth” and presented in April 2013 in draft form to the 35 member nations of the OECD, IOSCO and the European Commission.  The U.S. Treasury and SEC were in attendance.   He later presented the final version at a meeting in June that included the CEO of the World Federation of Exchanges where it was generally agreed, as Weild and Kim have maintained,  that structural changes to stock markets have caused  the global decline in capital formation for small companies.

David is a former Vice Chairman and executive committee member of The NASDAQ Stock Market and spent years running Wall Street investment banking and equity capital markets businesses.

David holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business and a BA from Wesleyan University. He studied on exchange at The Sorbonne, Ecole des Haute Etudes Commerciales and The Stockholm School of Economics.   He is also Chairman of the Board of Tuesday’s Children, the 9/11 charity.

Chapter 3 relates how Jenny Kassan, who was working at the Sustainable Economies Law Center at the time, took the initiative to write a single letter to the right person at the right time and how it had profound implications for the financing of America.

http://www.jennykassan.com/

Jenny has over two decades of experience as an attorney and advisor for mission-driven enterprises.  She has helped her clients raise millions of dollars from values-aligned investors and raised over $1 million for her own businesses.  Jenny is certified as a coach by the International Association of Women in Coaching.

She is the author of Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business without Selling Your Soul(Berrett-Koehler, October 2017).

Jenny earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley.

She served on the Securities and Exchange Commission Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. She submitted the petition to the SEC that led to the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act and was present at the White House signing ceremony.

Jenny is also a fellow at Democracy Collaborative and the co-founder of the Force for Good Fund.

Before becoming a securities lawyer, Jenny worked for eleven years at a nonprofit community development corporation in Oakland, where she served as staff attorney and managed community economic development projects including the formation and management of several social ventures designed to employ and create business ownership opportunities for low-income community residents.

Jenny is the President of Community Ventures, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the economic and social development of communities. She also co-founded the Sustainable Economies Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal information to support sustainable economies.

Jenny served as a director of Berrett-Koehler Publishers.  She is a member of the Content Advisory Panel of Conscious Company Magazine and serves on the advisory boards of Lioness Magazine and Investibule.

Chapter 4 recounts the adventures of the indomitable Sherwood "Woodie" Neiss, who simply could not believe what his lawyers told him, and decided to find a solution that everyone said was impossible.

http://crowdfundcapitaladvisors.com/

Sherwood Neiss, is a Principal at Crowdfund Capital Advisors and a Partner at Crowd Capital Ventures. He is an expert at building successful businesses. As a 3-time INC500 winner whose former company won E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Sherwood understands the keys to entrepreneurial success from concept to company to sale.

As a serial entrepreneur and investor during the credit crunch, Sherwood saw a need for a change in outdated securities laws and did something about it—as a co-founding member of Startup Exemption, Sherwood co-authored the Crowdfunding Framework used in the JOBS Act that was signed into law by President Obama on April 5, 2012.

Within Crowdfund Capital Advisors (CCA), Sherwood works with clients ranging from governments and banks that are looking for ways to boost economic development in their countries to investment firms looking for access to increased deal flow that crowdfunding creates. At Crowd Capital Ventures (CCVF), Sherwood researches, analyses and invests in promising FinTech companies focusing on all sectors of the crowdfunding market. Sherwood serves as an advisor to several crowdfunding platforms and crowdfunding technologies giving him a unique understanding and view of the industry and market. As an industry leader, Sherwood contributes to several publications including VentureBeat and TechCrunch. He additionally co-authored Crowdfund Investing for Dummies through Wiley & Son’s as well as the World Bank Report Crowdfunding’s Potential for the Developing World.

Sherwood co-founded Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA) and the Crowdfunding Professional Association (CPA), and served as Governing Board Member and co-chair where he led the fight to ensure investors are protected while entrepreneurs have access to the capital they need to start and grow promising companies.

An avid public speaker, Sherwood speaks at universities and seminars around the world discussing crowdfund investing, what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how to build winning companies. He also does a large amount of work presenting to government bodies, speaking in front of the U.S. Congress, leading SEC and FINRA meetings, as well as, addressing foreign governments—testifying about how they can bring economic benefits to their citizenry through implementing their CCA’s Crowdfund Investment Framework.

Sherwood started his post-MBA career on Wall Street and moved to Silicon Valley where he completed personal and financial goals in his late 20’s he hoped to obtain in his 30’s. Wondering what to do next and also left struggling with a debilitating family dilemma, he used his entrepreneurial drive to help turn his family adversity into a multi-million-dollar company that today is helping millions of sick children, animals and adults get better by being more compliant with their medicines.

As the co-founder of FLAVORx (www.flavorx.com), Sherwood structured an approach and built a business model that threw off millions of dollars in cash while growing the business from one pharmacy to over 80% of the pharmacies in the United States. He raised millions of dollars in capital and saw the culmination of his endeavors with the sale of the company in 2007.

When not working, Sherwood is an avid traveler. He lived in Japan for a year and post-sale of FLAVORx took his second backpacking trip around the world. In addition to speaking at universities and businesses around the country he invests in real estate in the U.S. and Brazil, is part of a private equity group in Los Angeles, is working on a clean tech project in Puerto Rico and is involved with several other start-up ventures.

In Chapter 5, through the experiences of Dina Ellis Rochkind you will dive into the inner workings of how it is the staff of the politicians in our capital who get the work done and how they interact and manage the processes of government together with the politicians who employ them.  Dina was working for Senator Pat Toomey during the negotiations that led to the JOBS Act and was the lead staffer in the senate who pulled the whole thing together.

http://www.paulhastings.com/professionals/details/dinaellis

Dina Ellis Rochkind is Of Counsel in the Paul Hastings Government Affairs practice and is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. Her practice focuses on representing clients before Members of Congress on Capitol Hill and the Executive Branch. Ms. Rochkind represents clients in matters involving regulatory initiatives, policymaking and legislation, and enforcement actions. Ms. Rochkind's legislative experience allows her to advise her clients on the latest client initiatives, from starting a business to crowdsourcing; bitcoin ($bitcoin) and ICOs; and blockchain technologies.

Ms. Rochkind has over 20 years of experience on Capitol Hill, lobbying, and working for the Executive Branch. Prior to joining Paul Hastings, she served as Washington Director in the office of Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO). Other Capitol Hill experience includes serving as senior staff for various Congressional Committees and for Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA). Ms. Rochkind also served in the George W. Bush Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department. She has been involved in drafting major pieces of legislation over the last two decades, including: the 2005 bankruptcy reform legislation, the FACT Act, E-Sign, Check 21, Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and, most recently, the comprehensive and bipartisan JOBS Act, for which she was the lead staffer in the Senate.

Ms. Rochkind has worked across party lines on both sides of the aisle to achieve key legislative successes and has a reputation for “getting things done” in Washington. She is also experienced in crisis management. During the auto industry crisis, Ms. Rochkind led the lobby to rescue Chrysler and handled the consequences and fallout from its bankruptcy. She has led legislative advocacy on behalf of major corporate entities and advised congressional leaders on issues such as banking, bankruptcy, insurance, other financial services, and economic development.

Prior to leading Rep. Coffman’s office, Ms. Rochkind served as Vice President of Federal Government Affairs for a leading mortgage lending company.

Admitted only in Pennsylvania. Application for admission in the District of Columbia filed. Practice supervised by members of the District of Columbia Bar.

In Chapter 6 you will meet Andy Green who was working for Senator Jeff Merkley at the time the JOBS Act was passed and who went on to write the laws at the SEC.

https://www.americanprogress.org/

Managing Director, Economic Policy

View bio on CAP Action

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Expertise: Financial markets, trade, federal budget, economy

Andy Green is the managing director of Economic Policy at American Progress. He writes and speaks about financial markets and regulation; corporate governance and competition; international trade; and the economy and middle class. Green was editor of “Raising Wages and Rebuilding Wealth: A Roadmap for Middle-Class Economic Security,” a wide-ranging CAP report on causes and solutions to the wages and wealth squeeze on middle-class America. He writes regularly on financial regulation, including the Volcker rule, and has co-authored prominent CAP reports on the relationship between corporate long-termism and workforce training and on how to revitalize competition policy. He has appeared on CNN, Fox Business News, Bloomberg TV, C-SPAN, and a range of radio talk shows, and he has testified before Congress.

Prior to joining American Progress, he served as counsel to Kara Stein, commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Prior to joining the SEC in 2014, Green served as counsel to U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and staff director of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Economic Policy. He participated in the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 and was the lead staff member for the Merkley-Levin amendment, which added the Volcker rule into the law. He also participated in the passage of the JOBS Act as the lead staff member of the Merkley-Brown-Bennet amendment, which authored the law’s crowdfunding provisions.

Prior to joining Sen. Merkley’s office in early 2009, Green practiced corporate law at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Green holds a B.A. in government and an M.A. in East Asian regional studies from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Green also serves as a member of the board of directors of the Junior State of America Foundation, which supports nonpartisan year-round and summer leadership programs for high school students who are interested in politics and government.

In Chapter 7 we trundle over to The White House where Doug Rand was working pre-JOBS Act and where he was  tasked with figuring out what people wanted during the height of the recession of 2008-2009 by way of re-introducing liquidity back into the economy. What he discovered was that 'crowdfunding' was what everyone wanted, and so Doug helped guide those most determined to see it pass into law through the labyrinthine processes of government.

https://www.boundless.com/

Doug is the President and Co-Founder of Boundless, a technology company that empowers families to navigate the immigration system more confidently, rapidly, and affordably. He served in the Obama White House for over six years as Assistant Director for Entrepreneurship in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where his portfolio included inclusive high-growth entrepreneurship, access to capital, clean energy innovation, commercialization of federally funded research, and high-skill immigration. Doug was co-founder and CEO of the innovative publishing company Playscripts, Inc., as well as a co-founder of the theater review aggregator StageGrade. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management, and received Master’s and undergraduate degrees from Harvard, where he studied evolutionary biology. As a writer, Doug’s plays have been performed thousands of times worldwide.

Chapter 8 uncovers Harold Hofer who could be the first person to actively attempt to crowdfund a deal - way before the JOBS Act was passed.  Harold started with a platform in Texas, shelved it during the Great Recession, and then dusted the plan off again when he realized that the time had come to bring real estate to everyone.

https://www.richuncles.com/

Chief Executive Officer

Uncle Harold is responsible for the overall direction of Rich Uncles, including real estate, finance, and legal.

Harold is a seasoned real estate expert with $2 billion in transactional experience. He is a graduate of the UCLA School of Law.

Over the past 30 years Harold has sponsored numerous real estate funds for individual investors in the form of Limited Partnerships, Limited Liability Companies, and Real Estate Investment Trusts. It was long before Crowdfunding was in vogue that Harold began helping wealthy investors enjoy the kind of opportunities Rich Uncles offers you today.

Harold’s sunrise surf sessions set a positive tone for the rest of his day.

Ben Miller, in Chapter 9, was also one who attempted, and succeeded in some measure, to crowdfund a deal before the JOBS Act was passed.  He even filed a patent that memorializes his vision. His company, Fundrise, has since become one of the dominant forces in the industry.

https://fundrise.com/

Ben is Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise. Ben’s responsibilities cover partnerships, real estate investment oversight, day-to-day management, and corporate finance, as well as setting the long-term strategy and goals for the company.

With over 19 years of experience, Ben acquired, developed, and financed more than $500 million of property in his time as Managing Partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corporation, a major mixed-use development company in Washington, D.C with more than 3 million square feet under management.

Ben began his career as an analyst for Lubert-Adler, a private equity real estate fund. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he sits on the board of National Center for Children and Families.

Chapter 10 recounts the story and vision of Nav Athwal who wanted more capital for his own deals, founded RealtyShares, raised $60+ million from venture capital companies before stepping down from the CEO role at the company, and then, sadly, sat back and watched as the company collapsed.  His story in this book is one of leadership and determination.

I'm Co-Founder and CEO at District. Prior to District, I was the Founder and former CEO of RealtyShares, a curated marketplace connecting real estate developers and operators with investors across the country. Before starting RealtyShares, I was a real estate and land use attorney at San Francisco based law firm Farella Braun & Martel, LLP.  There I represented REIT's, Fund Managers, Nonprofits and real estate developers on some of the largest real estate and renewable energy projects across the country. I broadly cover technology and its impact on real estate. In addition to real estate, my passions including agriculture, inclusionary finance and building software to create efficiency for large inefficient markets. You can follow me on Twitter @navathwal

In Chapter 11 I decided to take a look at someone ostensibly from outside either the real estate or tech industries, but whose perspective defines the reason these two industries have merged:  The Investor represented by Ian Ippolito.

https://www.therealestatecrowdfundingreview.com/

Ian Ippolito is an American serial entrepreneur and the founder of numerous tech companies. He is best known as the founder of vWorker (formerly called Rent a Coder), an online portal for outsourcing computer virtual work projects. vWorker was purchased by Freelancer.com in 2013 for an undisclosed price in the millions of dollars. Ippolito is also the founder of the first open-source website (Planet Source Code) and a financial investment site called The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review.^[2] As an entrepreneur, he has been featured in and provided commentary for numerous publications and media outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, as well as Fox and CBS News.

Jilliene Helman's genius, described in Chapter 12, is that she realized that there was an opportunity to ride a wave of visibility and publicity around a new industry, rather than simply by taking advantage of new laws.  Jilliene, more than anyone else, realized that what the JOBS Act created was a marketing opportunity, and her company RealtyMogul is testimony to how right she was.

https://www.realtymogul.com/

Ms. Jilliene Helman is a Co-Founder of Realty Mogul, Co. and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Helman serves as the Chief Executive Officer at Realty Mogul 3, LLC. Ms. Helman served as Vice President at Union Bank, where she spent time in Wealth Management, Finance and Risk Management. She has real estate and finance experience and is incredibly excited to share real estate investing with a broader group of investors. She has a passion for travel and has lived in five countries and speaks three languages. She holds a degree in Business from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Ms. Helman is a Certified Wealth Strategist® and holds a Series 63 license.

Jason Fritton's story in Chapter 13 is that of the only non-real estate entrepreneur to see an opportunity to change the way that real estate gets financed.  He too was working on his plan before the JOBS Act was passed and his inspiration came from partnering with a real estate veteran to build Patch of Land.

https://patchofland.com/

Jason is responsible for setting Patch of Land's vision and leading the team's efforts to accomplish the company's mission of building wealth and growing communities.  Jason launched Patch of Land when the SEC implemented Title II of the JOBS Act in 2013 based on his vision to evolve real estate financing to be tech-enabled, data-decisioned, and easily accessible to a marketplace of borrowers and investors.

Jason has decades of experience managing and growing startup companies  Prior to Patch of Land Jason founded and developed a telecommunications design and procurement firm active in the public sector.  Previously he served as Director of Digital Marketing for a national retailer.  Additionally he founded and developed several technology-based startups including StartingLine Networks, Tech@Cost, and Virtual Realities.  Jason studied biology at Cornell College.

Eve Picker is the only true real estate Crowdfunder because she was the first person to form a Regulation Crowdfunding portal and bring real estate investments to everyone (over the age of 18).  She story wraps up the book in Chapter 14.

https://www.smallchange.com/

I’m the founder of Small Change, a real estate equity crowdfunding platform. We raise funds for meaningful real estate projects that make cities better. Like Kickstarter for real estate—but with a return. We match developers to investors, providing investment opportunities for everyone who cares about cities and wants to make change.

My world has always been wrapped around cities and change. My background as an architect, city planner, urban designer, real estate developer, community development strategist, publisher, and instigator give me a rich understanding of how cities work, how urban neighborhoods can be revitalized, what policies are needed to do it, and the unique marketing that creates the buzz needed for regeneration.

Amongst my many urban (ad)ventures, I’ve developed a dozen buildings in blighted neighborhoods (through my companies no wall productions and we do property management), founded a non-profit called cityLAB and built Pittsburgh’s first tiny house, organized a speaker series, launched a Pittsburgh e-zine called Pop City, and established downtown Pittsburgh’s firstco-working space.

Over the last few years I’ve participated in a series of SDATs for the American Institute of Architects in cities as diverse as Los Angeles and Springfield, helping to set a strategic course for housing development and urban design for downtowns in trouble. And I strategized about how to encourage residential development in downtown Pittsburgh’s vacant upper floors. And I’ve taught urban design at Carnegie Mellon University’s Urban Lab. My students have created amazing urban visions like these.

To find out more about me, watch my TEDx talk about bottom-up development, or simply search.

In the conclusion to Leaders of the Crowd, Adam Gower shares some insights and predictions of his own about where the industry is headed.  There is little doubt that the changes brought to real estate are among the most profound ever to effect the industry.  However, there are tremendous risks inherent in a system where deregulation has permitted sophisticated individuals to sell securities to those with little or no knowledge of what they are getting into.

Dr. Gower predicts that other platforms will fail as did RealtyShares and that there will be mass losses when the cycle turns down and developers start losing deals to their lenders.  At that time investors will suffer the consequences of their excessive exuberance and lack of knowledge, the industry will self correct, and a new set of leaders will emerge, stronger, brighter, and more resilient than the pioneers.