Pierce Neinken · Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

Stop 01 · Winter Park, FL

Raised in the kingdom of the mouse.

Winter Park, Florida, with Disney in the backdrop. Which means I grew up watching what happens when someone takes hospitality, space, and experience seriously. Rollins College for political science and international business, then the MBA, then a one-way door into real estate.

Aerial view of Winter Park and Rollins College on the lake — Home. Rollins on the lake, Disney over the horizon.

Next stop · Washington, DC

Stop 02 · Washington, DC

The summer I fell for CRE.

A summer job with a property group in DC's Golden Triangle. Leasing, management, collecting estoppels, seeing a building from every angle. That was the moment it clicked: this industry is not about square footage. It is about the decisions space enables. Cost, talent, productivity, brand.

Next stop · Pine Hills

Stop 03 · Pine Hills, FL

Earned my stripes at "Crime Hills."

Retail leasing through the downturn. 600,000 square feet across Central and South Florida, including a Pine Hills shopping center with a nickname it fully earned. Nothing glamorous. Everything instructive. That is where I learned to negotiate hard markets.

Pine Hills Marketplace sign — Pine Hills Marketplace, in its full glory.

Souvenir

One bullet casing, picked up on a property tour. I still have it.

Next stop · Atlanta

Stop 04 · Atlanta, GA

Argus, underwriting, and a revelation.

Moved to Atlanta to learn investment underwriting. Argus taught me plenty about real estate. It taught me even more about what I did not want to do all day. The modeling habit stuck, though. Ask anyone who has seen my spreadsheets.

Next stop · San Francisco

Stop 05 · San Francisco, CA

Went west, toward the future.

About 15 years ago I moved to San Francisco, because that is where the future was being built. At CBRE: Head of Research, then Global Corporate Services, designing portfolio solutions for clients like Google, Cisco, HP, and Chevron.

Pierce at the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog — New in town. The bridge showed up for exactly none of it.

Next stop · Nights and weekends

Stop 06 · Still SF · Nights and weekends

20 startups in a room.

In 2013 nobody was connecting real estate and technology, so I started CRE // Tech on nights and weekends. First event: 20 tech companies in a room in San Francisco. It grew to five cities and 60+ companies, became the industry's premier tech event, and was acquired in 2017. I have been betting on technology reshaping this industry ever since.

Pierce on stage at CRE Tech Intersect NYC, 2015 — Intersect NYC, 2015. Talking proptech before it had the name.

The operating principle, then and now Sam Altman tweet: you can just do things

"He was like the kid in that Bruce Willis movie that said 'I see dead people.' What he saw coming was the explosion in CRE tech. That takes real vision."

Michael Beckerman · CEO, CREtech · the person who acquired it

Next stop · Everywhere

Stop 07 · Everywhere · Airbnb

My job was stickers on a global map.

Then Airbnb called. Eight years as Global Portfolio Manager, which means I was the client. We scaled the workplace from about 1,000 people to 6,500, and I made hypergrowth space decisions from the client side of the table: how much, how fast, where, and never paying for a year we did not need yet. Conference rooms were modeled on real listings, so a 2pm meeting felt like Paris or Bali.

The end-user years.

400+

Transactions

30+

Cities

20+

Countries

6,500

People, from 1,000

Next stop · Back to San Francisco

Stop 08 · San Francisco · 2023

A contrarian bet on San Francisco.

While the headlines wrote the city's obituary, Andrew Nicholls and I launched Resource, the first LGBT-owned CRE advisory firm, built around one idea: bring the end-user seat to the tenant side of the table. Home: the Mission. One of our core values is Power in Perspective, and it is not a talking point. We have sat inside large organizations, not just outside them.

"San Francisco is, and will continue to be, the global hub for innovation."

The launch press release, September 2023, mid "doom loop"

Keep going · Every seat in the industry

The unfair advantage

End user.Airbnb, eight years on the client side of the table
Service provider.CBRE then Resource
Founder.CRE // Tech, and now a firm of my own
Advisor.Proptech startups Spacebase and Trebellar
Operator.Events, communities, a global portfolio
Builder.Ten Habitat for Humanity homes, start to finish

I have sat in every seat in this industry. That is the lens every client gets.

Keep going · Year three

The present day · Resource · Year three

I love working with exceptional founders.

Resource is now in year three, and the thesis is holding. We are a tenant-only advisory firm built for the people building what is next: technology and AI founders making big space decisions at founder speed. Everything I collected on that map, the end-user seat, the research desk, the global portfolio, the community, exists to support them.

They bet on what's next for a living. So do we.

The Resource team — The team behind your search.

Year 3

Of the contrarian bet

100%

Tenant side, always

575 Market

Home base, San Francisco

Keep going · Your search

The practice · Resource Commercial Real Estate

Every search runs on everything on that map.

The end-user years, the research desk, the negotiating scars, and an AI operating system that works while I sleep, all pointed at one question: where does your company work next, and on what terms.

Scanned, screened, and ranked by the system. Toured by humans.

Keep going · The through line

The through line

Connecting people, space & opportunities.

Somewhere along the way, through the events, the global portfolio, the startups, and the firm, I found the thing that gives me energy every single day.

Keep going · One last thing

What excites me most? The people betting on what's next.

Let's find your next stop.

Say hello: pierce@yourresource.com · yourresource.com

P.S. This site was researched, designed, and built by my AI operating system.