Industry leadership compounds these structural problems through backgrounds and mindsets that emphasize relationships over systems. Incumbents are led by sales or finance professionals who rely on hiring and firing as their primary operational levers. When facing competitive pressure, their instinctive response involves adding salespeople or cutting costs rather than improving fundamental processes or leveraging technology for competitive advantage.

Technology integration remains poor because organizational structures don't support it. Sales-driven cultures prioritize immediate revenue over long-term systems building. Finance-driven cultures focus on cost management rather than value creation. Neither develops the technical capabilities or product thinking necessary for systematic innovation. The result is persistent technology debt and operational inefficiencies that compound over time.

The failure of tech IPOs like Compass and Better has emboldened industry resistance to innovation rather than prompting reflection on implementation approaches. These failures reinforced existing beliefs that technology cannot improve real estate economics, despite evidence that both companies failed due to scaling traditional business models rather than creating new ones. The industry interpreted these failures as validation of existing approaches rather than lessons about execution.

Career risk in the industry comes not from inefficiency but from regulatory entanglement, so leaders avoid changes that might attract scrutiny. The complex regulatory environment rewards compliance over innovation, creating incentives for maintaining existing processes rather than developing improvements. This regulatory capture ensures that even well-intentioned leaders face systematic barriers to meaningful change.