Diane Yu On Selling A Company To Comcast For ~$400 Million And Now Building A Platform To Revolutionize The Mortgage Industry

In this engaging interview, Diane Yu, a repeated founder and highly successful entrepreneur, offers valuable insights into her extraordinary journey from a young graduate to a leading force in the technology and finance sectors.

From her early days at DoubleClick to her role in building FreeWheel, which Comcast acquired for about $400M, and now her current venture, TidalWave, Diane has consistently focused on innovation, learning, and building strong relationships.

TidalWave has attracted funding from top-tier investors like RevTech Labs Capital.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Diane Yu’s journey from China to the U.S. began with a promise to explore opportunities outside her homeland, leading her to a successful career in tech.
• Building long-term relationships and loyalty with investors and team members has been a cornerstone of Diane’s success across multiple ventures.
• Diane’s experience at DoubleClick taught her the value of constant learning, team-building, and staying motivated through personal and professional growth.
• As a founder of FreeWheel, she helped build a major B2B video monetization platform, eventually leading to Comcast’s $400M acquisition.
• Diane stayed with Comcast for seven years after the acquisition, driven by the opportunity to learn and restructure multiple platforms across acquired companies.
• Diane founded TidalWave to solve inefficiencies in the mortgage origination process, combining technology with industry expertise to create a better customer and lender experience.
• Carefully selecting team members and investors based on trust and long-term relationships has been critical to Diane’s leadership and entrepreneurial strategy.

 

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About Diane Yu:

Diane Yu is the co-founder & CEO of TidalWave.AI. TidalWave is on a mission to build a self-serving loan origination platform to take automation to an unprecedented level.

TidalWave’s end-to-end platform supports consumers through their loan journey from application to closing with a GPT-powered chatbot backed by a fully automated proprietary mortgage engine. It enables loan origination at a true elastic scale without human involvement.

Before TidalWave, Diane Yu was the chief technology officer for Better, a digital mortgage company, from January 2021 to April 2022.

At Better, Diane Yu led the company’s platform and technology strategy and was responsible for upscaling the engineering teams and the purposely built platform, driving toward a mission to create innovative solutions, making homeownership faster and simpler with superior customer service along the way.

In this capacity, she worked closely with the founder, board members, and the rest of the executive team. Diane defined the company growth and transformation strategy and implemented and deployed tech solutions, leading the path via tech innovation.

Prior to that, Diane Yu served as the chief technology officer for Comcast Advertising and the co-founder of FreeWheel, A Comcast Company.

In this capacity, Diane led the architecture and operation of FreeWheel’s video monetization platform, overseeing a global engineering team spanning the Americas, Europe, and China.

Diane also oversaw the engineering operations and complete lifecycle product development and led organizational and high-level technical architecture design.

Diane came to Comcast by acquiring the company she co-founded, FreeWheel. As co-founder and CTO of FreeWheel, she built and evolved the company’s research and development hubs from the ground up, architected and created what was known as the most advanced ad-tech platform purposely designed and built for premium TV in the industry, serving global media conglomerates for their most complex and advanced advertising needs.

Diane has been a vocal champion for female leadership. With years of continuous efforts and determination, she has created a team comprising 30% female engineers, reflecting Diane’s commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Formerly with DoubleClick/Google, Diane played a critical role in architecting and managing the development of the company’s advertising product suite, including DART ad serving and big data processing, Motif/Rich Media, Advertiser (DFA) and Search Performics, while leading engineering teams across DoubleClick’s global offices.

Diane is a frequent honoree by Cablefax as one of its “Most Powerful Women” and “Most Influential Minorities” in the media industry, was named 2021 working mothers of the year by She Runs It.

Diane serves on the board of directors for Magnite (Nasdaq: MGNI) since March 2022.

Connect with Diane Yu:

• LinkedIn
• RocketReach
• Crunchbase
• Magnite

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All righty. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Dealmaker Show. So today we have a really amazing founder, a repeated founder. I’m very successful, you know a repeated founder. The last say company that she did actually was acquired by Comcast for none other than 400 million plus. So let that sink in. So today, say basically, to this conversation, we’re going to be talking about how to think about investors, how to also build that loyalty and that relationship with the investors.

Alejandro Cremades: Also, how to think about your day based on what you’re going to be able to learn throughout such day. And then also ah how to think about talent, how to think about retaining talent, creating that loyalty so that it can come with you on other journeys ah and all of the good stuff around building, scaling, financing, and beyond.

Diane Yu: right

Alejandro Cremades: So without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Diane Yu. Welcome to the show.

Diane Yu: Thank you so much, Alejandra. It’s my pleasure to be on the show.

Alejandro Cremades: So originally born in China, so give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up for you?

Diane Yu: It was very different, um but also, and I was born in a major city, so I always loved the major city, and I came to the state to for graduate study, and after that, I was so fortunate to have a ah job offered by DoubleClick. That’s how I started my career here.

Alejandro Cremades: So, tell us about you know how it was coming to the U.S. Because, saying obviously, you know you came here for the graduate studies, and then it was double-clicked. But I guess, why coming to the U.S.? what what what What was it about the U.S. that got you excited?

Diane Yu: It started from a promise I made to my dad. My dad wanted me to take a look at what’s outside of China but could be looking like. So that’s how I started. and So I made a promise. I hold my promise. I was hoping I could finish my two years of graduate study just going back to China, start my own company, because I have my track at the time, like an early entrepreneurship. um And then after I graduate,

Diane Yu: I was offered a different type of opportunity. And I said, that you know what? I’m going to try and see how it looks like to live in a different country. Fast forward like 20 years. I’m still here. I’m flying between the two ah two countries.

Alejandro Cremades: Now, in your case, you ended up, pay after getting the degree ah team at at the university, you went to DoubleClick. How did the opportunity of DoubleClick come about? Because I remember DoubleClick was one of those first companies in the startup venture ecosystem that was starting to develop, too, in New York City.

Alejandro Cremades: It was a different life, different venture experience, different everything. i mean know You see after that nowadays, you know you see venture capital all over the place in New York City, but back then it was really non-existent. So how was the opportunity of DoubleClick? How did it come knocking to you?

Diane Yu: So it started from a story, too. um I was really just coming to the city for ah to meet up with a good friend. And then the recruiter called me saying, hey, you’re in the city. Why don’t you come to our office? um I met a whole bunch of people at DoubleClick office.

Diane Yu: The very last person I met was the VP of engineering at the time. His name is John Heider. I still remember him vividly. So after the conversation, he said, Diane, I feel so great about this conversation. i’m I am going to send you an offer later. So once I got back to the school,

Diane Yu: Not only he sent me an offer letter, he also sent me a basket with a card that he wrote himself. He said, Diane, I wish your next dream going to become and join work for us at DoubleClick. And we start lighter. you know Nobody writes you lighter. you know As a student, young students know nothing about the career.

Diane Yu: a VP of engineering, write to you a personal card and with an offer letter. And I was so touched by how he tried to recruit Thailand. So I call him right after that and say, I’ll be there. um That was the reason, you know? And then I learned from him as my first career license that if you treat people fairly and you treat them with true how you feel, and they’re gonna follow you. So I followed him.

Diane Yu: you know, out of school. And now I do the same when I try to reach out to recruit talent.

Alejandro Cremades: So how was it like that experience? Because a double-click, you lasted. I mean, you’re you’re one of a kind, too. You you see you you seem you know out of your career where you’ve stayed in places, you know even after an acquisition for many years, as a very loyal person. And te that is very hard to come by. With a double-click, you were all the way towards the acquisition there, ah you were there actually for close to a decade. so What do you think kept you there holding on? you know What was that and and what is typically the way that you see things in that future that you’re living into, you know perhaps you know in this case with DoubleClick, and how was scaling through the ranks all the way to making it to the VP of Engineering and going through the acquisition too?

Diane Yu: Yeah, that was an excellent question, Alejandro. So I always view myself as how much I learn. So at DoubleClick, nine years, I started as an engineer. When I left, I run the engineering team. And every year, I pretty much got a totally different job, a different opportunity. Over the nine years, I went through 11 teams.

Diane Yu: and they keep on increasing learning about different team, learning about different opportunity. That’s what kept me so interested in solving the problem at DoubleClick. It’s not about the job. It’s about how much you come and, you know, every day and how much you learn. You go home, feel so excited.

Diane Yu: about knowing something that you didn’t know at the start of the day. um And then that’s for me, that’s super important. Especially for a lot of engineer, I later on had the opportunity in my career to get to know. It’s super important for them too. If you build a learning environment, if everybody come and then, in you know, in the morning you start, you go home, you’re learning something that you didn’t know. And then that keeps the individual, keeps the team motivated.

Alejandro Cremades: So how was it like going through that acquisition tool with say Google?

Diane Yu: So um as part of the team that post acquisition with Google, I sat there you know for my personal journey. I sat there thinking, um what’s the rest of my career I want to be? ah Do I want to stay at a large company being an engineering exec? Or do I want to do something different? This is when I sit here and and thinking about and debating the choices that I have in my life. And I always opt for.

Diane Yu: to learn more. That’s when I left, started my own company with my two other partners as a co-founder and a CTO. And then in hindsight, the search list is the right choice. But at the time, I remember my good friend, co-founder and a CTO, Dwight Merriman, ah in not told me, what are you thinking, Diane? You’re golden handcuffed. You shouldn’t leave.

Diane Yu: I didn’t listen on him and then I still break the golden handcuff and I chose to dive into something that I’ve never done before and taking myself out of the comfortable zone, um which become a very different person and I think have different life journey and different experience um make me very different now.

Diane Yu: Um, and then do I even later on, he, um, he agreed and, and by the way, he invested in my second company. Uh, so we’re a very good friend, you know, uh, things back to the double connect days.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing. so So let’s talk about freewheel, which was a phenomenal success. um how was the um what what What was the business model there with freewheel?

Diane Yu: this Um, free will is a large B2B video monetization platform. So we’re building the platform on as an exchange, connecting buyer and a seller. And our powerful platform enabled global media companies to utilizing our platform capability um and creating video monetization and the collecting the eidle advertisement and a deliver to the audience for based on where they want to see and watch the video.

Diane Yu: um So when we started, we never expected that we’re going to get this many customer, especially large global media companies. And um and then just journey just went down from there.

Alejandro Cremades: So then let’s talk about the free wheel because I mean, that was almost seven years, you know, packed of action. So um I guess first a rodeo to us, a founder. At what point did you know, hey, I think we’re going to be all right here. We’re going to be OK. We’re going to be doing some really good stuff because being the first time around to that uncertainty, I’m sure it was it was tough.

Diane Yu: So when we start to sign up, customer, we didn’t anticipate we’re going to sign up. So for example, in the early days, we have YouTube as the partner. I was like, really? OK, we’re going to get YouTube as the the partner. know on And then I also remember one day um my co-founder and partner, Doug, was saying, you know what? We reach we reached million in annual revenue.

Diane Yu: that means that we’re doing really we’re doing something right here and we’re onto a solid business and with a solid solution that getting customer. That struck me so much that I just remember you know when I think about solving, creating a problem, ah sorry, when I think about creating a solution for a big problem,

Diane Yu: I always think about, well, number one, how big the problem that we’re solving for, and do you have a solution that can quit value? And bring that back to tidal wave. um The reason I’m so passionate you know as a second-time founder, the reason I’m so passionate about starting tidal wave is I spot a big problem, a big problem for mortgage origination.

Diane Yu: and hyra I’m not sure whether you’ve done, you’ve you know applied any mortgage. And then today, as a first time borrower, when you think about buying a house, ah most of the American families, they need to apply for a mortgage.

Diane Yu: When you’re applying for a mortgage and you send the loan officer a whole bunch of information, you feel like you’re in your entire financial history and sending them with all the document. And then you keep your fingers crossed. You don’t know what happened. There was no transparency. And until maybe 30, 45 days later,

Diane Yu: you got a ah you know a note back saying either you’re a proof or rejected you know what this is the lifetime purchase the biggest purchase of your lifetime and

Alejandro Cremades: and We’re going to be diving into into tidal wave you know in in in detail. Now, before diving into tidal wave, I want to close the loop here on freewheel, because freewheel was a ah really pivotal experience. The freewheel journey culminated with an acquisition by Comcast for over $400 million. dollars I mean, who would have thought when you came to the US that you were going to be part of a team that will build such a tremendous amount of value. How was going through that acquisition you know journey for for you guys?

Diane Yu: So that was a really good question. When we thought about building a company, we were really focusing on building a solution for a problem. So we were not thinking about exit strategy. And then the opportunity came, we were pitching Comcast as a customer.

Diane Yu: The conversation went deeper and deeper. They were saying, hey, you know what? Why don’t you think about this? um When the three of us sat at a table, we think about how we want to take our company to the next step. One of the key criteria here is as to how to take this platform and enable that to be even broadly distributed to more customers. And Comcast to provide the right platform.

Diane Yu: especially for TV monetization. That was the reason why we decided that being part of the Comcast can help us accelerate our speed of growth further. That’s the reason the key reason that we decided to be part of the Comcast platform.

Alejandro Cremades: But I mean, not only become part of the Comcast platform and they do they what they call the vesting and resting as founders. But I mean, typically that would be like about a one-year thing or a two-year commitment maximum. Here you stayed for over seven years. That’s a long time you know for joining a company that is acquiring your baby, where you’ve already become a founder, where you have the entrepreneurial drive. Why did you stay with Comcast for so long?

Diane Yu: So my path at Comcast is very unique, too. And then, as I said, in my career, I make choices and make decisions based on how much I can learn. So at Comcast, the post-acquisition, they offer me a possibility. They offer me an opportunity that’s very different, where Comcast put together five companies via acquisition, that they offer me the opportunity to restructure, connect the platform,

Diane Yu: for all those five companies put together to exchange based on majority of freewheels platform. And then on top of that, and I have to restructure the other four company, the other four platform connecting them. So I sat there and thought to myself, and where can you have an opportunity to learn something like that?

Diane Yu: five different companies being acquired. They all come from different experience, a different platform, different culture, and having the opportunity to be able to structure them into a single platform, rebuilding and building the team under the same culture, become one culture, one platform. um So it is the challenge. It is the challenge that I don’t get to do in other places.

Diane Yu: that drawn me to make that decision. Stay there and the commit to build a platform, build a team together.

Alejandro Cremades: So after so many years of Comcast, you joined better as as the CTO. And that was the moment where you realize the magnitude of the problem, not when it comes to the applications in the mortgage industry. I mean, there you were for close to two years before you knew that you had to take matters, you know,

Alejandro Cremades: to your own and create really a better future in that regard. And that’s when you got started with Tidal Wave. Now, going back to you were to what you were alluding earlier with Tidal Wave, the purchase of a home is the biggest investment that, let’s say, anyone is going to make or most people are making in their lifetime.

Alejandro Cremades: What did you see that that that really, you know how was that moment like, make us insiders here, how was that moment like when you decided to take action and and and not only become a co-founder, but also in this time around being the CEO? Because before you were the CTO, so now it sounds like you crossed the bridge to the business side too, which is not easy. So walk us through that.

Diane Yu: It’s the similar journey I’ve always followed. I want to do something different, right? So from ITAC, go into the financial technology. ah My, almost two years, I’d better. It was amazing because I learned so much every single day. on And as I learn, I start to realize,

Diane Yu: Despite all those improvement, there are so much more. There are many limitations of the existing solution. It just doesn’t quite the right type of solution. And which created this problem with the mortgage industry, ah where every single lender largely using human to underwrite the mortgage application. Which coming back to my problem about the borrowers,

Diane Yu: the you know, the borrower is not getting the best experience on getting a mortgage. So because in the back end, you are using all those human, all those lenders using human to originate the loan. And what’s sad about it is that regardless how many people you employ, many of the lenders are losing money.

Diane Yu: they’re in a tough situation. So that moment of realization of this mortgage industry and with so many solutions, point solutions one after another, but there’s no one cohesive solution that can create a smooth user experience for the borrowers and also at the same time make the lender so easy to originate.

Diane Yu: so that their business is not in trouble when the mortgage rate goes up and then when the mortgage rate goes down and they can easily originate with more volume. Today they cannot. That’s the problem that you see in all those news where you know when the mortgage rate is favorable everybody fighting and expanding with you know people And when the mortgage rate goes back and no longer favorable, and everybody has to face the firing off, laying off those loan officers, nobody wanted to do that. Better was, ah unfortunately, it was famous for fired a lot of people because overhired.

Diane Yu: um And it’s not unique situation and all those lender wants to the same similar type of bomb on bus cycle and I want to change that That’s the the moment of realization with my knowledge on the technology with my knowledge in the business I know there is something that can be done that can be created very differently to change the mortgage industry

Alejandro Cremades: So let’s talk about then the business model of tidal wave. How do you guys make money?

Diane Yu: As part of TidalWave, the key is we’re building a SaaS platform and that platform will be available to all of those lenders once we utilize our solution to create the ways that easily originate um loans for their customer. So we get paid for a fee, technology service fee for doing that, helping them to do that.

Alejandro Cremades: so then So then let’s talk about to the team because the way that you guys have put the team together is really fantastic. I mean, we’re talking about literally having employees, colleagues that you’ve been working with for the past 15 years. I mean, that’s really incredible. How did you go about enrolling them?

Alejandro Cremades: into what was possible with Tidal Wave. and And how also do you think about team building, you know given those pre-existing relationships and how you think about building those into the future too, maybe for future projects, God knows.

Diane Yu: So a starting company is very hard. ah And then the the key there is and you want to make sure that you start with a company, um you start with people you trust. And I’m very fortunate to have a built long term relationship um with top engineers that who started my first company with me, and then followed me into better, followed me out of better. We have the same passion. We’re so so super passionate about creating this capability to change the industry. um So that’s very key. In addition to that, um because starting a startup is hard, you want to make sure that as you’re building the team, you’re building with the right type of

Diane Yu: talent, not just one side. And then, you know, I’m fortunate enough, I better and I got to know a lot of passionate mortgage industry experience the people. um And today at tidal wave, we got not only the combination of engineers,

Diane Yu: who worked with me for the past 20 years, we also have people that with mortgage experience over 20 years of mortgage origination and operational experience working with us collectively, we all collectively realize how big the problem this is, how complex the problem it is. Therefore, that we work together you utilizing our strength and expertise knowledge to create the situation that we can solve for this big problem.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us too about fundraising. How much capital have you guys raised today for Tidal Wave?

Diane Yu: So I cannot share the details about fundraising. However, one thing I could share um is um similar like how I select my team members. I’m fortunate to have the option to select my investor. When I select my investor, I select the investor who he invested in my first company.

Diane Yu: And then my investor who invested in my first company, Freewill, was the investor who wrote us the check post the last financial bust, post 2008, when no one else dared to write a check. He saw the potential in Freewill. He saw the capability of the co-founder and the team that we built together. He wrote us the check. So that to me is very different.

Diane Yu: um And then that’s the reason why when I started Tidal Wave, I didn’t take others’ checks, I took his.

Alejandro Cremades: So talk to us too about being, I guess, i guess with a vision because investors, you know they really bet on the vision. Obviously, they’re betting on you because you have the pre-existing relationship, but then also on the future that you’re living in Tutu and all that that vision. So let’s say you were to go to sleep tonight, Diane, and you have this snooze of a lifetime. okay You wake up in a world where the vision of tidal wave is fully realized. What does that world look like?

Diane Yu: So when I think about that, I want to see tidal waves capability being utilized by a large percentage of the lenders that utilizing over capability, providing the real time offering to their customer who’s seeking the mortgage No, let me think about this differently. I have to pause. I need to think about this differently.

Diane Yu: So sitting here, if I were to think about tidal wave being super successful, we want to enable the mortgage industry. Utilize offer capability, making the best offer of the loan product to the borrower who’s seeking a mortgage and getting approved in real time so that borrower has a unique happy experience, fully transparent, and the lenders can doing that with the highest amount of efficiency. They don’t have to worry about losing money. That way,

Diane Yu: Lenders can evolve, providing more and different loan product to the borrowers who are seeking for the best loan product out there. We’re making a capability to change the entire mortgage industry.

Diane Yu: That to me would be we’re doing our job right.

Alejandro Cremades: So let’s talk about the past now, Diane. We’re talking about the future. We’re going to talk about the past with a lens of reflection. I’m going to put you into a time machine. and I’m going to bring you back to 2007, that moment where you were giving your notice from DoubleClick and that moment where you were going to become an entrepreneur for the first time in your life. and Let’s say you had the opportunity of having a chat with that younger Diane, and you were able to give that younger Diane one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why, given what you know now?

Diane Yu: Don’t be afraid of jumping out of your comfortable zone. Enjoy the learning experience.

Diane Yu: As long as you’re learning, you’re improving, you’re going to lead to something greater and better.

Alejandro Cremades: I love it. And obviously, with discomfort comes growth. So I love that. So Diane, for the people that are listening, that would love to reach out and say, hi, what is the best way for them to do so?

Diane Yu: Pardon me.

Alejandro Cremades: For the people that are listening to us right now, what would be the best way for them to reach out and say hi, or perhaps to even learn more about TidalWave?

Diane Yu: Follow us on LinkedIn and send me email at dyu at tidalwave.ai.

Alejandro Cremades: you say enough Easy enough. Well, Diane, thank you so much for being on the Dealmaker Show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you with us.

Diane Yu: : Thank you very much, Alejandro.

*****

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