I didn't go to college. I have a GED. I taught myself to code because the developers I hired couldn't build what I needed. And I wrote a book about a $600 million algorithm because the people who built it wouldn't explain how it works.
The book is called The Black Box. It comes out this year. And it's about the single biggest financial decision most Americans will ever make — selling their home — and the companies that built entire business models around making sure you can't see the math behind the offer.
This isn't a self-help book. It's not a how-to guide for house flipping. It's a forensic breakdown of how iBuyers like Opendoor take a "5% service fee" and turn it into a 15–27% total extraction from the seller. Using their own SEC filings. Their own public data. And math anyone can verify.
Here's why this matters. These are real numbers from public filings:
That gap between 5% and 27% is the black box. That's where the money disappears. Repair credits inflated beyond actual costs. Below-market offers justified by an algorithm nobody can inspect. Closing cost structures designed to be opaque. Convenience fees that only make sense if you don't do the math.
They've had a decade. Teams of PhDs. Over $600 million in funding. And they've lost $3.7 billion trying to buy and sell houses. The algorithm isn't broken — the business model is. The book explains why.
"Anyone who hides the math is hiding it from you for a reason. The reason is never that you're too stupid to understand it. The reason is always that understanding it would change your decision."
In 2025, I posted a public challenge on LinkedIn. I called out Opendoor's Acquisitions Regional Pricing Manager by name. I asked one question: explain how the algorithm works. Show the math. Let a seller see every variable that goes into their offer.
He said nothing. As of the day I'm writing this, he still hasn't responded.
So I built the answer myself. I reverse-engineered a competing valuation engine — one that uses the same data inputs but shows every single calculation, every weight, every adjustment. And then I open-sourced it. Published it as a free npm package that anyone can inspect, fork, or improve. It's called valuation-engine and it's on npm right now.
The book is the story behind that engine. Why I built it. What I found when I pulled the numbers apart. And why transparency isn't just a nice idea — it's a fundamentally better business model.
If you're a homeowner thinking about selling, this book is the information you're not supposed to have. Not because it's secret — everything in here is from public filings, public data, and my own experience closing deals — but because the entire industry is built on the assumption that you won't look.
The iBuyer pitch is speed and certainty. And that's real. But the cost of that speed is invisible unless someone shows you the breakdown. That's what this book does.
It also explains why I built Local Home Buyers USA the way I did. We don't make cash offers and hope you don't do the math. We show you every number. We show you what we're making and why. We show you what a traditional sale would net you, what an iBuyer would offer, and what a partnership deal looks like — side by side, with the formulas visible.
We do this because it's the right thing to do. But I'll be honest — we also do it because it works. When a seller sees the real numbers, they don't go with the company hiding behind an algorithm. They go with the one who showed them the math.
I'm the founder of a company that competes with the businesses I'm writing about. I have a financial interest in you questioning their model. I'm telling you this because that's the entire point of the book — you deserve to know who's talking, what they want, and what the numbers actually say. Then you decide.
The last chapter is called "Show Your Math." It ends with a line I've been saying for two years:
"Show your math. Or explain your silence."
That's the whole argument. That's the whole book. If your model is good, show it. If your offer is fair, prove it. If your algorithm works, let someone inspect it. And if you won't do any of that — at least have the honesty to explain why.
The book is available now on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover.