My first stop: a conversation with Carey Armstrong, who has glimpsed the Grail! She's been at Zillow, built a mortgage company, and is one of the few people I know who's seen this from every angle. I needed someone I trust to help me map the whole landscape before I start digging into the specifics. What we found: the Holy Grail has always been about profit, not consumers. The executives pitching it have probably never processed a loan. And the real unlock might not be price or convenience — it might be confidence that your deal will actually close. I didn't expect that going in.

Check out the companion site for this podcast series at holygrail.mikedp.com. It's a case file — the evidence I've gathered, the theories I'm testing, the questions I'm chasing, and a place to drop intel if you're seeing patterns from the field.