[3] After his graduation from Michigan State, Jay Farner began his career in finance as a mortgage banker at Quicken Loans Inc (then called Rock Financial) with Dan Gilbert in 1996.
[6] Farner then served as Quicken's president and chief marketing officer, spearheading the company's outreach efforts,[7] and was named one of Crain’s Detroit Business’ 40 Under 40 in 2011.
[8] In 2014, Farner led what USA Today called a “billion-dollar gamble” in a March Madness bracket challenge with Yahoo Sports, with a potential $1 billion prize offered to the winner.
While only $3 million was handed out, the challenge generated billions of online engagements and millions of new leads, which PR Week called a "data generation exercise … like gold dust" and others called it the “best PR move” of the year.
[10][11] Upon launch, TechCrunch called Rocket the mortgage industry's “iPhone moment” and compared the process to TurboTax.