Varun Krishna is running what may be one of the boldest culture experiments in corporate America, and every CEO managing a legacy workforce should be paying attention.

The Silicon Valley veteran has spent three years as CEO of Rocket Companies—the Detroit-based parent of Rocket Mortgage, the nation's largest retail mortgage lender—deliberately fusing West Coast talent density with Detroit grit. It is a bet he is now scaling across $16 billion in acquisitions and a 500,000-listing alliance with Compass that together extend Rocket's reach across nearly every stage of the homeownership journey, from property search and brokerage to lending and loan servicing.

"Silicon Valley places a premium on intellect and intellect alone with the idea that, if you get a group of smart people together, you're likely to win," Krishna told Fortune. "Detroit's success is a function of that, but it is also a function of tenacity, grit, perseverance, and belief."

Krishna's goal has been to blend the best of both worlds. Over time, he has come to appreciate the loyalty and commitment that characterize Rocket's culture. In Silicon Valley, he notes, "you start to realize a lot of the talent is job hunting every 18 months." Given that he estimates it can take five years to build something truly transformative, loyalty is the virtue he is working to cultivate—a priority that takes on added weight as the company absorbs thousands of employees from its Redfin and Mr. Cooper acquisitions.

"People work here because they like the culture," Krishna said. "Mortgages are more the how, whereas the what is around home ownership."

At Rocket, "data and evidence win all arguments," Krishna said, pointing to the company's acquisitions of Redfin and Mr. Cooper for $16 billion last year as examples of big bets. The company's recent alliance with Compass to bring more than 500,000 new listings to the Redfin platform and transform the seller experience is another. The deals represent one of the most aggressive consolidation moves in the real estate and mortgage industries, where companies from traditional brokerages to fintech startups have been racing to integrate the fragmented steps of home buying into end-to-end digital platforms.

As for what Detroit can learn from Silicon Valley, Krishna believes the answer is: a lot.

"The beauty of Silicon Valley is you have this extremely high density of brain power, this mix of startups, venture capital and education," he said, adding that it is also the environment of meetups, incubators, late-night dinners, and constant learning. "We have to create that kind of environment, to get more of that sort of youthful entrepreneurial energy here."

Half of Krishna's leadership team came from places like Seattle, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. "It's not just about doing everything in kind of the homegrown way, but it's about blending it together with outside talent. And that culture is a function of one man."

He was referring to Rocket founder Dan Gilbert, who has "invented and reinvented this company."

Gilbert is scheduled to speak at the Fortune 500 Innovation Forum in Detroit on November 16 and 17. Other speakers include General Motors President Mark Reuss, Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright, Corning CEO Wendell Weeks, Craig Newmark of craigslist, Penny Pennington of Edward Jones, Macy's chief Tony Spring, Honeywell CEO Vimal Kapur, NYSE's Lynn Martin, Dave Bozeman of C.H. Robinson, Ford Foundation's Heather Gerken, and others.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.