Acquired

Topics covered include: 

• Community Showcase: the Nexcast podcasting platform from listener Brian Sanders, along with their podcast chronicling the team’s journey building the company 
• Waze’s origin in cofounder & CTO Ehud Shabtai’s desire to hack his portable GPS navigation unit
• Waze CEO Noam Bardin’s  retrospective blog post on the Waze journey 
•  Waze’s Palo Alto office and the bizarre Silicon Valley phenomenon of tech companies being located in retail storefronts 
• Apple’s  ill-fated launch of Apple Maps as part of iOS 6 at WWDC 2012, Apple’s subsequent apology letter, and  Scott Forstall’s ultimate ouster from the company 
• The climax of the mobile platform wars… which it turns out Apple and Google  both won
•  Apple, Facebook, and Google all vying to acquire Waze throughout 2013
•  Google’s renewed design ethos under Larry Page
• Ben and David spontaneously agree (surprise) to create on a new category of acquisition for the show 
• The increasing strategic value of data and data assets as technology enters the age of machine learning 
• The coming mega trend of autonomous vehicles, and  the role Israeli startups are playing in it (including the globalization of startups & innovation)
• The disruptive power of network and data-based business models
• Emergence of native as *the* definitive advertising medium on mobile, including ability to close the advertising loop via location-based products and services 

Sponsors:

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• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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The Carve Out:

• Ben: Weezer’s “Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori” on Song Exploder 
• David:  Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” TED Talk

  Followups: 

• None this week… coverage of Instagram Stories to come next time!

The meta show: Ben and David turn their gaze inward and examine the podcasting industry through E. W. Scripps’ recent acquisitions of the Midroll podcast advertising network and Stitcher podcast client. Featuring discussion of our own product process and metrics at Acquired. 

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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• We’re pivoting! (not really) Our new show description: A Podcast About Technology Acquisitions That Actually Went Well
• But we are launching a new feature! Since so many of you, our listeners, are also tech and startup folks and/or other builders, we wanted to create a space to feature cool products, companies and side projects you’re working on. Thus we’re adding a "Community Showcase” section to the show. If you’d like to be included just send us a Slack message or email, and we’ll choose one submission to feature on each show. This episode we’re highlighting BESTR, from community member David Resnick (aka @the_rezonator in Slack), which is an online platform to share lists of great things. Check it out and let David know what you think. 

  Topics covered include: 

• Top Google search results for “acquired podcast"
• Midroll’s origins in the comedy podcast Comedy Bang Bang (now an tv show on IFC) and exit last year to Scripps 
• The structural challenges inherent to podcasting as a medium and the gap between audience size/engagement and industry revenues
• Opportunities for independent podcasters and our own audience and business metrics at Acquired 
• Stitcher’s long corporate history as a venture backed company, first acquisition by French music company Deezer, and now second acquisition from Deezer by Scripps
• Problems with Stitcher as a product and industry reaction to the acquisition including John Gruber's response, Ben Thompson’s article on Stratechery, and Ben & James Allworth's discussion on their excellent podcast Exponent
• Handicapping Stitcher+Midroll’s chances for success within Scripps, and opportunities for new startups & innovation in the podcasting space
• Pioneer Square Labs’ own past efforts in the podcasting space and their process for evaluating potential new company ideas 
• Shoutout to Pocket Casts and our listeners down under 

  Followups: 

• Twitch: bringing tipping onto the platform with the  launch of Cheering + Bits (H/t Slack community member jamesk)
• Facebook Instant Articles:  pour one out for Facebook Paper (developed by the Push Pop Press team)
• LinkedIn: the hotly anticipated SEC filing detailing all the negotiation drama is now live (scroll down to "Background of the Merger” on p.31)

  The Carve Out: 

• Ben: Mark Titus, AKA @ClubTrillion is joining the Ringer
• David: OKR’s and regular goal setting, including great “how to" from  GV partner Rick Klau

Ben and David return to make their first foray into enterprise software, covering Salesforce’s $2.5B acquisition of ExactTarget in 2013 with the help of special guest and ExactTarget cofounder & CEO, Scott Dorsey.   Technical note: due to an issue we didn’t catch during recording, audio quality is significantly lower than usual for this episode (especially David’s voice). We apologize but hope you’ll give it a chance anyway— Scott offers great wisdom & insights, and the ExactTarget success story is a inspiring one underdog entrepreneurs, especially (but not limited to!) anyone located in the Midwest or elsewhere outside of traditional "Silicon Valley-style” tech hubs.
 

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• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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• The decision to start ExactTarget post-internet bubble and in Indianapolis, with zero software experience between Scott and cofounders Chris Baggott & Peter McCormick
• Raising initial money from friends & family, followed by early investment and mentoring from Indianapolis venture pioneer Bob Compton
• Building and scaling a great sales organization within a technology company
• The importance of focusing early on a clearly defined target market (SMBs in the case of ExactTarget), and then “stair-stepping” up as the product and business scale grow over time
• ExactTarget’s unsuccessful first IPO filing during the financial crisis
• Building a "capital-efficient” early stage company, and the value of raising growth capital at the right time to step on the accelerator
• The value of “secondary” investments allowing founders, employees & early investors to “stay hungry” by achieving some liquidity along the way
• When and how to expand internationally and the importance of strategic resellers
• ExactTarget’s second successful IPO filing and life as a public company with quarterly financial reporting to Wall Street
• How the acquisition process played out with Salesforce and other bidders (including reference to ExactTarget’s incredible SEC filing detailing the entire negotiation—scroll down to "Background and Reasons for the ExactTarget Board’s Recommendation”, starting at the bottom of page 13)
• Approaching the difficult task of integrating a major acquisition involving thousands of people
• The fun story of ExactTarget’s winning Microsoft as a large customer—including actual sledgehammers
• Scott’s new Indianapolis-based venture studio, High Alpha
• Plus as always the "hard hitting" analysis across acquisition category, what would have happened otherwise, tech themes—and final grading

  The Carve Out 

• Ben: The Talk Show live at WWDC 2016 with Phil Schiller & Craig Federighi
• David: The Score Takes Care of Itself by legendary 49ers coach Bill Walsh, originally recommended by Jack Dorsey [no relation to Scott :) ] at YC Startup School '13
• Scott: 2016 Scipps National Spelling Bee, including one of the finalists’ favorite words: indefatigable

  Followups: 

• Instagram’s incredible user numbers announcement: 500M monthly active users / 300M daily active users

Ben and David cover the 3-day-old acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft for $26.2 billion. They cover LinkedIn’s founding story by Reid Hoffman, break down their core businesses, analyze recent stock behavior, and speculate on the future of the company inside Microsoft. The big question - were they worth the price tag?

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Items Mentioned On The Show:

•  Adweek: Snapchat Launches a Colossal Expansion of Its Advertising, Ushering in a New Era for the App
• The Facebook Effect - David Kirkpatrick
• LinkedIn’s Series B pitch deck 
•  LinkedIn’s S-1
• Microsoft and Apple Double Down - Stratechery
•  NYT Dealbook on stock based compensation at LinkedIn
•  Josh Elman - When people get confused about “BS metrics”
• Fred Wilson: The Dentist Office Software Story

The Carve Out:

•  Jeff Bezos at Code 2016
•  Elon Musk at Code 2016

Ben and David are joined by Todd Bishop, technology reporter and co-founder of GeekWire, to discuss Facebook's 2011 acquisition of Push Pop Press. 

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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• The founding story of Push Pop Press by Kimon Tsinteris and Mike Matas.
• The evolution of Facebook Creative Labs, Facebook Paper, and eventually, Facebook Instant Articles.
• Facebook's role in the changing media landscape today.
• GeekWire's experiments with Facebook Instant Articles, Google Accelerated Mobile Pages, and live video.

The Carve Out:

•  The Startup Podcast Season 3
•  The Future of Technology is in Your Ear (Link to product)
•  The Risk Not Taken

Ben and David tackle their first failed acquisition: Facebook's 2013 offer to buy Snapchat. They cover the fascinating story of Snapchat's creation and growth, their blossoming business model, how it would be different inside of Facebook, and what the future holds.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Items mentioned in the show:

• The Inside Story Of Snapchat: The World's Hottest App Or A $3 Billion Disappearing Act?
• Inside Evan Spiegel's very private Snapchat Story

Ben and David return to technology acquisitions by examining a classic: eBay's 2002 purchase of PayPal.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Items mentioned in the show: 

•  How the 'PayPal Mafia' redefined success in Silicon Valley  - Tech Republic
•  Instagram Will Be a $3 Billion Business This Year: Analyst
•  President Obama and Bill Simmons: The GQ Interview

"The Carve Out":

•  Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder - 
•  The Bill Simmons Podcast - Chris Sacca

Ben and David deviate entirely from the stated purpose of the show, tackling this non-technology acquisition that is so recent, we have no idea if it went well yet. But, the April 2016 acquisition of Virgin America by Alaska Airlines was so fascinating, we had to do it!

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Items mentioned in the show: 

• Louis C.K. - Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy
• Alaska Acquires Virgin America Investor Deck
• “Measuring The Moat” Paper - Michael J. Mauboussin
• Business Adventures - Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street

Carve Out:

• Michael Mauboussin: "The Success Equation:Untangling Skill and Luck" | Talks at Google

Ben and David continue the cloud productivity saga with Google Docs. They examine the suite of acquisitions made by Google with a focus on Writely in 2006. They tackle:

• The nuts and bolts of the Upstartle (company behind Writely) acquisition, founded by Sam Schillace, Steve Newman and Claudia Carpenter.
• SaaS offerings in cloud productivity today.
• Was this a good idea for Google?
• Google's future bets.
• A new section: The Carve Out!

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Ben and David have special guest Kurt DelBene on to discuss Microsoft's acquisition of Acompli, Sunrise, and Wunderlist. Kurt is the EVP of Corporate Strategy and Planning at Microsoft, and joins to discuss Microsoft’s cloud-first, mobile-first strategy, and the importance of being cross-platform in the modern era. They cover: 

• How the app of Outlook Mobile on iPhone and Android came to be.
• How to decide whether to build vs. buy, and how it plays into the strategy for Office.
• How to preserve a culture and a team, and how Javier Soltero came to run all of Outlook at Microsoft.
• The origin of Outlook on the PC, originally led by Brian MacDonald as “Ren”.
• How to balance a business with competing priorities, and a decision-making framework for acquisitions in a large company.
• How to measure the success of an acquisition, and how sometimes, it’s not by measuring revenue at all.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Ben and David test the widely-held belief that YouTube was one of the most successful tech acquisitions of all time. In today's world of next-generation video platforms, mobile video, streaming, and chord-cutting, was it actually a great purchase by Google? 

As discussed in the show, here is Sequoia's original YouTube investment memo - a rarely-shared gold mine for anyone interested in startup investing.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Riding closely on the tails of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ben and David cover Disney's 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm. In the episode, they mention Walt Disney's original flywheel diagram, seen below.

Sponsors:

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In the last episode of 2015, Ben and David discuss Apple's acquisition of Siri. Notable topics include: 

• The founding of Siri by Dag Kittlau, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham.
• Scott Forstall on the Apple side, and the end of his time at the company.
• The other Apple acquisitions around Siri, including Topsy, Novauris Technologies, OttoCat.
• Cue, Spotsetter, VocalIQ, and Perceptio.
• The team Apple built around Siri post-acquisition, including Alex Acero from Microsoft Research.
• Speculation on the future of voice and its role in everyday computing.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Ben and David are joined by Former Microsoft VP and Co-Founder of Xbox, Ed Fries, to discuss the Bungie acquisition and the development of Halo. Highlights include: 

• Ed’s call with Steve Jobs after the acquisition, and sharing the stage with Steve and Bungie Co-Founder Alex Seropian at the Macworld Keynote.
• Bungie today, and the unlikely path to get there led by Harold Ryan.
• How to find something that all parties want to get a deal done, the creation Peter Tamte’s spin-out Mac gaming studio, and orchestrating the division of current Bungie projects and assets with Take-Two, led by Ryan Brandt.
• Saving a project that’s off schedule and missing the mark, and how Jason Jones led the effort to make Halo 2 a hit at launch.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Ben and David discuss Amazon's acquisition of Twitch in 2014. Unlike previous episodes, this recent acquisition still has a lot of open questions, and Amazon hasn't publicly reported growth of Twitch since the purchase. Ben and David talk about Justin Kan's original product with Justin.tv, and the transformation into the Twitch that Emmett Shear is running today.

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Ben and David discuss Facebook's acquisition of Instagram in 2012. Was it a success? If so, what are the criteria that made it work? What lessons can be learned for other acquisitions in the future?

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Ben and David discuss Disney's acquisition of Pixar in 2006. Was it a success? If so, what are the criteria that made it work? What lessons can be learned for other acquisitions in the future?

Sponsors:

• Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
• ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
• Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
• Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.

The episodes are deep and heavily-researched, uncovering the full histories behind household names you thought you already knew like Rolex, Amazon, Starbucks, or NVIDIA. Enjoy!