Acquired - Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Latest Episodes:

Atari (with Nolan Bushnell) Oct 15, 2019

Show notes

We’re joined by the legendary Nolan Bushnell, founder not only of Atari, but also the only person ever to hire Steve Jobs, the recipient of Sequoia Capital’s first-ever investment, and the creator of Chuck E. Cheese, the canonical GPS navigation arrow, and a little project that would go on to become Pixar. We cover it all in this special episode!

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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Links:

Spacewar!, the first video game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!
The meaning of Atari: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atari
Nolan’s current project, St. Noire: https://www.amazon.com/St-Noire-Hosted-Cinematic-Exclusive/dp/B07P693BG1

Sequoia Capital (Part 1) Sep 26, 2019

Show notes

Acquired dives into the history behind storied venture firm Sequoia Capital and its legendary founder, Don Valentine. Part 1 tells Don’s story, starting from humble beginnings born to uneducated parents in Yonkers, NY, through shaping the fabric of Silicon Valley first as head of Sales & Marketing at both Fairchild and National Semiconductor, and then for generations to come via his pioneering concept of “company building” at Sequoia Capital. No matter where you sit in the ecosystem today, Don and the companies he helped build laid the foundation for nearly everything technology has become over the past 60 years.

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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Links:

Silicon Valley’s “Traitorous Eight”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
Don Valentine’s lecture at Stanford GSB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&t=2555s
Berkeley’s oral history with Don: http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/valentine_donald.pdf

Carve Outs:

Ben: The Business Roundtable on The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/podcasts/the-daily/business-roundtable-corporate-responsibility.html
David: Amazon Music on 25 years of “Ready to Die”: https://youtu.be/Dsna1nIZzB4

Sources:

Google Maps Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Ben and David cover the series of three 2004 Google acquisitions that formed the core of Google Maps as we know and love it today: Where 2 Technologies, Keyhole and ZipDash. From nearly zero adoption between the three companies at the time of acquisition to well over 1 billion users today, does Google Maps merit admission to the hallowed Acquired A+ pantheon? Tune in to find 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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Links:

Bret Taylor on “Satellite Mode”: https://twitter.com/btaylor/status/1099370126678253569?lang=en
Justin O’Beirne’s great pieces on Apple vs Google maps: https://www.justinobeirne.com

Carve Outs:

Ben: Marc Andreessen on The Moment with Brian Koppelman: https://overcast.fm/+BgXAjz54o
David: The Expanse books: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077L6GJWW/

The Shopify IPO Aug 06, 2019

Show notes

Ben and David head north of the border to Ottawa, Canada to cover perhaps one of the greatest IPO success stories of the past 5 years, Shopify. From humble beginnings as a “lifestyle business” hawking hipster snowboard gear online to now routinely mentioned in the same breath as Amazon, the tale of Shopify and its incredible CEO Tobi Lütke’s ascent is not one to miss!

Editor's note: Shopify actually powered $41b of sales, not $14b, in 2018, as discussed toward the end of the episode. $14b was the fourth-quarter number. While this changes the analysis of value captured at the end of the episode (Shopify only captures 2.5% of merchant sales as their own revenue, not 7%, which is admittedly very different), it doesn’t change overall sentiment on the company discussed in the episode.

Sponsors:

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

Links:

https://www.snowdevil.ca
https://www.jadedpixel.com
Citron’s “research” report: https://citronresearch.com/citron-exposes-the-dark-side-of-shopify/

Carve Outs:

Ben: Moment smartphone camera lenses: https://www.shopmoment.com
David: Quoteapro engineering and head of product roles, Bill Gurley on Invest like the Best: http://investorfieldguide.com/gurley/

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Huawei Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

For our first episode of Season 5, Acquired returns to Shenzhen to cover another Chinese technology giant, this one slightly... different from our past subjects: Huawei. From a backwater importer of PBX switches to the world’s second largest handset manufacturer and near-undisputed leader in 5G infrastructure technology, Huawei’s ascent over the past 30 years has been nothing short of spectacular, equaled only by the spectacular fireworks of recent events surrounding the company. What’s the story behind this global telecom giant, and what does its future portend for global tech and US - China relations? We dive in.

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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Links

Ren Zhengfei on Bloomberg TV: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-26/billionaire-huawei-founder-defiant-in-face-of-existential-threat
Who owns Huawei? https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669

Carve Outs

Ben: Billions: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4270492/
David: Dune by Frank Herbert: https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Frank-Herbert-ebook/dp/B00B7NPRY8/ref=nodl

Superhuman (with CEO Rahul Vohra) Jun 27, 2019

Show notes

We wrap up Season 4 with a very special (and accidental!) episode, a conversation with the CEO of Superhuman, the red hot email productivity app which just announced their $33m Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz. While originally intended as a limited release episode, we felt Superhuman would provide the perfect bookend to our “modern enterprise productivity trilogy” following our Zoom and Slack episodes. We hope you enjoy the conversation with Rahul as much as we did, and we’ll see you later this summer for Season 5!

Sponsors:

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

More Acquired!

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Links

New York Times article announcing the fundraise: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/technology/superhuman-email.html
Rahul’s Medium post on acquisitions: https://medium.com/swlh/rip-mailbox-or-founders-how-to-stop-worrying-and-love-being-acquired-261da4f6d566
Rahul on finding product-market fit on First Round Review: https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/

The Slack DPO Jun 24, 2019

Show notes

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an... enterprise software company? We give the full Acquired treatment to newly-public Slack, one of the most extreme and successful pivots of all-time. From a log cabin in Canada to a never-ending game and back again, Slack’s journey has more twists and turns than a Hobbit’s tale. Tune in for one APLUSS story you don’t want to miss!

Sponsors:

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

More Acquired!

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Links

Kara Swisher’s Flipcam interview with Glitch: https://www.wsj.com/video/tiny-speck-stewart-butterfield-speaks/C51EAD27-FE8E-46AE-B785-6ECF1A9798B0.html
Marc Andreessen on “all will still end well...” https://twitter.com/patphelan/status/1142733251691405312
The Glitch public domain archive: https://www.glitchthegame.com
Naming Slack: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/780906639301812225?s=21

Carve Outs

Ben: The Expanse on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/The-Expanse-Season-1/dp/B018BZ3SCM
David: Give to any non-profit on Alma: https://alma.app/blog/1-4-million-reasons-to-love-alma-search

The Zoom IPO (with Santi Subotovsky) Jun 18, 2019

Show notes

Zoom board member (and general partner at Emergence Capital) Santi Subotovsky joins us to tell the true underdog story behind the hottest IPO of 2019. Together we trace founder Eric Yuan’s incredible journey from immigrant software developer, who didn’t speak any English upon arriving in Silicon Valley in 1997, to Glassdoor’s #1 rated CEO in America in 2018. In an age where border walls have replaced open doors in Washington, and burn rates and privacy scandals have sidelined Silicon Valley’s pretense of making the world a better place, there is no better reminder than Zoom of everything that can be great about our country and our industry.

Sponsors:

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

More Acquired!

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Links

Walt Mossberg’s review of Zoom in 2012: http://allthingsd.com/20120821/a-chance-to-call-15-friends-to-video-chat-in-high-def/

Carve Outs

Ben: General Magic https://www.generalmagicthemovie.com
David: Dissect Season 4 https://dissectpodcast.com/subscribe-to-the-podcast/

The Electronic Arts IPO (with Trip Hawkins) May 27, 2019

Show notes

Acquired looks back at a monumental IPO from a *much* different era: Electronic Arts. We’re joined by EA’s founder Trip Hawkins to tell the incredible story of how he built the company that made video games mainstream. Starting from his high school years as both a geek and a jock, to then working for Steve Jobs as one of Apple Computer’s first employees and later completely changing the world of sports with John Madden Football, Trip always had a clear vision for what EA could become and what magic could happen at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts.

Sponsors:

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

More Acquired!

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The Uber IPO May 11, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to the big one. On the day of its IPO, we tell the story of Uber. It’s a story whose roots stretch back 130 years, but whose impact reverberates perhaps more powerfully on our current world than any other. A story that, in all of its greatness and in all of its ugliness, may just be the story of our time.

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