Acquired
About this creator
Acquired is a long-form business podcast that breaks down the companies, acquisitions, and strategic decisions behind iconic businesses.
Why they're in the library
Included for clear, credible perspective as long-form business podcast that breaks down the companies, acquisitions, and strategic decisions behind iconic businesses.
Showing 168 digests for Acquired.
How ARM's low-power chip architecture came to power every smartphone
Acquired
February 3, 2019
Case studies
10
Business models
8
Fundraising & VC
6
ARM's rejection by Intel forced a RISC breakthrough that beat Intel on performance.
Apple's $1.5M Newton bet created ARM — then ARM's IPO saved Apple from bankruptcy.
SoftBank paid $32B in two weeks after a dinner conversation in Woodside.
How ESPN became the most valuable sports media business in the world
Acquired
January 21, 2019
Case studies
10
Business models
8
Bootstrapping
6
Fired from a hockey team, Rasmussen built ESPN on land that was a dump
Flipping who pays whom in cable created ESPN's billion-dollar business model
Hearst paid $175M for 20% of ESPN — and never had to do anything
How Tencent built the world's most powerful digital ecosystem
Acquired
December 17, 2018
Origin stories
10
Business models
8
Fundraising & VC
6
Selling digital clothing for avatars in 2002 funded a half-trillion dollar empire.
WeChat's four-hours-a-day engagement dwarfs every US social app combined.
NASPERS turned $32M into $175B — the strongest case for greatest investment ever.
Netflix's streaming era: from Roku spinout to global content flywheel
Acquired
November 25, 2018
Origin stories
9
Business models
8
Pivoting
6
Netflix spun out Roku two weeks before shipping its own hardware.
The Quickster fiasco erased 80% of Netflix's market cap in months.
Debt-funded content flywheel drove 30% subscriber growth year after year.
Netflix's unlikely founding: DVD bets, blockbuster wars, and survival
Acquired
November 12, 2018
Origin stories
10
Pivoting
6
Scaling infrastructure
5
Netflix was Mark Randolph's idea, not Reed Hastings'
Blockbuster nearly won — until Carl Icahn fired the CEO who was beating Netflix
A 40% single-day layoff and $15M in the bank at IPO
From SMS Payments to Social Wallets: The Venmo Story
Acquired
October 29, 2018
Origin stories
9
Pivoting
7
Fundraising & VC
6
How Andrew Kortina pivoted from SMS musicians to consumer peer-to-peer payments
Why Venmo's real business model always required merchant adoption, never fees
Bill Widmore was the only investor who understood acquiring a cash-burning startup
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Behance bootstrapped for five years before selling to Adobe
Acquired
October 2, 2018
Founder interviews
10
Bootstrapping
8
Exit strategy
6
Bootstrapping with paper journals and conferences kept the cap table clean
Raising too early dilutes founders more than a lower acquisition price costs
Being at the core of Creative Cloud, not an appendage, made the deal work
Alibaba: How Jack Ma built China's dominant tech empire
Acquired
September 24, 2018
Origin stories
10
Business models
6
Jack Ma failed KFC's hiring process; later built a half-trillion-dollar company.
Alibaba owns no inventory, employs no couriers, yet outsells Walmart globally.
Goldman Sachs sold its Alibaba stake for $22M — now worth tens of billions.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Kara Swisher built Recode and why she sold it to Vox Media
Acquired
September 11, 2018
Founder interviews
10
Bootstrapping
6
Swisher sold Recode within months of launch to escape the VC new-media bubble.
Podcasts beat web content because the revenue stays with the creator, not the platform.
Controlling your own revenue is the only way to protect editorial independence.
Xiaomi's IPO: hardware, ecosystem, and the China tech wave
Acquired
August 6, 2018
Origin stories
9
Business models
7
Xiaomi caps hardware margin at 5% to force a services business model.
Weekly software updates and a fan forum drove half a million users before launch.
The ecosystem model: 100+ companies build products under the Xiaomi brand.
Tesla: how a near-bankrupt startup created the electric car era
Acquired
July 17, 2018
Origin stories
9
Fundraising & VC
7
Business models
6
Tesla was founded by Eberhard and Tarpening, not Elon Musk
The company survived multiple near-bankruptcies through last-minute cash rescues
In 2018 Tesla needs $5.5 billion and must triple production to survive
How Rover won the dog-sitting wars and merged with DogVacay
Acquired
June 18, 2018
Case studies
9
Business models
7
Exit strategy
6
The informal dog-care shadow market was ten times bigger than commercial kennels.
Rover came back from a 6-to-1 deficit by compounding conversion and repeat rates.
Post-close execution destroys more M&A value than mispriced deal terms.
How one entrepreneur's wireless empire created AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile
Acquired
May 21, 2018
Origin stories
10
Business models
6
One man, Craig McCaw, is the origin of AT&T Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile
T-Mobile's un-carrier pivot under Legere forced the whole industry to improve
Sprint has the 5G spectrum but not the money — T-Mobile has the opposite
How Microsoft's first acquisition turned PowerPoint into a billion-dollar business
Acquired
May 4, 2018
Case studies
9
Business models
7
Pivoting
5
Forethought nearly died before a last-minute pivot created PowerPoint.
Microsoft left the team in Silicon Valley — accidental non-smothering drove success.
Bundling Word, Excel, PowerPoint into Office at $1,000 destroyed every competitor.
How Spotify became a $30 billion company via a direct listing
Acquired
April 6, 2018
Origin stories
9
Fundraising & VC
8
Business models
6
Spotify skipped the IPO — no new shares, no dilution, no lockup
Facebook's newsfeed doubled Spotify's user base overnight in 2011
21% gross margins explain why a $5B revenue company still loses billions