We kick off Season 6 with a long-awaited Acquired Classic: Facebook’s $22B purchase of WhatsApp in 2014, which still ranks as the largest acquisition of a private VC-backed startup in history. Yet despite that enormous pricetag and all its associated fanfare, as we sit here 5+ years later WhatsApp actually generates LESS revenue than the meager ~$20m it was bringing in at the time of acquisition. Was this this worst acquisition of all-time, or a brilliant strategic chess move by Mark Zuckerberg & co? Tune in as we render Acquired’s judgement!

Note: Unfortunately David’s audio quality in this episode was impacted by a technical glitch which we didn’t discover until after recording. Our editors worked super hard to fix in post-production, but it’s still not totally perfect. We hope you’ll give it a listen regardless, and we’re working on getting a transcript made ASAP, which we’ll post to the website when it’s ready. Thanks for bearing with us,

-Ben & David 

Sponsors:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Carve Outs:

• Ben: Computer glasses: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=computer+glasses
• David: Reebok Floatrides:  https://www.amazon.com/Reebok-Forever-Floatride-Energy-Black/dp/B07NYBRQ96/

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp
•  https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/#64c1c94b2fa1
•  https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/03/04/inside-the-facebook-whatsapp-megadeal-the-courtship-the-secret-meetings-the-19-billion-poker-game/#63d8b5c4350f
•  https://www.wired.com/2015/09/whatsapp-serves-900-million-users-50-engineers/
• https://youtu.be/v6PbymjXsto
• https://youtu.be/X4YsJt4rIOI
• https://overcast.fm/+WorS9-a74
• https://youtu.be/-2CAWS7M_0w
• https://youtu.be/X4YsJt4rIOI
•  https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-app-owner-founder-jan-koum-facebook 
•  https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/whatsapp-brian-acton-delete-facebook-stanford-lecture 
•  https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive-whatsapp-cofounder-brian-acton-gives-the-inside-story-on-deletefacebook-and-why-he-left-850-million-behind/#7475a0213f20 
•  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-28/tencent-rules-china-the-problem-is-the-rest-of-the-world  
• https://techcrunch.com/2013/07/16/whatsapp-free/
• http://allthingsd.com/tag/jan-koum/
•  http://allthingsd.com/20130510/whatsapp-ceo-jan-koum-hates-advertising-and-the-tech-rumor-mill-full-dive-video/ 
•  https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/31/whatsapp-hits-1-5-billion-monthly-users-19b-not-so-bad/
•  https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000633/Building-for-People-and-Now-Businesses
• https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/05/whatsapp-business-app/ 
• https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/whatsapp/
•  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whatsapp-founder-plans-to-leave-after-broad-clashes-with-parent-facebook/2018/04/30/49448dd2-4ca9-11e8-84a0-458a1aa9ac0a_story.html
•  https://www.wsj.com/articles/whatsapp-backs-off-controversial-plan-to-sell-ads-11579207682
•  https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-the-messy-expensive-split-between-facebook-and-whatsapps-founders-1528208641?mod=article_inline 
•  https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/05/whatsapp-co-founder-stresses-independence-from-facebook/?mod=article_inline
•  https://bgr.com/2020/01/17/whatsapp-ads-2020-facebook-canceled-plans-to-bring-ads-to-status-bar/
•  https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17329524/whatsapp-new-ceo-facebook-cofounder-jan-koum-departs
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chdaniels/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkoum/

Season 5, Episode 10: The Lean Startup and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (with Eric Ries) 

Acquired closes out Season 5 and 2019 with a radical look into both the past and future decades of startup company building, investing and - yes, exiting - in conversation with legendary Lean Startup author Eric Ries. Nine years on from pioneering the now-canonical concepts of product-market fit, minimum viable products, and pivots during the aftermath of the financial crisis, Eric’s new venture at the Long-Term Stock Exchange represents an equally ambitious attempt to rewrite the orthodoxy of how companies and their investors manage liquidity, governance and alignment around longterm value creation. Like Lean Startup a decade before it, can LTSE help address some of the endemic problems in this generation’s startup ecosystem — excessive capital raising, stay-private-longer, dual-class founder hegemony, extreme illiquidity and quarterly earnings myopia? Tune in to find out!

Sponsors:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Coming to you live from the University of Washington, Ben and David are joined by hundreds of awesome Seattle listeners (and a few non-Seattle listeners!) to cover the meteoric rise of trucking industry disruptor and hometown hero Convoy. How did Dan and Convoy go from nervously conducting market research at truck stops on I-5 to one of the largest logistics companies and fastest-growing startups in the world in just four short years, raising over $650m (not a typo) along the way? Tune in to find out!

Special thank you to the Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and to Pioneer Square Labs for generously sponsoring the show venue.

Sponsors:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Carveouts: 

• Mystery: https://mystery.sh

We take Acquired to the Old Town Road to cover the amazing story behind the biggest global sensation of 2019 — and the highest valued private startup in the world — TikTok. How did a mid-30 year old UX architect at enterprise software giant SAP wind up creating Gen Z’s favorite social app that’s now rivaling Instagram in global MAU? Why is a 2017 merger of two Chinese companies being branded a US national security threat and retroactively placed under review by CFIUS? And perhaps most importantly, why is TikTok such an important product & technology innovation that all of us should be learning from? Tune in for all the answers!

Sponsors:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

• Ben: Track 34 on Ghosts IV by Nine Inch Nails: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF_ceFugJjQ 
• David: Nintendo Switch Lite https://www.nintendo.com/switch/lite/ and Knives Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGqiHJTsRkQ  

Sources:

•  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/technology/tiktok-alex-zhu-interview.html 
•  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bytedance-tiktok-exclusive/exclusive-chinas-bytedance-moves-to-ringfence-its-tiktok-app-amid-u-s-probe-sources-idUSKBN1Y10OH 
•  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/10/arts/TIK-TOK.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
•  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/19/style/high-school-tiktok-clubs.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
•  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/technology/tiktok-facebook-youtube.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
•  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/business/china-toutiao-censorship.html
•  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/business/media/a-social-network-frequented-by-children-tests-the-limits-of-online-regulation.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTyg2E44pBA
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/keepsilence/
•  https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/12/10/18129126/tiktok-app-musically-meme-cringe
•  https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/1/26/16937712/karma-is-a-bitch-riverdale-kreayshawn-meme
•  https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/2/17644260/musically-rebrand-tiktok-bytedance-douyin
•  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tiktok-video-app-growth-867587/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical.ly
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ByteDance 
•  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
•  https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-musically-2016-5 
•  https://supchina.com/2017/09/13/can-pop-music-connect-teens-china-world-musical-ly-co-founder-louis-yang-wants-find/ 
•  https://supchina.com/podcast/ep-28-the-worlds-most-valuable-startup-bytedance-maker-of-tiktok-toutiao/
•  https://supchina.com/podcast/ep-55-kuaishou-the-anti-douyin-tiktok/
•  https://supchina.com/podcast/ep-56-not-just-tiktok-a-short-history-of-chinese-short-video-abroad/ 
•  https://supchina.com/2019/09/25/the-difference-between-tiktok-and-douyin/ 
•  https://pandaily.com/toutiaos-buy-1b-purchase-musical-ly/ 
•  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-internet-livestreaming-idUSKBN17E0EV 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTyg2E44pBA 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey15v81pwII 
•  https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3038639/alex-zhus-journey-failed-startup-tiktok-chief 
•  https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/zuckerberg-musically-tiktok-china-facebook 
• https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/12/instagram-reels/ 
• https://www.techinasia.com/douyin-rise-in-china 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptKqFafZgCk 
•  https://technode.com/2017/05/17/kwai-kuaishou-chinas-biggest-social-video-sharing-app/ 
•  https://technode.c...

The Flywheel is strong with this one. We dive deep into the origins of one of the boldest business strategy decisions of our time: Disney CEO Bob Iger’s attempt to buck the Innovator’s Dilemma - and forego billions of dollars in cashflow from Netflix and pay TV providers - in order to establish a direct distribution relationship with its customers for the first time in the company’s history. Is this the force awakening within the house that Walt built, or a phantom menace that will drag Disney to the dark side of unprofitability? Tune in to find out!

Sponsors:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Links:

•  https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2018-Annual-Report.pdf
•  https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/q4-fy17-earnings-transcript.pdf
•  https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/q4-fy19-earnings.pdf
• The Disney flywheel:  https://kottke.org/15/06/walt-disneys-corporate-strategy-chart 
• 
  

Sources: 

• The Ride of a Lifetime by Bob Iger:  https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Lifetime-Lessons-Learned-Company-ebook/dp/B07PF6XTD8
•  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/style/disney-bob-iger-book.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Iger
•  https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/bob-iger-bets-company-hollywood-s-future-streaming-1247663 
•  https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-kevin-mayer-deliver-the-future-of-disney-11573272027 
•  https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-07/inside-disney-bob-iger-on-star-wars-pixar-and-more 
•  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bob-iger-the-ride-of-a-lifetime/id1264843400?i=1000451721143  

Carveouts: 

• David: The Ride of a Lifetime
• Ben: The Imagineering Story on Disney+:  https://www.disneyplus.com/series/the-imagineering-story/6ryoXv1e1rWW

It’s an IPO, it’s a bailout, it’s an... acquisition? We’re joined by the one and only Dan Primack from Axios to recount the epic saga of the We Company in all its tragic glory. How did this business somehow go from chopping up commercial real estate to elevating global consciousness to rewarding its ousted CEO with a $1.7B “platinum parachute”, all while the company can’t afford severance for thousands of soon-to-be laid-off employees? Where did it all go wrong? And most importantly, who gets the Gulfstream G650??

Sponsors:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

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:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

• 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

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:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

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:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
•  https://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Silicon-Valley-Shockley-racist-semiconductor-lab-13164228.php
• https://signallake.com/innovation/Valentine101409.pdf
•  http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/valentine_donald.pdf
•  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0875849385/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_ZB8IDb7NNAFAH
•  https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-Age-ebook/dp/B06ZZ1YDTX/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
• https://www.scaruffi.com/svhistory/arun3.html
• http://www.ianhathaway.org/blog/2019/7/31/vc-an-american-history
•  https://www.axios.com/sequoia-capital-shakes-up-leadership-1513300220-7d255e34-f4bf-4178-af62-ec68023726e3.html
•  https://www.slideshare.net/lebret/a-history-of-venture-capital-lebret-vers-11
• https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=47240
• https://www.inc.com/magazine/19850501/7289_pagen_5.html
•  https://www.amazon.com/VC-American-History-Tom-Nicholas-ebook/dp/B07QV2YM3X/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&t=2555s

Special announcement: we're hosting a meetup in San Francisco! It's been too long and and we can't wait to see many of you. It will be Wednesday, September 25 2019, exact time and location TBD but likely starting at 6pm. You can register at https://www.acquired.fm/meetup 

The event is free, but space will be limited so please only register if you know you can make it. 

Hope to see many of you there!

-Ben and David 

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:

Anrok: https://bit.ly/anrokacquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acqclaude

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

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/