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:

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

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 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC