Episode 8: Acompli, Sunrise, and Wunderlist (w/ Kurt DelBene)
Acquired29 Feb 2016

Episode 8: Acompli, Sunrise, and Wunderlist (w/ Kurt DelBene)

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:


More Acquired!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Episoder(212)

Huawei

Huawei

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 P...

22 Jul 20191h 9min

Superhuman (with CEO Rahul Vohra)

Superhuman (with CEO Rahul Vohra)

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 Andrees...

27 Jun 20191h 22min

The Slack DPO

The Slack DPO

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 cabi...

25 Jun 20192h

The Zoom IPO (with Santi Subotovsky)

The Zoom IPO (with Santi Subotovsky)

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 ...

19 Jun 20191h 23min

The Electronic Arts IPO (with Trip Hawkins)

The Electronic Arts IPO (with Trip Hawkins)

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...

27 Mai 20192h 5min

The Uber IPO

The Uber IPO

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 th...

11 Mai 20192h 26min

The Pinterest IPO

The Pinterest IPO

In the second episode of our APLUSS(Z!) IPO saga, we dive into the history behind the planet’s largest non-social social network, Pinterest. From The Pirates of Silicon Valley to the bloggers of Salt ...

24 Apr 20191h 44min

The Lyft IPO

The Lyft IPO

Call it the playoffs. Call it the Olympics. Call it March Madness. No matter which sports analogy you borrow, it falls short of capturing what Lyft's IPO yesterday kicked off in the tech world. A gene...

30 Mar 20192h 22min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
utbytte
pengepodden-2
finansredaksjonen
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
okonomiamatorene
rss-sunn-okonomi
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
lederpodden
rss-markedspuls-2
rss-andelige-tanker-med-camillo
rss-impressions-2
rss-fa-makro