Episode 41: Booking.com with Jetsetter & Room 77 CEO Drew Patterson
Acquired26 Jul 2017

Episode 41: Booking.com with Jetsetter & Room 77 CEO Drew Patterson

Acquired trains its lens on the “second or third best acquisition of all-time”, Priceline’s 2005 purchase of Booking.com. Our heroes are joined by friend-of-the-show and former Jetsetter & Room 77 CEO Drew Patterson to help understand how this little-known startup from The Netherlands grew into the largest travel company in the world, with nearly $8B in annual revenue. Was this deal even better than Instagram??? We debate, hotly.

Sponsors:


More Acquired!

© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC


Topics covered include:
  • The biggest startup you’ve never heard of (in the US), Booking.com, and its parent company Priceline (yes, the William Shatner Priceline)
  • Booking’s founding in Amsterdam in late 1996: by recent college graduate Geert-Jan Bruinsma
  • Skift.com’s Definitive Oral History of Online Travel
  • The travel industry's GDS's (“Global Distribution Systems”) and the development of Sabre
  • How Bruinsma raised the initial money for Booking: by emailing anyone he know who had an email address
  • OTAs ("Online Travel Agencies”) and how they operate; the "merchant model" versus the “agency model"
  • The role of search in online travel
  • Bill Gurley on Conversion: The Most Important Internet Metric of All
  • Expedia’s early flirtation with Booking, and decision not to acquire the company
  • Priceline head of M&A Glenn Fogel’s vision for how powerful the agency model for OTAs could become in Europe
  • Priceline and Glenn's 2004 acquisition of Active Hotels in the UK, followed by the 2005 acquisition of Booking for $133M and the combination of the two businesses into Booking.com
  • Booking’s incredible growth in the decade since the acquisition, from less than 20M room-nights to over 500M, and $7.8B in revenue in 2016

The Carve Out:

Episoder(214)

Standard Oil Part I

Standard Oil Part I

It's time. We dive into the *original* American capitalist mega winner, Standard Oil, and its legendary founder John D. Rockefeller. This company and man almost defy characterization -- Elon, Bezos, G...

22 Sep 20212h 15min

TSMC

TSMC

It's time. We dive into the unbelievable history behind the quietest technology giant of them all — and as of recording the world's 9th (!) most valuable company — the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturi...

7 Sep 20212h 36min

Kevin Rose from Web 2.0 to Web3

Kevin Rose from Web 2.0 to Web3

We sit down with the one and only Kevin Rose to talk about his journey from pioneering Web 2.0 with Digg to leading the charge on Web3 and NFT + DeFi investing as a partner at True Ventures and his ne...

30 Aug 20211h 41min

Andreessen Horowitz Part II

Andreessen Horowitz Part II

Alright, backstory's out of the way, and Acquired is rolling three hours deep on the venture firm that changed the game for everyone — a16z.VC marketing? Check."Founder-friendly?" Check.Platform servi...

10 Aug 20212h 55min

Andreessen Horowitz Part I

Andreessen Horowitz Part I

We kick off Season 9 with a classic: Part I of the a16z story. How did this brand new venture firm charge out of the gates in 2009, going from zero to disrupting the entire venture industry overnight?...

27 Jul 20212h 7min

Special: Solana (with CEO Anatoly Yakovenko)

Special: Solana (with CEO Anatoly Yakovenko)

We sit down with the hottest new protocol layer in crypto today: Solana, and its cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko, who is the CEO of Solana Labs. If you listened to our Ethereum episode or follow crypto ev...

19 Jul 20211h 14min

Ethereum

Ethereum

We close out Season 8 with the most ambitious organization we've ever covered on Acquired: Ethereum, and it's celebrity wunderkind founder Vitalik Buterin. If you thought Mark Zuckerberg IPO-ing Faceb...

6 Jul 20213h 5min

Special: Ho Nam from Altos Ventures — A Different Approach to VC

Special: Ho Nam from Altos Ventures — A Different Approach to VC

What do you get when you combine Berkshire Hathaway's approach with early-stage venture capital? Altos Ventures. We're joined by Altos's wonderful Ho Nam to discuss their highly unusual approach to VC...

21 Jun 20211h 52min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
pengepodden-2
pengesnakk
utbytte
rss-politisk-preik
finansredaksjonen
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
rss-markedspuls-2
rss-pa-konto
rss-sunn-okonomi
lederpodden
rss-investering-gjort-enkelt