ACQ2 by Acquired

Ben and David joined Sam and Shaan of "My First Million" to talk about scaling to a large podcast, the company they would like to own, the CEO's you don't want to compete against, and the 100+ year history of Nintendo. If you liked this and want more of Sam and Shawn, subscribe to the MFM YouTube channel here.Sponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinLinks:* Hampton* Wait But Why* Marques Brownlee* Nintendo* NVIDIA------Show Notes:(01:45) - Intro to Acquired(10:00) - How to scale to a big podcast(14:05) - How big do you have to be to be at the top of the business category?(23:55) - What commonalities are there between weird companies?(27:40) - How to tell a real from a fake contrarian(34:45) - Nintendo(37:45) - Which company would you most want to own?(40:45) - Who would you least want to compete against?(52:30) - Business ideas(56:40) - Will you ever sell Acquired?(58:20) - Best ways to make money as a podcast

7 Apr 20231h 20min

On our AWS episode, we talked briefly about the next chapter of cloud: data warehouses. But what makes them so powerful? Why do enterprises rely on them? And how will cloud customers collaborate on data stored in multiple clouds?We sit down with Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, the co-founder and CEO of Samooha, a new company backed by Altimeter and Snowflake Ventures to tackle the problem of secure data sharing and collaboration in the cloud. Kamakshi has an impressive background to speak to this problem, having been a part of AdMob (sold to Google), and the founder/CEO of Drawbridge, which sold to LinkedIn. She then went on to work in Microsoft's Office of the CTO, where she obviously had a lot of experience understanding the needs of cloud customers.If you want a better understanding of how enterprises use the cloud, multi-cloud architecture, and how security and privacy works with customer data at scale, this episode is for you!Sponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinLinks:Kamakshi on TwitterSamooha Samooha Product Demo Video

20 Mar 20231h 7min

Statsig CEO and former Facebook VP Vijaye Raji joins us to discuss democratizing the tools of big tech. Before starting Statsig, Vijaye spent 10 years at Facebook where he led the development of their mobile ad product (yes — THAT mobile ad product that’s the core of FB today).We talk all about about Facebook’s early days in mobile, and the internal building and shipping process that let them continuously experiment and roll out features out to billions of users, which Statsig is now bringing to engineering and product teams everywhere. This episode is a must-listen for product builders at all stages!Listen in any podcast player.Sponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinLinks: Statsig’s generous free feature flags offeringStatsig experimentation community on Slack, LinkedIn and Twitter

10 Feb 20231h 7min

We sit down with Altimeter Capital’s head of Capital Formation Meghan Reynolds (who previously was TPG’s global co-head of Capital Formation for 10 years) to talk about everything that goes into the LP - GP relationship at venture funds. We cover how (and why) to think strategically about Capital Formation, why it should be about so much more the just investor relations/fundraising, and also why and how it’s going to change dramatically over the next decade. This was a GREAT conversation, and very relevant for GPs, LPs, and also company founders and employees heading into 2023 and post zero-interest-rate capital markets.Sponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinLinks:Follow Meghan on Twitter! Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

9 Jan 20231h 16min

The Acquired community's own Austin Federa joins us for a 101 primer on how to self-custody your crypto assets, and why it’s the only truly safe way to hold them. Given all the current turmoil (and fraud) in crypto-land, we were thinking “how could we do something to help the Acquired community right now”, and Austin gave us the perfect idea. In addition to running the #digital-assets channel on the Acquired Slack, Austin is the head of communications at the Solana Foundation and has plenty of hard-won experience through previous crypto cycles and implosions. This episode covers both the nuts and bolts of a “how-to” guide, as well as a more philosophical discussion of self-custody across asset classes, and the practicalities and convenience tradeoffs involved.Sponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinNote: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

3 Des 20221h 8min

We had the rare opportunity to interview Jay Hoag, cofounder of the first tech crossover investing firm, TCV, at TCV’s Engage Summit in Half Moon Bay earlier this fall. Jay and Rick Kimball started TCV back in 1995 and have been part of the private-to-public journeys of storied companies like Netflix (which Jay shares some great war stories about on this episode), Spotify, Zillow, Expedia, Facebook, Airbnb, Peloton and many others. Jay and TCV were kind enough to let us release the conversation as an Acquired LP episode, and we’re excited to share it with all of you. We cover the firm’s history, how companies should calibrate the magnitude of their future-looking product investments (a topic we didn’t realize would end up being so timely) and perhaps most importantly, pivotal moments where now seemingly unstoppable companies almost died amidst big macroeconomic changes. We hope you enjoy!Links:The Acquired Merch StoreThe Acquired SlackSponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinNote: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

10 Nov 202245min

We sit down with Brian O’Malley of Forerunner Ventures to talk about where in the cycle we are right now for consumer investing. We touch on the macro environment (obviously!), but also how to navigate between and around the current generation of platform incumbents, and where the next breakthrough consumer technology companies might come from. And in true Acquired Playbook fashion we talk about the benefits of focusing on niches — and how on the internet they can expand ever bigger than you might initially imagine!Links:Acquired Qualcomm Live Show at Breakpoint 2022!The 2022 Acquired Survey!The Acquired Merch StoreThe Acquired SlackSponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinNote: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

31 Okt 20221h 19min

The CEO of Mutiny, Jaleh Rezaei, joins us to talk about the playbook to profitably grow a B2B company — something particularly useful for founders in 2022! Jaleh was Gusto’s first head of marketing (and before that worked at VMware and Sequoia), and has since gone on to build Mutiny, which helps B2B companies dynamically optimize their websites for conversion and has raised over $70m from Sequoia, Insight, Tiger and other great investors.Sponsors:Koyfin: https://bit.ly/acquiredkoyfinLinks:Acquired Qualcomm Live Show at Breakpoint 2022!Follow Jaleh on TwitterThe 2022 Acquired Survey!The Acquired Merch StoreThe Acquired Slack

24 Okt 20221h 8min