Episode 27: Special—A Conversation with Microsoft's Head of Strategic Investments Brian Schultz
Acquired16 Dec 2016

Episode 27: Special—A Conversation with Microsoft's Head of Strategic Investments Brian Schultz

Topics covered include:

  • Brian’s history working across “both sides of the aisle” as both a startup founder and corporate development leader at a big company, how perspective from each informs the other, and the importance of learning “customer empathy”
  • How Microsoft approaches M&A from an organizational perspective, and the importance of fit with the company’s product roadmap
  • How Brian approaches strategic investments at Microsoft, and the evolution over time of the Microsoft (and large technology companies as a whole) perspective on investing in other companies
  • Balancing the tension between partnering and investing, and what criteria Brian thinks about when evaluating companies
  • Microsoft’s investment in Facebook in 2007 (at a then-crazy-seeming $15B valuation), and more recently Foursquare, Mesosphere, CloudFlare and others
  • The current state of the tech M&A landscape, and the emergence of private equity as tech company acquirers
  • Potentially changing corporate and foreign tax structures and how they impact acquirers’ thinking around deals (or not!)
  • How Microsoft tracks and evaluates success of acquisitions over time, and lessons learned from successes and failures
  • The increasing number of operating companies (technology and otherwise) looking to invest in startups, and how that landscape has evolved over time

Sponsors:


Followups:

  • Snap Inc.’s rumored IPO filing — and bonus discussion of how VC’s and other investors think about “exiting” their investments in companies that have gone public

Hot Takes:

The Carve Out:


More Acquired!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Avsnitt(212)

Walmart

Walmart

We kick off Season 11 with the incredible story of the retail “granddaddy of them all” Walmart, and its founder Sam Walton. Once you study Walmart, you realize just how deep its heritage runs through ...

19 Juli 20223h 1min

The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories

The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories

When Patrick O'Shaughnessy and Brent Beshore asked us to give a talk at their incredible Capital Camp conference, we knew we had to bring something special. So we spent months combing through the Acqu...

20 Juni 20221h 5min

American Dynamism (with Katherine Boyle)

American Dynamism (with Katherine Boyle)

We sit down with a16z General Partner Katherine Boyle to discuss investing in “American Dynamism”, why it’s so important and why now is the right time to pursue it. Katherine has a fascinating backgro...

6 Juni 20221h 19min

Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner)

Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner)

We sit down with the CEO founders of two of the most capital efficient success stories of all time — Zoom and Veeva Systems — to understand how they grew to billions of dollars in revenue (and tens of...

19 Maj 20221h 9min

Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber)

Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber)

For the final act of the Arena Show, we’re joined by Brooks CEO Jim Weber to tell the amazing story of how he transformed the company from a 3rd tier, deeply cashflow negative “also-ran” into one of t...

16 Maj 20221h 12min

Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity

Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity

We did an Arena Show!! This evening was so big and so special, we had to split it into two episodes for the podcast feed. First up is the Idea Dinner with our best internet buddies, Packy McCormick an...

12 Maj 20221h 28min

Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)

Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)

By 2012, NVIDIA was on a decade-long road to nowhere. Or so most rational observers of the company thought. CEO Jensen Huang was plowing all the cash from the company’s gaming business into building a...

20 Apr 20222h 13min

Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)

Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)

We sit down once again with one of the world’s very best strategy thinkers, 7 Powers author Hamilton Helmer — this time joined by his impressive Strategy Capital colleague Chenyi Shi — to discuss plat...

6 Apr 20221h 25min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

badfluence
framgangspodden
varvet
rss-jossan-nina
rss-borsens-finest
uppgang-och-fall
rss-svart-marknad
avanzapodden
fill-or-kill
svd-tech-brief
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
bathina-en-podcast
dynastin
lastbilspodden
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
borsmorgon
rss-dagen-med-di
24fragor
kapitalet-en-podd-om-ekonomi
tabberaset