Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins on The Art of Business in Gaming

In honor of start of NBA playoffs, Ben & David venture off the beaten path to explore one of Steve Ballmer’s most famous acquisitions, his 2014 purchase of the Los Angeles Clippers NBA franchise. Was this landmark purchase a steal or a turnover for the former Microsoft CEO? We speculate wildly! Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: The Clippers’ founding in 1970 as the NBA expansion team the Buffalo BravesEarly ownership changes and the move west to San Diego in 1981Acquisition in 1981 by LA lawyer and real estate developer Donald Sterling for $12.5MSterling's relocation of the Clippers to LA in 1984 against NBA rulesStruggles over the next 25 years as the "worst franchise in professional sports” according to ESPN Turnaround beginning in early 2010s led by Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, and Chris PaulThe bombshell in April 2014, reported by TMZ, of a taped conversation between Sterling and his mistress where Sterling makes  hugely offensive and racist comments, directed in particular toward former Lakers point guard Magic JohnsonFallout from the comments, resulting in a lifetime ban from NBA for Sterling, and a forced sale of the team to former Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer for $2BImpact of the landmark sale price on NBA and other sports franchise valuations Clippers performance post-sale, and  prospects for the future The opportunity for technology and business model innovation in the NBA, and professional sports in general  Followups:  Instagram Stories passes 200 million users per day (including correction on the definition of DAU) The Last Jedi trailer!Clarifying Starbucks’ same store sales performance post-IPO   The Carve Out: Ben: Bill Gurley on This Week in StartupsDavid:  Pop, Race & the '60s podcast and Just Around Midnight by Jack Hamilton

24 Huhti 20171h 10min

Ben & David transcend the barriers of “real” reality, and dive into Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s geek-eutpoia vision of the future of gaming, social, and maybe even the entire internet: strapping goofy-looking goggles to your face. Is VR for real this time or are we living through another Virtual Boy moment? Tune in to find out! Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Oculus’s origins in 2010 as a twinkle in the eye of the then-17 year old VR wunderkind, Palmer Luckey, who started by prototyping VR headsets in his parents’ garage in Southern California Palmer’s time interning at  USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, and chronicling of his own VR efforts in the Meant to be Seen 3D internet forumsLegendary game developer John Carmack’s own interest in virtual reality, his intersection with Palmer on the MTBS3D forums, and how he acquired and popularized one of Palmer's first early prototypes of the Oculus Rift (which was  literally held together with duct tape!) by demonstrating it onstage at E3 2012 How former Scaleform cofounders Brendan Iribe and Michael Antonov teamed up with Palmer after E3 to create the company Oculus VRThe newly-formed Oculus’s wildly successful August 2012 Kickstarter campaign, including video endorsements from both Carmack and Valve founder Gabe NewellOculus’s subsequent venture capital fundraisings, and catching the attention of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg Facebook’s acquisition of the company in March 2014 for $2.3BThe Zenimax lawsuit filed against Oculus and Facebook following the acquisition Valve (home of the most incredible company handbook of all-time) and Gabe Newell’s subsequent pivot from supporting Oculus to launching their own competing VR efforts with the Vive Team changes at Oculus post-acquisition   Followups: SNAP:  still a public company  Hot Takes: Intel’s $15B acquisition of Mobileye (with reference to  Ben Thompson’s analysis of the deal and Smiling Curves)  The Carve Out: Ben:  Kara Swisher interviews the Pod Save America team at SXSWDavid: Adam Gopnik asks Are Liberals on the Wrong Side of History?

11 Huhti 20171h 22min

Ben & David "pour over" the 1992 IPO of the legendary Seattle coffee company with the help of Dan Levitan, who served as lead investment banker on the IPO and who would later co-found the venture capital firm Maveron with Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz.Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include:The original Starbucks’ founding as a coffee bean roaster, started by three disciples of the legendary coffee roaster Alfred PeetHoward Schultz’s introduction to Starbucks, his joining the team as director of marketing, and inspiration behind his “third place” coffee shop visionHoward’s departure from the original Starbucks, founding of Il Giornale, and subsequent of acquisition the Seattle Starbucks storesStarbucks’ incredible growth following the acquisition and expansion beyond SeattleThe state of raising private capital in the 1980’s/90’s, and the decision to go public (link to the S-1)Howard’s ambitious goals for the roadshow and investor participation, and subsequent stock performance after the IPOThe narrative and evolution of Starbucks as a technology company, or a consumer company that leverages technology very effectively The Carve Out:Ben: Dan Primack’s new daily newsletter, Pro RataDavid: The  Wizard and the Bruiser podcast Dan: The Man in the Glass

3 Huhti 20171h 17min

Episode 33: Overture (with the Internet History Podcast!)    Ben & David dive deep into the early days of internet search, with the help of the best in the internet history business: Brian McCullough from the Internet History Podcast! We are huge fans of IHP at Acquired, so this was a real treat to collaborate with Brian and the great work he does over there. In this episode we cover the story of how a small incubator in Southern California spawned perhaps the greatest tech business model of all-time, Yahoo!’s fumbling of that golden opportunity, and Google’s recovery of that fumble to cross into the end zone of tech history behind the biggest moat ever constructed on the internet.  Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Overture’s origins as part of the Idealab incubator run by famed early internet entrepreneur Bill GrossInvention of the paid search business model… initially by returning ADS ONLY in response to search queriesThe eventual marrying of Overture’s paid search (ads) with organic search results via syndication on other properties like Yahoo!Revenue from Overture’s ad partnership saving Yahoo!’s business after the internet bubble burst Yahoo!’s eventual acquisition of Overture for $1.4B in 2003 But… the really interesting story here: Overture’s 'inspiration' of Google’s business model and the creation of "the greatest advertising machine in the history of the world"The original (pre-Overture) Google business model: selling a box! Google’s differentiation vs Overture: focusing on the long tail, ad quality scores, and an advertiser-friendly auction structureGoogle’s first major search syndication victory over Overture: AOLYahoo!’s failed attempt to buy Google for $3B in 2002, leading it to settle for acquiring Overture instead the following year“Project Panama” at Yahoo!, and its impact on the tech and internet historyOverture's (and later Yahoo!’s) lawsuit against Google for stealing the paid search business model— "the O.G. version of Snapchat and Instagram”Paul Graham’s take on "What Happened to Yahoo?”Perhaps the most important technology to come out of this whole episode: HadoopThe power of incentive alignment in marketplaces— and creating the widest and deepest moats on the internet  The Carve Out: Ben: The famous University of Washington's “Love Lab” Dr. John Gottman: “The Secret to Love is Just Kindness”David: BerlinBrian: The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s

13 Maalis 20171h 32min

Snap! Acquired is live on the scene reporting from the "Super Bowl" of 2017 tech events: Snap Inc's hugely anticipated (and just plain huge) IPO. What does the future hold for this plucky “camera company”? Will Snap's IPO endure as tech's most important picture-frame since the  2012 debut of Facebook, or is it destined to fade as just another snapshot? We debate! Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Reference to our previous Acquired episode on Snap covering Facebook’s failed attempt to acquire the company in 2013, which goes deep on Snap’s origins and early historySnap’s busy years since: launching Discover,  Lenses,  Geofilters,  new Chat,  Memories, an  ads API, acquiring Bitmoji, and, of course,  debuting SpectaclesThe incredible document that is  Snap's S-1 filing (read starting from the  “BUSINESS” section on p.93)Snap Inc’s “unique” voting structureEvan Spiegel’s “CEO Award” bonus for successfully completing an IPO: an extra 3.0% of the company worth more than $600MSnap’s IPO pricing, first day of trading “pop”, and momentum carried into day two Introducing a new show section (for IPOs): Narratives!  Snap  is a “camera company"Snap's opportunity is  winning television ad dollarsSnap is a cult of the “product genius”Snap has a growth problem… and its name is Instagram (Stories)Snap has a cost problem: the (first?)  gross margin negative IPOWall Street to Evan: “we trust you… for now"Chris Sacca’s biggest email fail of 2012…And of course all the classics from the Acquired canon: waves, moats, flywheels, network effects, starting small and more!   The Carve Out: Ben:  The Bill Simmons Podcast with Ben ThompsonDavid: The Art of War, also Evan Spiegel’s Carve Out for 2013 :)

4 Maalis 20171h 28min

Topics covered include:The global surge in 2012 of entrepreneurs starting ridesharing companies, nowhere moreso than China Didi CEO Cheng Wei and investor Wang Gang’s backgrounds at Alibaba, first entrepreneurial effort in Momo, and Momo’s pivot to Didi DacheThe culling of the ridesharing herd in China down to Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache through brutal competition and involvement of the “big three” Chinese internet companies Rise of the Chinese messaging apps and associated mobile payments, and their impact on ridesharingThe 2015 merger between Didi and Kuaidi, brokered in part by Russian VC Yuri MilnerUber’s decision to enter the Chinese market, and early success with investment and support from BaiduThe first meeting between Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Cheng Wei in 2015—which does not go wellSubsequent “scorched earth” competition between Didi and Uber throughout 2015-16Negotiating an armistice: Uber’s agreement to sell its Chinese operations to Didi in late 2016End of the war, or just the beginning? January 2017: Didi invests $100M in Brazilian Uber competitor 99Sustainable growth, and building moats versus scorching earthSponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntress  Followups: Stay tuned for real-time coverage of the Snap IPO coming here on Acquired!   The Carve Out: Ben:  Taming the Mammoth on Wait But WhyDavid: Conversations with Tyler Podcast by Tyler Cowen, co-author of the Marginal Revolution blogBrad: Yuval Noah Harari (author of  Sapiens)’s new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of TomorrowMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

1 Maalis 20171h 15min

Topics covered include: P.A. Semi’s original moniker ("Palo Alto Semiconductor”) and its celebrity founder (in the semiconductor world) Dan DobberpuhlHistory of the back and forth tradeoffs between Intel’s powerful x86 chips and low power alternatives like ARM processors Dobberpuhl’s technology breakthroughs throughout his career that enabled true low-power + high-performance chipsThe initial target markets for P.A. Semi’s chips (surprise: NOT mobile phones)P.A. Semi’s  first foray into a potential deal with Apple, dashed by Cupertino’s  surprise switch to Intel processors in 2005The rise of mobile finally creating the huge market need for low-power / high-performance, Apple’s acquisition of P.A., and launch of the first Apple-designed chip, the “A4”, with the original iPad in 2010Geekbench: the single-core performance of Apple’s latest generation of smartphone processors (A10 Fusion) has  basically caught up with Intel’s laptop CPUsAuthenTec’s beginnings in the late 90’s as a spinoff from the defense contractor Harris Corporation (named by Wired Magazine as the #2 threat to internet privacy in the US), based in Melbourne, Florida Early versions of the technology that became TouchID, the sensors for which were many times larger than today’s iPhones themselves!AuthenTec “not very Apple-like” website on Archive.org (and screenshot)AuthenTec’s  deal that almost was to put their technology and sensors  into Samsung’s flagship phones  Apple’s acquisition of AuthenTec for $356 million in July 2012, and the rapid introduction of TouchID in the iPhone 5S one year later in September 2013Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntress  Followups: Merging of Alaska & Virgin America loyalty programs (woo!) Walmart announces major reorg following the Jet acquisitionSnap Inc. IPO  drama is  mounting! (we can’t wait to cover this one)  The Carve Out: Ben: Rands in Repose: The SituationDavid: Daily Rituals: How Artists WorkMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

24 Tammi 20171h 14min

Ben & David wrap up 2016 with a review of the top tech themes we discussed on the show this year, and look forward to which themes we think will be relevant in the coming year. Can our hosts predict the future? Tune-in in 2018 to find out!   Note: we apologize for the less-than-amazing audio quality on this one. We’re still working on tuning our remote recording setup! Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Our top tech themes of 2016, including the first annual Acquired "Theme of the Year”: Aggregation Theory (surprise, surprise)Themes we think will be most relevant as we head into 2017Extended Carve Outs!  The Carve Out(s): Books:  Ben:  On Writing WellDavid: The Creative Habit and the Asimov  Robot/Empire/Foundation seriesArticle:  Ben: Wait But Why: Religion for the NonreligiousDavid: The New York Times: The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.Podcasts:  Both: The Ezra Klein ShowMusic:  Ben: Justin BieberDavid: Stevie NicksTV/Movies:  Ben: WestworldDavid: Rouge OneApps:  Ben: ReachNowDavid: Amazon Music

11 Tammi 20171h 18min