Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

On this extra-long episode of Acquired, Brian McCullough from the Internet History Podcast returns to discuss perhaps the most (in)famous merger of all time: AOL - Time Warner. Who doesn’t remember the soothing sounds of 56k modems and the timeless phrase, “You’ve Got Mail”? Join us all as we unpack how one of the biggest ISP’s of the 90’s tried to take over the world… and fell far short. 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: AOL’s status in the 90’s / early 00’sExplaining just what it is that AOL did at the height of their popularityHow AOL pioneered a number of internet paradigmsAOL’s persistent money troubles and bailouts from other companiesSteve Case foreseeing the coming era of broadband, inspiring AOL to pursue working with a cable companyEbay vs. Time Warner in a down-to-the-wire war for a merger with AOLWhy the money dried up for AOL after their merger with Time WarnerAOL and its value in the post-Time-Warner eraSpeculating about what would have happened had AOL and others stayed independent businessesAnd much discussion on how to grade this one…  The Carve Out: Ben: Give and Take by Adam Grant David:  Season of the Witch by David Talbot Brian: A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Rob Goodman

18 Syys 20171h 47min

Unicorns and ratchets and lawsuits, oh my! Our heroes dive into the history of Jack Dorsey’s famous “other” company, Square. Was the Square IPO a canary in the coal mine signaling doom & gloom for the so-called unicorn companies of the early 2010’s, or a mispriced and misunderstood diamond in the rough? Acquired weighs in.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:Square’s deep origins in the early 90’s in St. Louis, MO with the initial meeting of its co-founders, Jack Dorsey & Jim McKelveyMcKelvey’s side glass blowing business and the “inspiration” for Square that came much later in the late 2000’sThe complicated involvement of Washington University (in St. Louis) professor Robert Morley, who had worked for years developing payment card reading technologyThe company’s early meeting with Scott Forstall at Apple, and its “significant” impact on the its name and designThe real disruptive innovation of Square and its business model (hint: not just building a mobile card reader)Square’s massive payments deal with Starbucks in 2012 and its impact on the companyThe evolution of Square’s business from a simple card reader to cloud-based Point of Sale (PoS) system and entire suite of merchant tools & business management servicesThe drama leading up to Square’s IPO (including at Jack Dorsey’s “other” company, Twitter), dynamics and narratives affecting its pricing, the effect of IPO “ratchets”, and the company’s performance over the ~2 years since The Carve Out:David: Bob Iger on Nick Bilton’s  Inside the Hive podcastBen:  The World After Capital on GitBooks

16 Elo 20171h 20min

Acquired dives into the legendary acquisition of Ben Horowitz & Marc Andreessen’s “second act” software company Opsware, from a perspective never before heard—HP’s side of the story! Our heroes are joined by Michel Feaster, who led both the acquisition for HP and then the Opsware product as part of the integrated company afterward under Ben Horowitz. Today the tables have turned: Michel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seattle-based startup Usermind, and Ben Horowitz sits on her board on behalf of A16Z. This episode is not one to miss!   Sponsors:Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntress More 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: Opsware’s early history and origins as Loudcloud, the “second act” of internet wunderkind Marc Andreessen and Netscape product manager Ben HorowitzBen’s first person telling of the Loudcloud/Opsware history in The Hard Thing about Hard Things, as well as the great Wired "period piece” covering Loudcloud’s launch in August 2000The importance of timing, and Loudcloud’s too-early vision of—essentially—AWS before AWS (including eerie parallels between the metaphor Andreessen used to describe Loudcloud during the company’s first press briefing, and Jeff Bezos’s description of AWS at YC nearly a decade later)Creation of the “Opsware” tool inside of Loudcloud to automate deploying and configuring servers within Loudcloud’s data centersLoudcloud's meteoric rise, crash following the burst of the internet bubble, and hard pivot as a public company into Opsware—now an enterprise software company selling datacenter tools Michel’s role in HP’s evaluation of the company as an acquisition target, and process leading to its $1.6B acquisition in July 2007Integration of the company into HP’s culture and sales channelThe creation of Ben & Marc’s “third act”, the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, and what it’s like for Michel now having Ben as an investor on her board at Usermind   The Carve Out: Ben: StarStaX star trail photography softwareDavid: Jimmy Iovine on the Bill Simmons Podcast

5 Elo 20171h 19min

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: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 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 BruinsmaSkift.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 AllExpedia’s early flirtation with Booking, and decision not to acquire the companyPriceline head of M&A Glenn Fogel’s vision for how powerful the agency model for OTAs could become in EuropePriceline 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: Ben: Scott Forstall talking about the original iPhone at the Computer History MuseumDavid: The Big SickDrew: Bloomberg’s Money Stuff by Matt Levine

26 Heinä 20171h 20min

Ben & David cover the creation of the gaming world’s equivalent of the 70’s rock supergroup: the 2008 merger of Blizzard and Activision. We tell the story from the Blizzard perspective, tracing the history of one of the most innovative companies in the business from humble beginnings at the hands of UCLA undergrads, to surviving multiple acquisition rollups (including at one point being owned by the French national water company), to joining ultimately with Activision to form the largest gaming company in the world, all while inventing multiple game genres that define the industry as we know it today. 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: Blizzard’s founding in 1991 as "Silicon & Synapse” by recent UCLA grads Allen Adham, Frank Pearce, and Mike MorhaimeThe team’s first projects making ports for other games, including Battle Chess on the Commodore 64Early success on the Super Nintendo with Rock & Roll Racing and The Lost VikingsOrigin of the Real-Time Strategy game genre (“RTS”) and Blizzard’s fist mega-hit, Warcraft Blizzard’s crazy corporate ownership changes over the yearsDevelopment of further legendary game franchises like Diablo and Starcraft, along with sequels to Warcraft and the rise of the rise of player moddingEmergence of the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena genre (“MOBA”) from the Warcraft III modding community, and its growth into one of the biggest sectors in the games and esports industries todayBlizzard’s role in developing the concept of online gaming, from early hacks to play against friends to World of Warcraft and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (“MMORPG’s”)The 2008 merger with storied gaming company Activision Growth and success since the merger, including the launch of new game franchises Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch  The Carve Out: Ben:  Dick Costolo on Vanity Fair’s  Inside the Hive  podcastDavid: Nellie and Joe's 100% Natural Key Lime Juice (tip:  buy in bulk from Walmart/Jet)

13 Heinä 20171h 16min

Ben and David are once again live on the scene, this time covering the biggest disruption in grocery since… well, sliced bread: Amazon’s $13.7B purchase of Whole Foods Market. We place this deal in context by diving deep into the long, intertwining history of grocery, tech and Amazon, from the infamous dotcom flameout Webvan (domain name now owned by Amazon) to its much more successful progeny Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon in 2012) to current Silicon Valley unicorn Instacart (founded by former Amazon logistics engineer Apoorva Mehta). One thing is clear: for Amazon and Jeff Bezos, realizing the longterm vision of the Everything Store truly means building the everything store.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  origins of Whole Foods Market as “Saferway” in the late 70’s Austin, TX hippie scene, founded by CEO John Mackey (“the Steve Jobs of grocery stores”) and his then-girlfriend Renee Lawson HardyWhole Foods’ expansion through acquisition throughout the 80’s and 90’sThe company’s recent struggles with competition, leading to sales declines and  attracting activist shareholder interest from Jana Partners  Amazon’s acquisition of the company on June 16, 2017 for $13.7 billion, a 27 percent premium to the stock's previous day closing priceIn depth history and analysis of the four keys to understanding this deal: Webvan, Kiva Systems, AmazonFresh and  InstacartFollowups: Walmart/Jet buys Bonobos for $310MThe Carve Out:Ben: Mark Zuckerberg’s 2005 CS50 guest lectureDavid: Exponent on Podcasting and Centralization

21 Kesä 20171h 17min

Ben & David revisit the birth of the digital music revolution and Steve Jobs' "digital hub" strategy, with Apple's 2000 acquisition of the Mac music player SoundJam MP, which would go on to become iTunes. We relive the 90's with brushed metal interfaces, music visualizers and of course, software sold in (physical) boxes.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, LLC

31 Touko 20171h 20min

Ben and David continue Acquired’s “tech and sports” mini-series with Disney’s 2016 acquisition of a minority stake (with the right to purchase a majority stake at a later date) in BAMTech, the internet streaming company originally founded as part of Major League Baseball in the early 2000’s. However the importance of this story goes deeper than just sports, with major ramifications for nearly every major technology company from Amazon to YouTube. Even if you’re not not sure if baseball’s played on a diamond or a gridiron, tune in as we swing for the fences in predicting the future of TV! 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: What is BAMTech, and why is it, according to The Verge, "the future of television”?BAMTech’s origins as part of Major League Baseball's Advanced Media division ("MLBAM)”)MLBAM’s founding CEO Bob Bowman’s decidedly “non-tech” background, and growth into one of the most important tech leaders of the past 15 yearsInitial technology struggles and learnings from early streaming efforts (including a botched audio package of Ichiro Suzuki’s games with the Mariners for fans in Japan)Landing on a streaming model that works with the launch of MLB.tv in 2002/2003—three years before YouTube is founded! Improvement of the MLB.tv service and MLBAM’s streaming expertise over the next ten years through the rise of mobile, and simultaneous  growth of MLBAM’s revenues to over $1B annuallyMLBAM’s initial deals to expand its streaming services beyond baseball, starting with ESPN in 2010, then WWE, the PGA,  HBO and  the NHLThe importance of media rights, and MLBAM’s transition from a simple tech/infrastructure provider to  a full-fledged media company The decision to initiate a spin-off process for BAMTech from MLB in August 2015, and Disney’s $1B investment into the newly created spin-out company in August 2016Disney’s subsequent announcement that they’ll be  working with BAMTech to create a direct-to-consumer ESPN streaming serviceBAMTech’s  $300M deal with Riot Games in December 2016 for the media rights to League of Legends eSports content Bob Bowman’s announcement in February 2017 that he’ll be stepping back to from a day to day role, and  hiring of former Amazon VP of Video Michael Paull as BAMTech’s new CEO  Followups & Hot Takes:  Facebook’s struggles with Instant Articles Microsoft killing Wunderlist (David is VERY sad) Instagram continues its torrid growth, passes 700M MAU Amazon’s new Look  The Cloudera IPOConfirmation the ride sharing wars are far from over:  Didi raises $5.5B in the largest private funding round ever  The Carve Out: Ben: NYT’s 4th Down BotDavid: Wait But Why on Elon Musk’s “Wizard Hat"

10 Touko 20171h 20min