Episode 21: Inside the M&A Press with Bloomberg's Alex Sherman

Ben and David go inside the M&A press with Bloomberg’s technology M&A reporter and host of the Deal of the Week Podcast, Alex Sherman. If you’ve ever wondered how stories about big deals get broken or what “according to people familiar with the matter” really means, tune in for the behind-the-scenes scoop! Note: A technical glitch with our recording setup created occasional short silences between Alex’s comments and Ben & David’s. It shouldn’t impact listenability, but we apologize for the awkward pauses!

Sponsors:

WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25
Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsn

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Topics covered include:

• Bloomberg’s own fascinating “history & facts” and origins following the acquisition of storied Wall Street firm Salomon Brothers
• Bloomberg’s core as a highly profitable technology business (selling terminals to Wall Street firms), with a large media empire built on top of it
• The tradable value of breaking M&A news & information to Bloomberg’s terminal customers, and competing on speed
• How “sources" work — and industry standard that sources be directly within the companies involved in a deal
• The coded language of M&A reporting and gleaning where information is coming from based on a story’s structure and phrasing
• The lifecycle of a story—steps from sourcing to writing to release, and reasons (or lack thereof) for why stories run when they do
• Internal & external PR resources companies use for M&A
• How Alex prioritizes his time researching and creating stories, and who he’s meeting with to hear about what deals are in the works
• The difference between ‘news' and ‘analysis', and why news dominates the majority of stories versus deeper analysis
• Media and social media business models, their evolution in the messenger world, and speculation on Twitter’s future
• How entrepreneurs can think about interacting with the press and building relationships with the right reporters for their stage and space
• Apple’s ‘unique’ approach to press relations

Followups:

• Instagram announces 500k+ active advertisers, up from 200k in February 2016
• Amazon stock price surpasses $800/share

Hot Takes:

• Ford acquires Chariot
• The Yahoo! data breach and potential impact on their acquisition by Verizon

The Carve Out:

• Ben: Phil of Drones’ Burning Man 2016 recap video
• David: Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths
• Alex: Clinton’s Samantha Bee Problem, by Ross Douthat in the NYT Opinion Pages