AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Introduction
The hosts discuss Facebook's strong financial performance, particularly its operating margin, and introduce the topic of WhatsApp and Facebook's $22 billion acquisition of the app. They debate whether the acquisition was a good move for Facebook.
We kick off Season 6 with a long-awaited Acquired Classic: Facebook’s $22B purchase of WhatsApp in 2014, which still ranks as the largest acquisition of a private VC-backed startup in history. Yet despite that enormous pricetag and all its associated fanfare, as we sit here 5+ years later WhatsApp actually generates LESS revenue than the meager ~$20m it was bringing in at the time of acquisition. Was this this worst acquisition of all-time, or a brilliant strategic chess move by Mark Zuckerberg & co? Tune in as we render Acquired’s judgement!
Note: Unfortunately David’s audio quality in this episode was impacted by a technical glitch which we didn’t discover until after recording. Our editors worked super hard to fix in post-production, but it’s still not totally perfect. We hope you’ll give it a listen regardless, and we’re working on getting a transcript made ASAP, which we’ll post to the website when it’s ready. Thanks for bearing with us,
-Ben & David
Sponsors:
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagents
Huntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntress
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
More Acquired!:
© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLC
Carve Outs:
Sources:
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode
Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways
Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode