EP 66: George Boutros (CEO, Qatalyst) On Negotiating the Biggest Tech Acquisitions (LinkedIn, Slack, Figma) and Advising Steve Jobs in 1996

George Boutros is commonly known in Silicon Valley as the man behind basically every big tech acquisition in the past 10 years. George was involved in the sale of LinkedIn to Microsoft, Slack to Salesforce, Figma to Adobe, and many others. On this episode he shares his background, how he got into investment banking, and what it was like advising on some of the greatest deals in history including Steve Jobs at Pixar. Finally, George shares his best negotiating advice and misconceptions about the role of investment banking in the tech world. George is currently CEO of Qatalyst Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on tech M&A.

(0:00) Intro

(0:41) Welcome George Boutros

(11:08) Advising deals 2008-2010

(16:48) Pillars of building out an investment bank

(30:58) Becoming CEO at Qatalyst

(34:32) Working because you enjoy it

(37:42) George's father

(49:23) Shifting focus to tech

(54:53) Apple almost selling in 1996

(1:01:06) Pixar

(1:07:53) Negotiating Advice

(1:10:46) Figuring out when to sell

(1:17:43) Council to private companies now

(1:24:08) The institutionalization of private equity within technology

(1:38:03) How is the investment banking industry changing

(1:42:52) Balancing work and family

Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky

Produced: Rashad Assir

Executive Producer: Josh Machiz

Music: Griff Lawson

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About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

Executive Producer: Rashad Assir

Producer: Leah Clapper

Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky

Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1

Follow on Socials

📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow

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🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow

About the Show

Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.

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