Internet Empires with Ish Verduzco He Sold His Startup to Elon… Here’s What Happened Next, Chris Bakke
Aug 19, 2025
57:34
Chris Bakke is a 3x founder whose latest startup, Laskie, was acquired by Elon Musk just 90 days after a viral tweet. He’s worked at the intersection of recruiting, SaaS, and media—and even helped build the X Hiring platform from inside Twitter. In this episode, Chris shares the full unfiltered story of building, selling, and walking away.
You’ll Learn:
- How Chris Bakke shares how one viral tweet led to a DM from Elon Musk and the eventual acquisition of his company, Laskie.
- The Behind the scenes of how he built a $5M ARR business with just 9 employees.
- What it was like scaling X Hiring inside Twitter, including launching 1M+ job listings in under a year.
- Chaos and culture clash: working with Tesla and SpaceX engineers inside Twitter HQ.
- Why Chris ultimately walked away from Elon’s company to reclaim his time and freedom.
- Tactical gems on startup exits, newsletters, deal-making, and audience building.
- Lessons from selling 3 companies and why he says: “Most startups don’t need to raise money.”
Where to find Chris:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bakk3/
https://x.com/chrisjbakke?lang=en
https://intro.co/ChrisBakke?source=intro
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