This podcast explores the birth of the digital music revolution with Apple's acquisition of SoundJam MP, which became iTunes. They discuss the challenges of developing MP3 codec, the impact of iTunes on Mac users, and the shift to subscription-based models. They also discuss homogenization and the future of individual expression, competing business interests between MLB and BAMtech, and share their eye-opening experience of visiting Israel.

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:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvantaMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 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"

Explore the acquisition of the LA Clippers NBA franchise by Steve Ballmer, including the team's history, struggles, and turnaround. Dive into the fallout from the offensive comments made by the former owner, and the forced sale to Ballmer for $2B. Discuss the impact of the sale on sports franchise valuations and the future prospects of the Clippers. Touch on the growing appeal of the NBA and the potential future coverage of esports. Also, learn about the importance of iTunes reviews for podcast growth and discover a security compliance platform, Vanta.

Ben & David transcend the barriers of “real” reality, and dive into Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg’s geek-eutpoia vision of the future of gaming, social, and maybe even the entire internet: strapping goofy-looking goggles to your face. Is VR for real this time or are we living through another Virtual Boy moment? Tune in to find out! Sponsors:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvantaMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Oculus’s origins in 2010 as a twinkle in the eye of the then-17 year old VR wunderkind, Palmer Luckey, who started by prototyping VR headsets in his parents’ garage in Southern California Palmer’s time interning at  USC's Institute for Creative Technologies, and chronicling of his own VR efforts in the Meant to be Seen 3D internet forumsLegendary game developer John Carmack’s own interest in virtual reality, his intersection with Palmer on the MTBS3D forums, and how he acquired and popularized one of Palmer's first early prototypes of the Oculus Rift (which was  literally held together with duct tape!) by demonstrating it onstage at E3 2012 How former Scaleform cofounders Brendan Iribe and Michael Antonov teamed up with Palmer after E3 to create the company Oculus VRThe newly-formed Oculus’s wildly successful August 2012 Kickstarter campaign, including video endorsements from both Carmack and Valve founder Gabe NewellOculus’s subsequent venture capital fundraisings, and catching the attention of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg Facebook’s acquisition of the company in March 2014 for $2.3BThe Zenimax lawsuit filed against Oculus and Facebook following the acquisition Valve (home of the most incredible company handbook of all-time) and Gabe Newell’s subsequent pivot from supporting Oculus to launching their own competing VR efforts with the Vive Team changes at Oculus post-acquisition   Followups: SNAP:  still a public company  Hot Takes: Intel’s $15B acquisition of Mobileye (with reference to  Ben Thompson’s analysis of the deal and Smiling Curves)  The Carve Out: Ben:  Kara Swisher interviews the Pod Save America team at SXSWDavid: Adam Gopnik asks Are Liberals on the Wrong Side of History?

Ben & David "pour over" the 1992 IPO of the legendary Seattle coffee company with the help of Dan Levitan, who served as lead investment banker on the IPO and who would later co-found the venture capital firm Maveron with Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz.Sponsors:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvantaMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include:The original Starbucks’ founding as a coffee bean roaster, started by three disciples of the legendary coffee roaster Alfred PeetHoward Schultz’s introduction to Starbucks, his joining the team as director of marketing, and inspiration behind his “third place” coffee shop visionHoward’s departure from the original Starbucks, founding of Il Giornale, and subsequent of acquisition the Seattle Starbucks storesStarbucks’ incredible growth following the acquisition and expansion beyond SeattleThe state of raising private capital in the 1980’s/90’s, and the decision to go public (link to the S-1)Howard’s ambitious goals for the roadshow and investor participation, and subsequent stock performance after the IPOThe narrative and evolution of Starbucks as a technology company, or a consumer company that leverages technology very effectively The Carve Out:Ben: Dan Primack’s new daily newsletter, Pro RataDavid: The  Wizard and the Bruiser podcast Dan: The Man in the Glass

Episode 33: Overture (with the Internet History Podcast!)    Ben & David dive deep into the early days of internet search, with the help of the best in the internet history business: Brian McCullough from the Internet History Podcast! We are huge fans of IHP at Acquired, so this was a real treat to collaborate with Brian and the great work he does over there. In this episode we cover the story of how a small incubator in Southern California spawned perhaps the greatest tech business model of all-time, Yahoo!’s fumbling of that golden opportunity, and Google’s recovery of that fumble to cross into the end zone of tech history behind the biggest moat ever constructed on the internet.  Sponsors:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvantaMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Overture’s origins as part of the Idealab incubator run by famed early internet entrepreneur Bill GrossInvention of the paid search business model… initially by returning ADS ONLY in response to search queriesThe eventual marrying of Overture’s paid search (ads) with organic search results via syndication on other properties like Yahoo!Revenue from Overture’s ad partnership saving Yahoo!’s business after the internet bubble burst Yahoo!’s eventual acquisition of Overture for $1.4B in 2003 But… the really interesting story here: Overture’s 'inspiration' of Google’s business model and the creation of "the greatest advertising machine in the history of the world"The original (pre-Overture) Google business model: selling a box! Google’s differentiation vs Overture: focusing on the long tail, ad quality scores, and an advertiser-friendly auction structureGoogle’s first major search syndication victory over Overture: AOLYahoo!’s failed attempt to buy Google for $3B in 2002, leading it to settle for acquiring Overture instead the following year“Project Panama” at Yahoo!, and its impact on the tech and internet historyOverture's (and later Yahoo!’s) lawsuit against Google for stealing the paid search business model— "the O.G. version of Snapchat and Instagram”Paul Graham’s take on "What Happened to Yahoo?”Perhaps the most important technology to come out of this whole episode: HadoopThe power of incentive alignment in marketplaces— and creating the widest and deepest moats on the internet  The Carve Out: Ben: The famous University of Washington's “Love Lab” Dr. John Gottman: “The Secret to Love is Just Kindness”David: BerlinBrian: The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s

Snap! Acquired is live on the scene reporting from the "Super Bowl" of 2017 tech events: Snap Inc's hugely anticipated (and just plain huge) IPO. What does the future hold for this plucky “camera company”? Will Snap's IPO endure as tech's most important picture-frame since the  2012 debut of Facebook, or is it destined to fade as just another snapshot? We debate! Sponsors:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvantaMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Reference to our previous Acquired episode on Snap covering Facebook’s failed attempt to acquire the company in 2013, which goes deep on Snap’s origins and early historySnap’s busy years since: launching Discover,  Lenses,  Geofilters,  new Chat,  Memories, an  ads API, acquiring Bitmoji, and, of course,  debuting SpectaclesThe incredible document that is  Snap's S-1 filing (read starting from the  “BUSINESS” section on p.93)Snap Inc’s “unique” voting structureEvan Spiegel’s “CEO Award” bonus for successfully completing an IPO: an extra 3.0% of the company worth more than $600MSnap’s IPO pricing, first day of trading “pop”, and momentum carried into day two Introducing a new show section (for IPOs): Narratives!  Snap  is a “camera company"Snap's opportunity is  winning television ad dollarsSnap is a cult of the “product genius”Snap has a growth problem… and its name is Instagram (Stories)Snap has a cost problem: the (first?)  gross margin negative IPOWall Street to Evan: “we trust you… for now"Chris Sacca’s biggest email fail of 2012…And of course all the classics from the Acquired canon: waves, moats, flywheels, network effects, starting small and more!   The Carve Out: Ben:  The Bill Simmons Podcast with Ben ThompsonDavid: The Art of War, also Evan Spiegel’s Carve Out for 2013 :)

Brad Stone, author of The Upstarts & The Everything Store, talks about the rise and competition between Didi Chuxing and Uber in the Chinese ride-sharing market. The podcast explores the challenges faced by both companies, the impact of their merger, and the aggressive approach of Uber. It also touches on Uber's investment in self-driving cars and discusses Vanta, a security compliance platform.

Topics covered include: P.A. Semi’s original moniker ("Palo Alto Semiconductor”) and its celebrity founder (in the semiconductor world) Dan DobberpuhlHistory of the back and forth tradeoffs between Intel’s powerful x86 chips and low power alternatives like ARM processors Dobberpuhl’s technology breakthroughs throughout his career that enabled true low-power + high-performance chipsThe initial target markets for P.A. Semi’s chips (surprise: NOT mobile phones)P.A. Semi’s  first foray into a potential deal with Apple, dashed by Cupertino’s  surprise switch to Intel processors in 2005The rise of mobile finally creating the huge market need for low-power / high-performance, Apple’s acquisition of P.A., and launch of the first Apple-designed chip, the “A4”, with the original iPad in 2010Geekbench: the single-core performance of Apple’s latest generation of smartphone processors (A10 Fusion) has  basically caught up with Intel’s laptop CPUsAuthenTec’s beginnings in the late 90’s as a spinoff from the defense contractor Harris Corporation (named by Wired Magazine as the #2 threat to internet privacy in the US), based in Melbourne, Florida Early versions of the technology that became TouchID, the sensors for which were many times larger than today’s iPhones themselves!AuthenTec “not very Apple-like” website on Archive.org (and screenshot)AuthenTec’s  deal that almost was to put their technology and sensors  into Samsung’s flagship phones  Apple’s acquisition of AuthenTec for $356 million in July 2012, and the rapid introduction of TouchID in the iPhone 5S one year later in September 2013Sponsors:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta  Followups: Merging of Alaska & Virgin America loyalty programs (woo!) Walmart announces major reorg following the Jet acquisitionSnap Inc. IPO  drama is  mounting! (we can’t wait to cover this one)  The Carve Out: Ben: Rands in Repose: The SituationDavid: Daily Rituals: How Artists WorkMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLC

Ben & David wrap up 2016 with a review of the top tech themes we discussed on the show this year, and look forward to which themes we think will be relevant in the coming year. Can our hosts predict the future? Tune-in in 2018 to find out!   Note: we apologize for the less-than-amazing audio quality on this one. We’re still working on tuning our remote recording setup! Sponsors:ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acqsnaiagentsHuntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntressVanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvantaMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2024 ACQ, LLCTopics covered include: Our top tech themes of 2016, including the first annual Acquired "Theme of the Year”: Aggregation Theory (surprise, surprise)Themes we think will be most relevant as we head into 2017Extended Carve Outs!  The Carve Out(s): Books:  Ben:  On Writing WellDavid: The Creative Habit and the Asimov  Robot/Empire/Foundation seriesArticle:  Ben: Wait But Why: Religion for the NonreligiousDavid: The New York Times: The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.Podcasts:  Both: The Ezra Klein ShowMusic:  Ben: Justin BieberDavid: Stevie NicksTV/Movies:  Ben: WestworldDavid: Rouge OneApps:  Ben: ReachNowDavid: Amazon Music