“Uber, pre-IPO, had raised more money than Lyft’s current market cap. And now, because they raised 9B in an IPO, they’re close to total money ever raised to being 2x of Lyft’s current market cap. It’s an outlier in every way.”Ben & David reflect on what they’ve learned from the APLUSS IPOs so far, what’s ahead for Uber and Lyft, and tackle some longstanding listener questions.Sponsors:Vanta Be sure to follow the Acquired Podcast:Acquired.fm@AcquiredFM Links from the Show:Narrative Violations – Bedrock Capital

[on Uber’s Early Organizational Structure] “Uber always thought about it as a twin-turbine plane: maybe for a short period of time, you could operate on one engine. But if you want to operate at full efficiency, you need both engines working in tandem and working effectively together.” Brian Tolkin, (@briantolkin)We’re super excited to be joined by Brian Tolkin, one of Uber’s first ~100 employees who built their “Product Ops” organization and then went on to lead Product Management for UberPOOL and all shared rides on the platform. We dive into the nitty gritty of how Uber built their “twin turbine” engine of decentralized real-world Ops and centralized Tech Product, and how the organization evolved as it scaled. We also cover Brian’s new role at OpenDoor and the tight ops + product coupling they’re building now in real estate.Sponsors:Vanta Be sure to follow the Acquired Podcast:Acquired.fm@AcquiredFMLinks from the Show:Stanford Venture Capital ClubBen Evans: The End of the Beginning (video)Lyft IPO (Acquired)Pre-Meeting Narrative ExampleOpenDoor.com

Ben & David take their turn at the "power ballad" of VC blogging/podcasting, explaining how venture term sheets work. From valuation to pro rata rights to founder vesting, we leave no stone unturned in this episode. If you're a founder, work at a startup, or are considering doing one of those someday, this episode is for you!Sponsors:Vanta Be sure to follow the Acquired Podcast:Acquired.fm@AcquiredFM Links from the Show:Acquired LP: Lyft EpisodeAcquired LP: Demystifying Corp Dev (Sara Adler)AR&D Letter of Intent to DEC         Brad Feld: Venture DealsCooleyGo.comGAAPJeff Bezos, Vesting, and The Divorce                      Perkins Coie AcceleratorSeriesSeed.comStandard Series Seed Term Sheet [Link in Bio] 

We’re joined by Upfront Ventures partner Kevin Zhang to discuss the evolution of both Upfront as a venture firm and the LA tech ecosystem more broadly. We cover the journey from Upfront’s founding as “Global Retail Partners” in 1996 to its place today as the premier and largest tech investor in Southern California. We talk about rebranding the firm and choosing Upfront as a name, launching the Upfront Summit, what LA is "good and not good at", and Kevin’s thesis around gaming as a great place for venture investing.Sponsors:Vanta

“80% of the worlds workforce doesn’t sit at a desk, and 95% of the world’s software is built for people who sit at a desk. Once people build software for the other 80%, the size of the addressable market that could be created could dwarf what we currently have, which is pretty humbling to think about.”Jake Saper, Emergence Capital (@jakesaper) We dive deep into the nitty gritty details of SaaS investing and company building with the best in the business, Jake Saper from Emergence Capital. Emergence has been around since the beginning of the SaaS industry and -uniquely for a venture firm- is entirely focused on early-stage investing within it. They were early investors in major successes like Salesforce, Veeva, SuccessFactors, Box and Yammer, and more recently, Gusto, Zoom, and many more. This episode is a must-listen for anyone investing in, operating in, or thinking about modern SaaS companies!Sponsors:Vanta Be sure to follow the Acquired Podcast:Acquired.fm@AcquiredFMLinks from the Show:Emergence CapitalEmergence Capital – “Series-A SaaS Metrics”Emergence Email Newsletter

We continue the conversation with Emily White, covering topics including her career path, what it was like working with Sheryl Sandberg for so many years, her time at Snap, her experience serving on public company boards, and how she operates as an investor now at Anthos Capital.Sponsors:Vanta

As promised in our holiday special, we dive into the past, present and future of clean energy funding, with the absolutely perfect guest: the former Obama administration Assistant Director for Entrepreneurship at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Doug Rand. This episode was totally eye-opening for us, and we hope inspires many of you to think about energy and climate through an entrepreneurial lens.  Sponsors:Vanta Links:ARPA-E: https://arpa-e.energy.govSteve Blank’s Secret History of Silicon Valley: https://steveblank.com/secret-history/NSF Innovation Corps: https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/

Ben and David talk about some of their current investment theses at PSL and Wave, as well as how VCs think about themes and theses in general. Sponsors:VantaLinks:Greg McAdoo “Wave” talk at Startup School 2008 https://youtu.be/fZ5F2KhMLiEThe Myth of the Job Hopping Millenial https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/7/11/17559484/gig-economy-jobs-rooted-rootless-moving-job-hopping-millennials

Ever wondered what's really going on during the Monday Meetings of your friendly neighborhood VC firm? Ben and David take you behind the scenes to discuss structure (especially how the management company works), staffing, LPs, and most importantly decision-making and motivations for VC firms and their partners. Whichever side of the table you're on, we hope you find this episode useful!Sponsors:Vanta

Ben and David continue the Acquired holiday tradition. Happy holidays to everyone! Note: we apologize for David’s sound quality... we’re still working out the kinks on our mobile recording setup.Sponsors:Vanta Extended carve-out links:Books: David: Broken Earth trilogy https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B01947LZ8ABen: eBoys  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1HTG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1Article: David: “My Dad's Friendship With Charles Barkley”  http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/12/14/lin-wang-charles-barkleyBen: Birth of a New American Aristocracy  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/Podcast: David: 996 Podcast https://996.ggvc.com/category/podcast/Ben: Dissect Season 2 https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dissect/id1143845868?mt=2Music: David: Tiny Desk concerts https://www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts/Ben: Odesza’s A Moment Apart &  https://open.spotify.com/album/3VzsvmhnUb9OZ59bq2aoNZ?si=dHUDPR4tSW2u6yey0MWTFwTV / Movie: Both: Black Panther https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/App: David: Steady Health https://steady.healthBen:Moment https://www.shopmoment.comWeather Line: http://weatherlineapp.comAuto Sleep http://autosleep.tantsissa.com