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:

Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra
Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25
Vanta: https://vanta.com/acquired

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Carve Outs:

Ben: Computer glasses: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=computer+glasses
David: Reebok Floatrides: https://www.amazon.com/Reebok-Forever-Floatride-Energy-Black/dp/B07NYBRQ96/

Sources: