Acquired

Acquired Episode 17: Waze

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal 1h 9m 117 months ago

Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.

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Show Notes

Topics covered include:

Community Showcase: the Nexcast podcasting platform from listener Brian Sanders, along with their podcast chronicling the team’s journey building the company

Waze’s origin in cofounder & CTO Ehud Shabtai’s desire to hack his portable GPS navigation unit

Waze CEO Noam Bardin’s retrospective blog post on the Waze journey

Waze’s Palo Alto office and the bizarre Silicon Valley phenomenon of tech companies being located in retail storefronts

Apple’s ill-fated launch of Apple Maps as part of iOS 6 at WWDC 2012, Apple’s subsequent apology letter, and Scott Forstall’s ultimate ouster from the company

The climax of the mobile platform wars… which it turns out Apple and Google both won

Apple, Facebook, and Google all vying to acquire Waze throughout 2013

Google’s renewed design ethos under Larry Page

Ben and David spontaneously agree (surprise) to create on a new category of acquisition for the show

The increasing strategic value of data and data assets as technology enters the age of machine learning

The coming mega trend of autonomous vehicles, and the role Israeli startups are playing in it (including the globalization of startups & innovation)

The disruptive power of network and data-based business models

Emergence of native as *the* definitive advertising medium on mobile, including ability to close the advertising loop via location-based products and services

Sponsors:

WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25

Intapp: https://bit.ly/intappceleste

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25

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The Carve Out:

Ben: Weezer’s “Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori” on Song Exploder