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Dave Sobota

VP of Corporate Development, Instacart · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

Dave Sobota serves as Vice President of Corporate Development at Instacart. Prior to joining Instacart, he served as Director of Corporate Development.

15statements → 10claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 4.4/5average certainty → 1.93/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →

4 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 10 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

10 assertions · 5 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 10 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Dave argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Private equity acquisition multiples are at all-time highs
“The multiples that PEs are paying are around all-time highs.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 7:08 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
100% certainty 4
75% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

225 words/min while actually speaking · 3.3 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Dave Sobota: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 12 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 3,040 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Dave Sobota is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 75%

Everything Dave Sobota said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
Private equity acquisition multiples are at all-time highs
“The multiples that PEs are paying are around all-time highs.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 7:08 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Insight
Successful M&A deals never look expensive in hindsight
“I completely agree with Peter. If you do a good M&A deal, no one's ever looked back and said, how much do we pay? It's just smiles and congratulations.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 7:32 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Supported
Google paid $1.1 billion for pre-revenue Waze and succeeded
“For example, if you look at a ways where we spent 1.1 billion dollars to buy them, that's been a tremendously successful deal for us. But at the time they had almost no revenue.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 7:52 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Insight
Founders should sell if acquirers pay expected future value today
“The general rule of thumb is that if someone is going to pay you today what you think you're reasonably going to be worth well into the future, then sell now.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 8:47 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Partly supported
YouTube faced a $1 billion copyright lawsuit when Google acquired it
“YouTube was facing a billion dollar copyright lawsuit. I mean, it had growing infrastructure costs, and it had very little revenue, all three of which Google was able to help out with quite a bit.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 9:44 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Insight
Active internal sponsors are crucial for post-merger integration success
“The single most important element we found for a successful integration is that we have an engaged deal sponsor from the Google side stay intimately involved with the company after closing until it's fully integrated.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 20:16 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Supported
Waze signed an LOI with another acquirer before Google bought them
“Waze had actually signed a letter of intent with another acquirer when we got involved. One of our main competitors was a Waze stockholder and wasn't too keen on us buying them.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 22:24 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Supported
Acqui-hires are declining except for elite machine learning talent
“No, but they are less frequent, and prices are coming down, with, I'd say, one exception, which is rarefied machine learning talent can still fetch a premium price on the aqua hire market.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 24:13 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tech M&A market remains healthy with no signs of slowing
“Yeah, overall, we're seeing a healthy M&A market with no real signs of it slowing down.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 5:37 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Insight
Founders should disclose deal gotchas early in M&A diligence
“And then likewise, we encourage founders to let us know in advance of any potential gotchas early in the process. We're likely going to find out about them anyway. It's always better to address them upfront earlier rather than later as surprises.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 15:32 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Google almost always requires acquired founders to remain post-acquisition
“We almost always want the founders to stick around and work for Google after the closing.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 16:11 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Google M&A deals require approval from the CEO and executive sponsor
“Every M&A deal at Google needs to be approved ultimately by our CEO, and it needs an executive sponsor, and an executive sponsor is one of the CEO's direct reports that runs a product area at Google.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 18:13 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Insight
Post-acquisition operating alignment matters more than closing the deal
“Although it's important to focus on getting the deal done, it's equally or even more important to jointly agree on how your company's going to operate within Google after closing. So in other words, the wedding itself is important, but more so is the marriage …”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 23:28 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Google built a custom in-house CRM to track M&A targets
“Wrapping all of this is we have a very bespoke in-house CRM system that we created to track And monitor all of our dealings with companies in the ecosystem.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 13:36 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Google evaluates acquisition success every three to six months
“Typically, we do this every three to six months after the deal closes for a period of two to three years, and then if we're not meeting our goals, we dig in and find out why, and then, of course, try to correct as possible.”
Dave Sobota Apr 15, 2019 ▶ 21:34 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Les Apr 15, 2019 14m
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