Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Bending Spoons acquires growing, flat, or declining assets, not just distressed

Luca Ferrari · Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Mar 15, 2024 · at 15:55

Luca Ferrari, co-founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, refutes characterizations of their playbook as solely acquiring distressed assets following their purchase of Evernote.

0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 24.4s
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“By the way, we don't acquire I don't necessarily acquire distressed assets. I know that people, some people have characterized it that way after Evernote, because Evernote, some people thought would qualify as such, but we have acquired a lot of products that were on the way up, some that were flat, some that were on the way down. We really don't have an opinion in that regard. It just, we just need the price to be right and the opportunity to improve the product to be significant enough.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ferrari predicts AI will eliminate far more jobs than it creates
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Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 58:47 Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
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“In our case, we chose to focus on talent and motivation almost entirely disregarding experience.”
Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 41:22 Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Contradicted
Bending Spoons pays identical salaries regardless of an employee's geographic location
“Currently we have the same salaries regardless of where you are.”
Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 46:15 Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
No shareholders in Bending Spoons have liquidation preferences
“All our share owners, myself, our institutional investors, our colleagues who got equity through their working at the company, nobody has any liquidation preferences, so we're all on equal terms economically.”
Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 54:04 Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
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“We let others seek market fit, and then we, if they will sell it to us, we will acquire their company and try to make it even better than they have made it up to that point.”
Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 0:08 Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Ferrari believes Apple Arcade has not been a great success
“I think Arcade is not a great success either.”
Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 19:26 Luca Ferrari: Scaling to 500M Downloads, $360M in Reported 2023 Sales and a $2.55BN Valuation |E1127 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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