Disclosure certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Bending Spoons acquires companies post-product-market fit to optimize them

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 0:08

Luca Ferrari is the co-founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, an acquisition-led software company whose portfolio includes Evernote and Meetup.

0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.0s
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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.”

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 →

More from Luca Ferrari

Prediction Not checkable as stated
Ferrari predicts AI will eliminate far more jobs than it creates
“But I will say, maybe, no, I don't, it doesn't qualify as advice, but the opinion I hear most often that I think is really poorly informed and poorly thought out is that Artificial intelligence will create more jobs than it will eliminate. I believe, and again…”
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
Bending Spoons hires almost entirely for talent and motivation, disregarding experience
“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
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
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ferrari claims Evernote usage equals or exceeds that of cooler apps
“Sometimes people have characterized Evernote as you said, kind of on a decline, and it can be true in some ways, but it's still as used or more used than a lot other Brands that people think are more successful or cooler.”
Luca Ferrari Mar 15, 2024 ▶ 22:01 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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