The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 10 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Private equity acquisition multiples are at all-time highs
“The multiples that PEs are paying are around all-time highs.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”