Thank you as well to Wilson Sonsini - You can learn more about WSGR at: īen: I love how this book is called Made in America and the Sony story is Made in Japan.Thanks to Silicon Valley Bank for being our banner sponsor for Acquired Season 6.

We have five honorable mentions that didn’t make our Top Ten list.

It is obviously subject to change going forward from both future and past acquisition performance, as well as fluctuating stock prices.

This ranking represents a point in time in history, March 2, 2020.

If we made an assumption not disclosed by the parent company, we linked to the source of the reported assumption.

All underlying assumptions are based on public financial disclosures unless stated otherwise.

We recognize this analysis is flawed (cashflow/profit multiples are better, at least for mature companies), but given the opacity of most companies’ business unit reporting, this was the only way to apply a consistent and straightforward approach to each deal. If you have any examples you think we missed ping us on Slack or email at: We used revenue multiples to estimate the current value of the acquired company, multiplying its current estimated revenue by the market cap-to-revenue multiple of the parent company’s stock.

We considered all historical acquisitions - not just technology companies - but may have overlooked some in areas that we know less well.

Naspers’ investment in Tencent and Softbank/Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba are disqualified for this reason.

In order to count for our list, acquisitions must be at least a majority stake in the target company (otherwise it’s just an investment).

Ted Weschler on the Nebraska Furniture Mart podcast!!!.

They even went on to discover they needed to build their own $24m private satellite network! 🛰 This was something Sam's inner future Bezos believed they could outsource.īut ultimately Walmart’s logistics infrastructure turned out to be a key competitive differentiator that helped keep their prices 'always low, always'. When Walmart started, they didn't imagine they'd need to build their own logistics and distribution network in house. 🍺 Sometimes (but rarely), your ambition is SO vast you need more in-house core competencies than you think And to win on price, a business must stay extremely close to its suppliers, relentlessly negotiating low prices, even if it means a contentious relationship with them. Especially in the rural US in the 1960s and 70s. Of the retail trifecta, 'Price, selection, convenience', price really, really matters in retail. If there is a wave you see coming in a technology, industry, or customer behavior, grab a surf board :) It was a completely new concept in the 60's, and today 'discounters' represents over 87% of all retail! Selling *some* items as zero or negative margin to entice people to come into the store, while making profit elsewhere.

Selling items at extremely low margin and relying on volume to make up for it, andĢ. we can't imagine life before it! His creation had two major components:ġ. Sam Walton created the idea of the mass-market discount store, which is so ubiquitous today. While often founders may deride and downplay their competition, focusing on what they’re doing wrong, Sam was ruthless in stealing and adopting everything they were doing right. He had an intense focus on learning what the competition was doing and stealing the best ideas. He always had his yellow legal pad, taking notes on everything they were doing right. Sam Walton believes he spent more time in Kmart stores than Kmart management itself, exploring his enemy from within. It was almost as if I had a right to win thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.' It never occurred to me that I might lose. Sam: 'I think Kmart or whatever competition we were facing just became Jeff City High School, the team we played for the state championship in 1935. He carried this through the rest of life and always set nearly unreachable goals. Sam Walton got used to winning as an undefeated high school football champion. Walmart's Playbook to Become the World's Largest Company: If you want more Acquired, you can follow our newly public LP Show feed here in the podcast player of your choice (including Spotify!). This episode was an absolute blast, and we even uncovered a new addendum to the hallowed “focus on what makes your beer taste better” playbook theme! Once you study Walmart, you realize just how deep its heritage runs through Amazon and so many iconic modern companies we cover on Acquired.

We kick off Season 11 with the incredible story of the retail “granddaddy of them all” Walmart, and its founder Sam Walton. The Complete History & Strategy of Walmart ‍

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