Huawei

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2019

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For our first episode of Season 5, Acquired returns to Shenzhen to cover another Chinese technology giant, this one slightly... different from our past subjects: Huawei. From a backwater importer of PBX switches to the world’s second largest handset manufacturer and near-undisputed leader in 5G infrastructure technology, Huawei’s ascent over the past 30 years has been nothing short of spectacular, equaled only by the spectacular fireworks of recent events surrounding the company. What’s the story behind this global telecom giant, and what does its future portend for global tech and US - China relations? We dive in.

Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta

Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury

Links

Ren Zhengfei on Bloomberg TV: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-26/billionaire-huawei-founder-defiant-in-face-of-existential-threat
Who owns Huawei? https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669

Carve Outs

Ben: Billions: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4270492/
David: Dune by Frank Herbert: https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Frank-Herbert-ebook/dp/B00B7NPRY8/ref=nodl

Transcript

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0:00.0	intras for tonight. Oh yeah, I wrote up like a little like thing that's based on exactly what you
0:08.4	texted me that I kind of like the idea of. Great, great. What I'm thinking isn't telling me if you like this.
0:21.0	Welcome to season 5 episode 1 Acquired, the podcast about technology acquisitions and
0:26.8	I'm Ben Gilbert and I am the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle.
0:34.8	And I'm David Rosenthal, and I am a general partner at Wave Capital, an early stage venture
0:39.9	capital firm that focuses on marketplaces based in San Francisco.
0:44.0	And we are your hosts.
0:46.4	Today we are covering China's largest private company, Huawei.
0:50.4	The company is the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world.
0:54.4	Now, they're only behind Samsung and they recently pulled ahead of Apple.
0:59.0	They also happen to be the world's largest telecom equipment manufacturer among other things.
1:05.2	Now David, the company has had a pretty wild last 12 months.
1:09.6	That would be putting it mildly. Yes. Barve from doing business with US companies.
1:14.7	Federal prosecutors have filed charges of wire fraud and their CFO was arrested
1:20.2	upon landing in Canada last year. Oh and the layoffs last week of hundreds of
1:24.8	workers in the US went down amidst the trade war. So what is going on with this
1:29.6	company and how did we get here? Yeah, well, that's what we're here to talk about.
1:35.0	And this is going to be fun.
1:37.0	This is a little bit of an experiment for us here at acquired.
1:39.0	This is obviously not an acquisition nor an IPO.
1:42.0	And in fact, there is a interesting ownership structure of
1:45.9	Huawei which we will get into but we felt like this is such an important moment for tech, for international relations, you know, critical for all
	...

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