Microsoft Volume II

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

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

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2024

⏱️ 292 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1999, Microsoft became the most valuable company in the world. And in 2019, Microsoft became the most valuable company in the world, again. But… what happened in the twenty years in between? The answer, as we discovered in our research, is probably not what you think.

In this episode we explore and analyze the browser wars and the DOJ case, Windows XP through 8, Surface, Xbox, search, Yahoo!, Bing, the iPhone, Nokia, mobile, social, Facebook… and oh yeah, a little thing called Azure and the enterprise — which ended up becoming so big that no failures mattered. Tune in for Microsoft, Volume II.

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‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm a little hoarse today, so hopefully we don't have to do a lot of talking.
0:03.0	Good luck with that.
0:07.0	All right, let's do this.
0:10.0	Who got the truth?
0:12.0	Is it you, is it you, is it you. Who got the truth?
0:17.0	Is it you, is it you, who got the truth now?
0:20.0	Is it you, is it you, is it you, is it you, is it you? Sit me down, say it straight, another story on the way who got the truth.
0:27.0	Welcome to season 14 episode 6, the season finale of acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and
0:34.8	playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts.
0:40.4	Well listeners, here we are.
0:42.6	Microsoft Volume 2 at long last.
0:45.6	After the ancient history of Volume 1, we now get to the stuff that you grew up with.
0:51.2	The Internet, Windows XP, Xbox, the browser, search, and mobile. And in this
0:57.8	era, Microsoft had a lot of the right ideas, with a lot of the wrong timing and execution on everything from the
1:05.6	Zoom to Bing. But, despite that, from 1995 where we start our story to 2014 where we will end this episode
1:14.7	Microsoft grew their annual revenue from 6 billion to 80 billion. They became a
1:21.0	phenomenally successful company and really crack the code on selling enterprise software.
1:26.0	I began the research thinking,
1:28.0	Our part one episode would be about the rise and this episode would be about the fall. Cultural problems,
1:34.6	failed consumer products, antitrust, but it's really not that straightforward and
1:39.0	after spending months unpacking it all I actually don't think that's the right framing anyway.
1:44.6	And on Microsoft's 1998 antitrust suit against the Department of Justice,
	...

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