TIVP019: Adobe (ADBE): Designing a Creative Empire w/ Shawn O’Malley & Daniel Mahncke

The Intrinsic Value Podcast - The Investor’s Podcast Network

The Investor's Podcast Network

Investing, Education, Business

4.6 • 593 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2025

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Shawn O’Malley and Daniel Mahncke break down Adobe (ticker: ADBE), a leading software company providing end-to-end solutions for creative professionals, from design and creation to marketing and performance measurement. Through apps like Photoshop and After Effects, Adobe offers an industry-leading suite of productivity tools for creatives, including freelancers designers, Hollywood design studios, and everyone inbetween. Excel is to the financial world as Adobe is to the creative world, you might say. In this episode, you’ll learn how Adobe grew out of a garage and became tangled with Apple early on, how the company transitioned to a cloud-based subscription model, whether AI risks to Adobe’s business are overstated, how Adobe is implementing AI into its tool, whether Adobe is as attractively valued as it seems, plus so much more! Prefer to watch? Click ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ to watch this episode on YouTube. IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN 00:00 - Intro 00:43 - Adobe’s origin story and how it was created out of a garage. 07:24 - What were Adobe’s first few popular products and how Apple elevated Adobe’s business. 16:02 - Why Adobe transitioned to a subscription-based business model in 2013. 19:36 - Why the market has soured on Adobe’s otherwise wonderfully profitable and growing business. 24:40 - How Adobe is responding to Canva, Figma, and disruptions from AI. 39:32 - What Adobe is doing to keep the next generation of designers using its products. 01:04:50 - The biggest risks to Adobe’s continued dominance. 01:07:41 - Whether Adobe is attractively valued at its current beaten down levels. 01:16:22 - Whether Shawn & Daniel add ADBE to The Intrinsic Value Portfolio. And much, much more! *Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Get smarter about valuing businesses in just a few minutes each week through our newsletter, ⁠⁠The Intrinsic Value Newsletter⁠⁠. From Quartr’s Insights blog: Adobe: Equipping the Architects of Digital Expression. Adobe’s Investor Day Summit. Value Investor’s Club pitch for Adobe. Never Sell podcast on Adobe. Check out our previous Intrinsic Value breakdowns: ⁠⁠Nintendo⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Airbnb⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AutoZone⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Alphabet⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ulta⁠⁠, ⁠⁠John Deere⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Madison Square Garden Sports⁠⁠. Check out the books mentioned in the podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Enjoy ad-free episodes when you subscribe to our ⁠⁠Premium Feed⁠⁠. NEW TO THE SHOW? Follow our official social media accounts: ⁠⁠X (Twitter)⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Try Shawn's favorite tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: ⁠⁠TIP Finance⁠⁠. Enjoy exclusive perks from our ⁠⁠favorite Apps and Services⁠⁠. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the ⁠⁠best business podcasts⁠⁠. SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our ⁠⁠sponsors⁠⁠:⁠⁠ CFI Education Airbnb Connect with Shawn: ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Email⁠⁠ Connect with Daniel: ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠Email⁠⁠ HELP US OUT! Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a ⁠⁠rating and review⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠! It takes less than 30 seconds and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	And on that point, Photoshop has been the industry standard for 40 years.
0:06.2	And at any time, you could have probably convinced yourself that some new competitor
0:10.2	or technology would upend Adobe's leadership.
0:13.5	I don't want to sound like somebody who doesn't understand the innovator's dilemma
0:17.5	and how companies can be disrupted because that does happen.
0:21.0	But I mean, in reality here, we're talking about a very long runway of dominance,
0:25.3	and they've only continued to invest in making the service more powerful and just compounding
0:30.4	their advantages. Further entrenching Photoshop's position, for example, as the industry choice
0:35.5	for image editing software.
0:42.6	Hey guys. Today, my co-host, Sean O'Malley, is back with another company pitch. And if you've
0:48.9	ever downloaded a PDF file, enjoy the firm, skip past an advertisement, or consume, well, just about any
0:56.2	type of media, you've almost certainly, either knowingly or unknowingly, interacted with
1:01.8	something that was made using one of Adobe's Myriad Services.
1:06.8	Founded in the early 1980s, with the chief aim of addressing formatting issues when printing,
1:12.7	the company has since become a vital part of many of our daily lives, though we might
1:17.9	not always notice it.
1:19.8	As is true for any great Silicon Valley story, Adobe began with two people in a garage,
1:25.6	and from there it has become one of the largest, most bigotously known software companies
1:30.8	in the world.
1:31.8	John, in the next hour or so, you'll be telling us the story of just how that happened, how
1:37.1	the business is doing, what to make of AI disruption threats, and how to value this
1:42.1	behemoth of a company that is still growing surprisingly fast.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Investor's Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Investor's Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.