Acquired Episode 17: Waze

Topics covered include: 

• Community Showcase: the Nexcast podcasting platform from listener Brian Sanders, along with their podcast chronicling the team’s journey building the company 
• Waze’s origin in cofounder & CTO Ehud Shabtai’s desire to hack his portable GPS navigation unit
• Waze CEO Noam Bardin’s  retrospective blog post on the Waze journey 
•  Waze’s Palo Alto office and the bizarre Silicon Valley phenomenon of tech companies being located in retail storefronts 
• Apple’s  ill-fated launch of Apple Maps as part of iOS 6 at WWDC 2012, Apple’s subsequent apology letter, and  Scott Forstall’s ultimate ouster from the company 
• The climax of the mobile platform wars… which it turns out Apple and Google  both won
•  Apple, Facebook, and Google all vying to acquire Waze throughout 2013
•  Google’s renewed design ethos under Larry Page
• Ben and David spontaneously agree (surprise) to create on a new category of acquisition for the show 
• The increasing strategic value of data and data assets as technology enters the age of machine learning 
• The coming mega trend of autonomous vehicles, and  the role Israeli startups are playing in it (including the globalization of startups & innovation)
• The disruptive power of network and data-based business models
• Emergence of native as *the* definitive advertising medium on mobile, including ability to close the advertising loop via location-based products and services 

Sponsors:

WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25
Huntress: https://bit.ly/acqhuntress
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24

More Acquired!:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

The Carve Out:

• Ben: Weezer’s “Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori” on Song Exploder 
• David:  Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” TED Talk

  Followups: 

• None this week… coverage of Instagram Stories to come next time!