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Dave Sobota

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29
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2019-04-15
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2019-04-15
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  1. “Tenor, which is a GIF search company, and we bought them in part to be a modern and kind of fun supplement to Google Image Search, and it's done just that.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “It's having to say no to great companies that just happen not to be a good fit for us. I always feel like I'm letting the founder down, even though it's not a failure on their part. It's just not a match”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “No, but they are less frequent and prices are coming down. We've had, say, one exception, which is rarefied machine learning talent can still fetch a premium price on the aqua hire market.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “My favorite book is Lonesome Dove, which is a great Western novel with two very different but compelling heroes, just a great, great story”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Although it's important to focus on getting the deal done, it's even more important to jointly agree on how your company is going to operate within Google after closing. So in other words, the wedding itself is important, but more so is the marriage that follows, and it's important to focus on both.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I would say ways, and not just because it turned out to be a really successful deal for us in terms of phenomenal growth and the CEO Noah Bardeen has been a great leader for us, but also the deal process itself. It was a competitive deal. Ways had actually signed a letter of intent with another acquirer when we got involved. One of our main competitors was a Waze stockholder and wasn't too keen on us buying them. And then internally at Google, there were some folks who had legitimate questions about how ways was going to fit in with Google Maps, which of course are overlapping properties.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Every deal we do, we set OKRs, which are essentially goals that we want to achieve. And these aren't just financial, but they often are financial. But they include things like growth of user-based, product launches, employee retention, and things like that. And we set these goals in collaboration with the target companies, sometimes tweaking them a little bit after closing. We then use these goals as the report card as we evaluate the deal. Typically, we do this every three to six months after the deal closes for a period of two to three years.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “No, no, it was such a good idea. I've been maybe giddy. For every deal we do of any size, we have regular post-closing check ins and do postmortems to make sure we're learning from our mistakes. And the single most important element we found for successful integration is that we have an engaged deal sponsor from the Google site stay intimately involved with the company after closing until it's fully integrated. So when we've done these postmortems, we found that a deal can go sideways after closing for a variety of reasons. A founder may not like the food at Google or they might have a beef for their boss. So instead, we found that having a seasoned Googler stay involved with the deal with appropriate incentives to make sure the deal succeeds is a great way to help ensure that potential problems get addressed quickly.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “First off, each integration we do is different. There's no one size fits all. It's always tailored to the objectives of the deal. So are we primarily interested in the product or the team or the user base or something else? And so Corp Dev, my job is to work with our internal product area as well as the target company to figure out the right level of integration and autonomy. For example, we do some deals where they're largely autonomous like DeepMind and other deals where they're fully integrated, like 20 minute BC, as well as Corp Dev to have an explicit conversation before you've signed the definitive agreements about the integration plan and make sure we're aligned.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Every MA deal at Google needs to be approved ultimately by our CEO and it needs an executive sponsor and an executive sponsor is one of the CEO's direct reports that runs a product area at Google. So as we're meeting with the company, if it looks promising, we'll start building out the story and rationale of why we should buy the company. And we'll do early check-ins with senior leadership to make sure there's general alignment to proceed. Then we'll have the formal deal review meeting to discuss a deal and seek approval.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Absolutely. There's a lot of startup companies today that have opportunities independently or with a variety of potential buyers, and therefore we need to not only pursue them and offer them a decent monetary amount, but we also need to convince them that we are the best place for them to fulfill their long-term vision of product success, whatever that means for them. And that could be the scale we offer or the resources we provide to employees or a variety of things.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I think the founders should, whatever their curiosity lies, wherever they feel they have unknowns in their mind, they should probe. There should be no questions that are off limits. So different founders may have different concerns. One founder may be really concerned about how his team is going to be treated. Another founder may be very concerned that his or her product is going to survive in the current way it exists today. And so whatever your points are, which can be unique to you, feel free to bring them up. There's nothing that should be off the table.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Founders often focus on how they are pitching their company to us, which of course is appropriate. But it's also important for the founder to do their own diligence on us and what our specific plans are for the deal. We almost always want the founders to stick around and work for Google after the closing. So it's very important for them to understand and make sure we have alignment on what our plans are for the product, the team, the future growth, and all those things because hopefully it's going to be their job for the next several years. It's important for me as a corp dev person to make sure these discussions happen.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “In advance of any potential gotchas early in the process, we're likely going to find out about them anyway. It's always better to address them up front earlier rather than later as surprises.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Process certainly can be grueling. And it can happen on the front end before a term sheet is signed, maybe because it takes a long time for the two sides to agree on price. Or it can happen on the back end after the term sheet is signed, and that could be due to confirmatory diligence process, which involves folks like lawyers and accountants, and it's very detail-oriented. You know, for example, we're going to review every contract you've ever signed. Now, to deal with this, I found the best way is to be upfront with the founder on kind of once you're leading towards a deal on how the process is going to play out with some detail and the information we're going to request of them so that they can plan and hopefully get the help they need sometimes reaching out to their law.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Yeah, I would say all of the above, but quite simply, we reached out to relevant companies and meet with them. Typically, I'm happy to host at Google, but I love having casual conversations at coffee as well. Oftentimes the introductions come from someone within Google or a trusted outside source, but not infrequently, I'll send a cold email to a company. We try to be as transparent as we can about what our interest is and why we think they could be a good fit for Google and why we think Google could be a good fit for them.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Great question. So, as I mentioned, my job is to meet frequently internally with our product and engineering leadership, understand the roadmaps, and then together we explore how M&A could advance these roadmaps. We do a lot of research and networking and develop a pipeline of potentially relevant companies. And then we have criteria we set up to prioritize and then meet with the ones we think have the best potential. And then wrapping all of this is we have a very bespoke in-house CRM system that we created to track and monitor all of our dealings with companies and the ecosystem.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I really appreciate their overall market view. So as a corporate development professional, I spend a lot of time internally focused meeting with our product managers and engineering leadership to understand their roadmaps and their potential M&A needs. I also spend time externally facing networking and learning about technology trends. And BCs are really helpful with that aspect of my job.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, VCs are an important and valuable partner to us in Corp Dev. We have relationships with all of the top VCs and we meet with them frequently to learn about their portfolio companies and their views on technology trends. And we want to share with them the areas we're focusing on for investment. So they're a valuable part of the ecosystem and we relish the relationships we have with them.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “If a company is operating in stealth mode or is truly heads down focusing on developing their product with no intention of selling in the near term, I think it's completely appropriate to defer any talks with Corp Dev. When I reach out to companies, I find they're almost always willing to meet with me, but sometimes they're not. And that's, of course, fine. And it's just in terms of communicating that to me, I think being frank and open and honest is the best way. It's helpful for me to know where they're coming from and generally respect their decision.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I'm not sure I would have made such a binary statement, but I do think I understand part of the underlying message Paul is trying to convey in that startups should manage their time prudently. Now, that said, one of the elements to a successful M&A deal is having a relationship of trust between the buyer and the seller and a good understanding of each other's products, teams, and cultures. So if a startup thinks M&A might be a possibility for them in the future, it's not a bad idea for them to develop a relationship with the companies they might sell, including the Corp dev team.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Those founders sold out way too early. But if you look back at the time, YouTube was facing a billion dollar copyright lawsuit. It had growing infrastructure costs and it had very little revenue, all three of which Google was able to help out with quite a bit. So maybe in hindsight, it wasn't such a bad decision for them to sell after all. And then the last thing I would say is there's, of course, non-monetary factors for founders to consider when making these decisions. So, for example, I Google things we like to market to founders are the great resources we have, like the ability to access top talent and machine learning, our scale, the ability to reach billions of users, our incredible computing power, and a focus on entrepreneur success with teams dedicated to smooth integration and transition into Google.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “General rule of thumb is that if someone is going to pay you today, what you think you're reasonably going to be worth well into the future, then sell now. The problem with that rule of thumb is it's not much use because it requires you to accurately predict what you'll be working in the future. So there's a few other factors that I like to talk about with founders when they're thinking about this decision. First, what's your risk reward profile as a founder? Some founders have a fierce desire to remain independent and take their company public and never sell. It's just where you are on the spectrum. Another important factor to consider is whether the acquirer can increase the probability or speed of the success of your startup. And an example of that for us here at Google is YouTube, which we paid $1.6 billion for. And today, some analysts say it's worth over $100 billion. And so based on that, you could say, oh, wow.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I completely agree with Peter. If you do a good MA deal, no one's ever looked back and said, how much did we pay? It just smiles and congratulations. We look at price. We try to be as disciplined as we can. We look at all of the science, all the math we can apply, DCF analysis, multiples analysis. But ultimately, especially with high growth companies, you almost have to take a leap of faith. And I'm not saying that we're price insensitive. But for example, if you look at where we spent $1.1 billion to buy them, that's been a tremendous”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “We're definitely seeing more PE involvement in the MA space, including an increase in acquisitions of VC-backed companies by PE firms, where previously we hadn't seen them so much. And I think this is primarily due to PE shops raising increasingly large funds, and they have record levels of capital to deploy. It's also due to the interest rate environment, which is creeping up a little bit in the U.S., but still are at relatively low levels historically speaking.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Emily is absolutely right that there was a slowdown in 2016, and that's in part, though, because 2015 was such a record-setting year. So I don't think 2018 is going to match 2015, but overall things do look pretty good.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Yeah, overall, we're seeing a healthy M&A market with no real signs of it slowing down. The fundamentals are all there. We've got one strong business sentiment, really strong GDP growth, two corporate fundamentals are there, record profits are being reported by companies largely across the board with just a few exceptions. Three macroeconomic forces like access to financing are really strong. And fourth, in the U.S., at least, lowered corporate tax rates, as well as tax laws favoring repatriation of cash,”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “At the time, I thought, well, let me try this out. And if it doesn't work out, I can go back to being a lawyer. But within about three weeks, I had realized I had serendipitously stumbled upon the greatest career I've ever had. It's just so fun to be in the perch we have within Google and meet the companies we meet and potentially create all the value that we're creating.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Actually, I am one of the guys who just serendipitously found this job, which I absolutely love. My first career out of undergrad was as a CPA for KPMG, which was not my calling. I had a great experience and learned a lot. But then after that, went to law school and I was a lawyer for several years. And in fact, 13 years ago, joined Google as a lawyer doing M&A and securities work. And then after a couple years at Google as a lawyer, so about 10 years ago, I made the jump to the business side and have been leading M&A and investment deals for Google worldwide ever since. Over the years, I've had the pleasure to work on a variety of deals like the acquisitions of YouTube, Android, Motorola, and Waze, and have just had a ton of fun being a part of Google's inorganic growth path.”

    2019-04-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source