Episode 19: Jet

Ben & David break down Jet.com’s meteoric rise, culminating
in Walmart’s blockbuster $3B+ acquisition of the company just two
years after its founding. Will we look back on this deal as an
‘Instagram-like’ bargain or a ‘Pets.com'-sized blunder? And most
importantly, can *anyone* compete with Amazon going forward? We
speculate wildly. 


Sponsors:


WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25

Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25


 




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

Topics covered include: 

Community spotlight: Nowdue, a super fast invoicing platform
for teams on Slack. Invoice like it’s the future! This looks very
cool. 

Jet’s deep origins in Founder & CEO Marc Lore’s first two
companies, The Pit and Quidsi (aka, diapers.com) 

Lore’s  chance run-in with Jeff Bezos at a school picnic
in Seattle in the early 2000’s

Amazon's dramatic acquisition of Quidsi in 2010, including
Bezos’ admonition to Amazon corp dev to keep Quidsi from being
bought by Walmart under any circumstances (covered well in
 The Everything Store)

Lore’s  less-than-favorable opinion of Amazon's culture

 Lore's vision of Jet as an ‘online Costco’ that can
directly with Amazon on price by selling goods to a “huge
middle-class of people" at effectively zero margin, and make
profit on membership fees

Jet’s  huge,  pre-launch  fundraising rounds,
and subsequent  massively promoted public launch in July
2015

Jet’s pivot in October 2015 to  drop the membership
model (their only profit engine), and subsequent massive growth
(but also accompanying massive losses) 

'Admitting defeat” to Amazon in July 2016? Immediately
followed by the  blockbuster $3B+ Walmart acquisition
announcement

Is e-commerce really a winner-take-all business and will
Amazon just take over the world? Featuring liberal citations
(again) of Ben Thompson's Aggregation Theory and the importance
of customer experience. 

Is there any path for Walmart & Jet to compete
effectively with Amazon? Is Marc Lore Walmart’s only hope?

Fantastic  interview with Tim Cook discussing (among
other things) the massive amount of growth still left in the
internet 



  Followups: 


Lucasfilm: Star Wars Rouge One trailer drops! Featuring a
strong female protagonist! 



  New section: Hot Takes! (thank you @cteitzel on Slack for
the idea) 


 Verizon/AOL acquires Yahoo!

Lyft reportedly turns down acquisition offer from GM

 Microsoft acquires Beam

 Randstad acquires Monster.com 



  The Carve Out:


Ben: Michael Mauboussin’s Talk at Google and Reflections on
the Ten Attributes of Great Investors after thirty years of
honing his craft

David: Strava, the fantastic social fitness-tracking app

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