This is the best founder you've never heard of. Adam Foroughi's company prints $5 billion in cash a year with just 400 people. When his stock price dropped by 92%, he borrowed money to buy back $6 billion in stock. That bet made the company more than $60 billion. The entire C-suite is just 4 people. To this day, Adam approves every hire. This episode has the highest insight-to-minute ratio of any conversation I've had so far.
Hereβs our full conversation:
0:00 The $6B Buyback That Made $60B
2:15 Borrowing Money To Buy Back Stock At A Discount
5:02 Why VCs Passed On AppLovin In 2012
9:00 From App Discovery To Ad Platform
14:45 Beating Google's AdMob With Performance Marketing
19:30 No Board For Six Years
30:12 The China Deal That Almost Blew Up
37:45 The Convertible Note Pivot And KKR
46:30 Buying Gaming Studios To Get Data
51:45 Losing Trust With Game Developers
58:20 The 2022 Crash And How He Kept His Team
1:02:00 Building An Hyper Competent & Efficient Company
1:07:25 Why Every New Hire Needs His Approval
1:19:06 The Axon 2 Inflection Point
1:21:15 One Great Engineer Now Beats A Hundred
Includes paid partnerships.
The #Panthers have selected Georgia OT Monroe Freeling at No. 19.
Freeling has just one full season as a starter but flashes franchise LT potential and earned Second-Team All-SEC honors last year.
Moving day @TheMasters today! One of my favorite sporting events of the year. Canβt wait to see if @McIlroyRory can keep the momentum after a 65 yesterday or someone else can make a move!