Acquired Episode 17: Waze

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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