Frank Quattrone: Lessons from 650 M&A Deals Worth Over $1TRN & Taking Amazon and Cisco Public| E1121

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

March 1, 2024

Duration

1h 8m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Frank Quattrone is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Qatalyst and served as its CEO from the Firm’s founding until January 2016. Over more than four decades, Frank and the teams he has led have advised on more than 600 mergers and acquisitions with an aggregate transaction value over $1 trillion and on more than 350 financings that raised over $65 billion for technology companies worldwide. Frank led the IPOs of Amazon.com, Cisco, Intuit, Netscape, among many others. He advised Apple on its $400 MM acquisition of NeXT (which led to Steve Jobs’ return to Apple); Concur on its $8.3B sale to SAP; LinkedIn on its $28.1B sale to Microsoft; Qualtrics on its $8B sale to SAP and Twitch on its $1B sale to Amazon.com. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (00:56) Meeting Steve Jobs (10:37) Dot-com Bubble & Technology Pervasiveness (17:48) Has Regulation Killed M&A? (19:26) Impact of Rising Interest Rates on M&A (25:59) Role of Investment Bankers in M&A (33:19) Competitive Deals & Driving the Highest Price (36:01) Common Reasons for Deal Failures (37:47) Challenges in the M&A Process (41:17) Buyer Sentiment in the Current Market (44:00) Future of M&A in a High-Rate Environment (45:44) Influence of Trump on M&A (46:56) Changes in Deal-Making Strategies (48:39) Selling to Private Equity vs. Other Strategics (50:21) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Frank Quattrone We Discuss:

1. Has Regulation Killed M&A: Why does Frank disagree that regulation has killed M&A? What is the real reason why M&A is so down at present? What would impact would a Trump administration have on the M&A environment? What are some of Frank’s biggest lessons from 600 prior transactions over dour decades of what happens when an M&A market shuts down?

1. When Will the IPO Window Re-Open: Does Frank agree that the IPO window is currently closed for tech companies? How does this IPO window compare to the dot com bust and 2007? What is needed for the IPO window to re-open? What is the timeline that Frank puts on the IPO window opening again?

1. M&A: How Do Companies Get Bought: What is the process for a company to be bought? What are the single biggest mistakes the seller makes in the process? What do the best buyers and sellers do to get the best price? Does Frank agree with the notion that “companies are bought and not sold”?

1. IPOing Amazing, Selling Linkedin and Qualtrics: What is the story behind, Frank, Bill Gurley, Jeff Bezos and John Doerr pricing the Amazon IPO? How did Linkedin come to be bought by Microsoft? What did that process look like? How did Frank structure an event to ensure that Ryan @ Qualtrics and Bill McDermot @ SAP would meet and lead to the acquisition? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Frank Quattrone on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FrankQuattrone Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #venturecapital #podcast #business #frankquattrone #qatalyst #stevejobs #apple #trump #privateequity #technology #microsoft #amazon

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Harry Stebbings

  host

• Frank Quattrone

  guest

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Harry Stebbings and Frank Quattrone, Frank Quattrone: Lessons from 650 M&A Deals Worth Over $1TRN & Taking Amazon and Cisco Public| E1121 explores frank Quattrone Dissects Tech Bubbles, M&A Cycles, and AI’s Future Impact Frank Quattrone recounts his journey from blue‑collar Philadelphia to building Morgan Stanley’s leading tech practice, taking companies like Apple, Netscape, Amazon, Cisco, and later LinkedIn public or through major M&A. He explains how interest rates, investor psychology, and regulatory scrutiny have shaped multiple tech booms and busts—from PCs to dot‑com, cloud, COVID, and today’s AI wave. The conversation dives deep into how M&A really works: why most deals die, what drives price, how to create a market for a company, and the changing role of private equity versus strategics. Quattrone closes by outlining how his firm, Qatalyst, stays relevant by constantly re‑segmenting tech around new paradigms like cloud, mobile, and now generative AI.

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