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Acquired dives into the legendary acquisition of Ben Horowitz & Marc Andreessen\\u2019s \\u201csecond act\\u201d software company Opsware, from a perspective never before heard\\u2014HP\\u2019s side of the story! Our heroes are joined by Michel Feaster, who led both the acquisition for HP and then the Opsware product as part of the integrated company afterward under Ben Horowitz. Today the tables have turned: Michel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Seattle-based startup Usermind, and Ben Horowitz sits on her board on behalf of A16Z. This episode is not one to miss! \\xa0

Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
Crusoe: https://bit.ly/acquiredcrusoe
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury

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• Opsware\\u2019s early history and origins as Loudcloud, the \\u201csecond act\\u201d of internet wunderkind Marc Andreessen and Netscape product manager Ben Horowitz
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• Ben\\u2019s first person telling of the Loudcloud/Opsware history in The Hard Thing about Hard Things, as well as the great Wired "period piece\\u201d covering Loudcloud\\u2019s launch in August 2000
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• The importance of timing, and Loudcloud\\u2019s too-early vision of\\u2014essentially\\u2014AWS before AWS (including eerie parallels between the metaphor Andreessen used to describe Loudcloud during the company\\u2019s first press briefing, and Jeff Bezos\\u2019s description of AWS at YC nearly a decade later)
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• Creation of the \\u201cOpsware\\u201d tool inside of Loudcloud to automate deploying and configuring servers within Loudcloud\\u2019s data centers
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• Loudcloud\'s meteoric rise, crash following the burst of the internet bubble, and hard pivot as a public company into Opsware\\u2014now an enterprise software company selling datacenter tools\\xa0
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• Michel\\u2019s role in HP\\u2019s evaluation of the company as an acquisition target, and process leading to its $1.6B acquisition in July 2007
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• Integration of the company into HP\\u2019s culture and sales channel
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• The creation of Ben & Marc\\u2019s \\u201cthird act\\u201d, the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, and what it\\u2019s like for Michel now having Ben as an investor on her board at Usermind\\xa0
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\\xa0 The Carve Out:\\xa0

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• Ben: StarStaX star trail photography software\\n
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• David: Jimmy Iovine on the Bill Simmons Podcast\\n
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