E20: Rishi Garg’s M&A Playbooks from Twitter and Square

In this episode, Rishi Garg, former Head of Corporate Development at Twitter and Square, shares insider knowledge on tech acquisitions. He explains when companies should start considering M&A and the three key approaches: tops down, bottoms up, and strategy influence. Rishi reveals how he managed up to 15 deals in 12 months and why integration is crucial for M&A success. He debunks common M&A misconceptions and discusses the "sins of omission" - deals he regrets not making. The conversation shifts to his current role as a VC at Mayfield Fund, offering a unique perspective on both sides of acquisitions. LINKS: https://www.twitter.com/rishigarg https://www.mayfield.com/ RECOMMENDED PODCAST: 🎙️ This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765665937 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast SPONSORS: More than 37,000 businesses have already upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle, the #1 cloud financial system bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, into ONE proven platform. If you're looking for an ERP platform, get a one-of-a-kind flexible financing program on NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/102 Metaview is the AI assistant for interviewing. Metaview completely removes the need for recruiters and hiring managers to take notes during interviews—because their AI is designed to take world-class interview notes for you. Team builders at companies like Brex, Hellofresh, and Quora say Metaview has changed the game—see the magic for yourself: https://www.metaview.ai/heretics The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at https://brave.com/api Omneky: Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off https://www.omneky.com/ X/SOCIAL: @sashaorloff @rishigarg (Rishi) TIMESTAMPS: (00:00:00) Introduction (00:02:53) How companies should think about M&A and corp dev (00:06:58) Signs that a company is ready to consider M&A (00:11:37) Different approaches to M&A: tops down, bottoms up, and strategy influencing (00:16:52) How to start building an M&A team (00:18:16) Sponsors: Netsuite | Metaview (00:22:15) Misconceptions about M&A in Silicon Valley (00:26:53) Valuation considerations in M&A deals (00:34:31) Current state of M&A market and opportunities (00:38:24) Sponsors: Omneky | Brave (00:39:47) How M&A deals happen and relationship building (00:45:55) Reasons why M&A deals don't work out (00:51:50) Transition to Rishi's experience as a venture capitalist (00:57:50) Advice for founders considering M&A (01:02:09) Rishi's current interests in investing, particularly in AI and new platforms