George Boutros is commonly known in Silicon Valley as the man behind basically every big tech acquisition in the past 10 years. George was involved in the sale of LinkedIn to Microsoft, Slack to Salesforce, Figma to Adobe, and many others. On this episode he shares his background, how he got into investment banking, and what it was like advising on some of the greatest deals in history including Steve Jobs at Pixar. Finally, George shares his best negotiating advice and misconceptions about the role of investment banking in the tech world. George is currently CEO of Qatalyst Partners, a boutique investment bank focused on tech M&A.
(0:00) Intro
(0:41) Welcome George Boutros
(11:08) Advising deals 2008-2010
(16:48) Pillars of building out an investment bank
(30:58) Becoming CEO at Qatalyst
(34:32) Working because you enjoy it
(37:42) George's father
(49:23) Shifting focus to tech
(54:53) Apple almost selling in 1996
(1:01:06) Pixar
(1:07:53) Negotiating Advice
(1:10:46) Figuring out when to sell
(1:17:43) Council to private companies now
(1:24:08) The institutionalization of private equity within technology
(1:38:03) How is the investment banking industry changing
(1:42:52) Balancing work and family
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.