Adam Foroughi

Adam Foroughi is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Applovin, one of the most underdiscussed but incredible businesses. Applovin has a market cap of $160BN, the company does $5.48BN in revenue and has an astonishing $10M EBITDA per head. The margins; 80%+. There is almost no other business in the world like it. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why Winning (Not Fear) Drives the Best Founders 04:30 – When Money Stops Mattering: The Real Founder Motivation 07:15 – $83M CEO Payday: The Truth Behind the Headlines 10:45 – The Hidden Cost of Being a CEO: What No One Tells You 13:00 – Down 92%: How Do You Not Lose Your Mind? 17:00 – Layoffs: AI Revolution or COVID Hangover? Will the Layoffs Work? 24:30 – Why Most Companies Can't Build a Culture of A-Players 29:30 – What % of Applovin Code is AI? What Will it Be in 5 Years Time? 33:30 – Building on OpenAI: Opportunity or Existential Risk? 40:00 – The Dark Side of Short Sellers & Market Manipulation 50:00 – Do Great Founders Doubt Themselves? 52:00 – TikTok, Meta & The Future of Recommendation Engines 53:30 – The Path to a $1 Trillion Company: What Needs to Happen? 56:00 – Stock Buybacks: How to Do Them and When They Go Wrong? 59:00 – Is the SaaS Model Breaking? What Happens Now?

Adam Foroughi

Co-Founder & CEO

AppLovin

Today we’re breaking down AppLovin. It’s a business you may not recognize but have likely interacted with. Founded in 2012, AppLovin provides a platform for developers to market and monetize their mobile apps. The business also owns some of the most popular mobile games in the world, which they use to feed richer data into their software platform. To help breakdown the business, I’m joined by its CEO and co-founder, Adam Foroughi. Please enjoy this breakdown of AppLovin.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.   -----   Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:02:41] - [First question] - The first risk taken when creating AppLovin and how it all began [00:05:05] - Why was there pushback against games and adtech back in 2012 [00:07:12] - What it was like in the early days to get the app in front of a customer  [00:08:54] - Building a platform and software product versus becoming an advertising agency [00:10:47] - The major components of AppLovin and how it works  [00:15:21] - The space or areas where most people interact with them and see their work  [00:16:26] - What he considers to be the next key chapters after AppLovin’s early days  [00:18:25] - How they determine strategy between the app developer side of the business and app ownership [00:25:50] - How AppLovin interacts with Apple, Android, and the relationship between products [00:27:11] - What he’s learned about the importance of scale in advertising  [00:28:58] - The major breakout points in the business that led to where he is today  [00:30:22] - Their revenue model and it how it breaks between software and apps [00:33:55] - The margins of gaming, its business proposition, and the future value of this side of the franchise [00:38:53] - His perspective on what defines great digital marketing today  [00:40:31] - Walking through the shifts in privacy, targeting, and data as technology changes [00:43:13] - His thoughts on emerging platforms as competitive threats and/or opportunities  [00:44:58] - How they’ve kept the business nimble and very product-focused on a corporate level [00:46:53] - Their concept of meetings and how they’ve learned to run them effectively [00:50:24] - The missing pieces in his strategic mission that he still wants to do in five years time [00:51:42] - What he’s learned from Facebook, Google, and game studios he’s worked with [00:54:32] - How he thinks about defensibility and power in the business as they evolve and grow [00:57:19] - His philosophy on the maturity of the business and if they’d pay dividends in the future [00:59:32] - How he has most improved in his career during his time with AppLovin  [01:02:03] - Questions that the world’s largest bear would ask him today [01:03:18] - The most interesting trends happening around him in the digital space [01:06:04] - His thoughts on the eventual impact of Facebook and Google becoming competitors rather than the collaborators they are today

Adam Foroughi

Co-Founder & CEO

AppLovin

Adam Foroughi is the Co-Founder and CEO @ AppLovin, the company that allows developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. Under Adam's leadership, he has taken the company public, grown the team to over 1,000 people around the world, and scaled revenue in 2020 to $1.5Bn. Prior to AppLovin, Adam founded two companies—Lifestreet Media and Social Hour, and before that Adam started his career as a derivatives trader. In Today's Episode with Adam Foroughi You Will Learn: 1.) How Adam made his way into the world of startups and came to found one of the world's largest gaming, advertising and marketing companies in the form of AppLovin? 2.) Adam founded 4 companies before AppLovin, does Adam believe in the benefits of serial entrepreneurship? What has he done differently with AppLovin having learned from past experience? What did he do the same, having seen it work before? 3.) Why does Adam advocate for as few meetings as possible within the company? Why does Adam believe meetings are unproductive? How do decisions get made internally without meetings? What is the structure and process? How does Adam create an environment where people make decisions without the fear of the repercussions? What are the breakpoints in company scaling? 4.) Why does Adam think that VCs did not want to invest in the early rounds? What were his biggest takeaways from those early fundraising days? How has Adam found the transition to being a public markets CEO? What does he like? What does he not like? How does Adam feel about pleasing the street but also having a long-term mindset? 5.) How does Adam structure his day? With 5 children, how does Adam approach work/life balance? What does his exercise and sleep routine look like? How does he do both weights and running without losing the productivity of the weights? What changes has he made in the last year that have made a significant difference? Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Adam Foroughi Adam's Favourite Book: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

Adam Foroughi

Co-Founder & CEO

AppLovin