We close out Season 3 and our China mini-series with a monster episode on Tencent, the Shenzhen-based social networking and entertainment powerhouse. We dive deep into the story of Pony Ma and his cofounders’ incredible journey from making software for pagers(!) to QQ, WeChat, League of Legends, Fortnite, Snapchat and even Tesla. This is one finale you don’t want to miss!Sponsors:<ul><li>WorkOS: <a href="https://bit.ly/workos25">https://bit.ly/workos25</a></li><li>Intapp: <a href="https://bit.ly/intappceleste">https://bit.ly/intappceleste</a></li><li>Sentry: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry">https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry</a></li><li>Anthropic: <a href="https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25">https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25</a></li></ul> More Acquired!<ul><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/email">Get email updates</a> with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes</li><li><a href="http://acquired.fm/slack">Join the Slack</a></li><li><a href="https://pod.link/acquiredlp">Subscribe to ACQ2</a></li><li><a href="https://www.acquired.fm/store">Merch Store</a>!</li></ul>© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC Carve Outs:<ul><li>Ben: President Obama’s OG podcast! https://bit.ly/2BqXxHJ</li><li>David: Kara Swisher’s interview with the Google Walkout organizers: https://bit.ly/2RwuskZ</li><li>David (bonus!): Allen Iverson on the Players’ Tribune: https://bit.ly/2EkrRHQ</li></ul>

Season 4, Episode 1: ESPN

Every company has a story.

Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.