Intros for tonight?
Oh, yeah.
I wrote up like a little thing that's based on exactly what you texted me that I kind of like the idea of.
Great, great.
What I'm thinking is tell me if you like this.
Welcome to season five, episode one of Acquired, the podcast about technology, acquisitions and IPOs.
I'm Ben Gilbert and I am the co founder of Pioneer Square Labs, a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle.
And I'm David Rosenthal and I am a general partner at Wave Capital, an early stage venture capital firm that focuses on marketplaces based in San Francisco.
And we are your hosts.
Today we are covering China's largest private company, Huawei.
The company is the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world.
Now they're only behind Samsung and they recently pulled ahead of Apple.
They also happen to be the world's largest telecom equipment manufacturer, among other things.
Now, David, the company has had a pretty wild last 12 months.
That would be putting it mildly.
Yes.
Barred from doing business with US companies, federal prosecutors have filed charges of wire fraud and their CFO was arrested upon landing in Canada last year.
Oh, and the layoffs last week of hundreds of workers in the US Went down amidst the trade war.
So what is going on with this company and how did we get here?
Yeah, well, that's what we're here to talk about.