Interview: Hamilton Helmer & Chenyi Shi on How to Build an AWS-Like Second Business

Hamilton Helmer· Guest0:00

Oh, I'm sorry. Before you keep going, is this gonna be a question of is this a scale economy or network economy?

Ben Gilbert· Host0:05

Yes.

Hamilton Helmer· Guest0:05

Oh, damn Go for it, Chenyi, 'cause I don't know the answer.

David Rosenthal· Host0:09

[laughing] [laughing] We've stumped the experts.

Speaker 3· Soundbite0:12

Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth?

Ben Gilbert· Host0:28

Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

David Rosenthal· Host0:37

I'm David Rosenthal.

Ben Gilbert· Host0:38

And we are your hosts. Eight years ago, I pitched David on an idea for two different podcasts. One was on grading technology acquisitions. That became Acquired. The other idea was to do episodes on companies that managed to create two separate multi-billion dollar innovations. Our hypothesis is that most companies have really one big founding insight, and that the rest of the company's history is just drafting on that. Well, Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi, friends of the show, coincidentally have been exploring literally exactly that idea, and they've been asking questions like what percent of the profits of the biggest companies in the world came from a second business line? They have a new framework in addition to 7 Powers to help founders answer the transforming question,