Chris Bakke on Negotiating with Elon Musk and Setting Up An M&A from Day One (3x exits)

Ever wonder what it's like to get a call from Elon Musk, wanting to buy your company?

In this episode, Sasha sits down with serial entrepreneur Chris Bakke to find out. Chris is the co-founder behind several successful startups, including Laskie, which was acquired by Elon Musk's X, and Interviewed, acquired by Indeed.

Chris shares insights on:

• Building a content-driven growth strategy as a founder that's led to his 200k+ follower base

• Navigating the M&A process and negotiating a deal directly with Musk

• Transitioning from founder to his current role in building X's job search platform, and much more.

  
  

This show is a part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co

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⏲️ Timestamps:

(00:00) Chris Bakke Intro

(02:49) Laskie and what got Chris excited about it

(04:03) Content as a growth strategy

(07:29) How Chris found his content voice

(12:50) What’s the next thing in content

(19:32) Best practices as a founder to set up M&A as a future path

(24:36) Getting Indeed as a partner, investor, and acquirer of Interviewed

(26:51) Laskie’s M&A Story

(29:13) How Chris ended up talking to Elon about Laskie and Twitter recruiting

(35:11) What Chris would’ve done differently at Indeed

(37:12) Common mistakes and misconceptions during the M&A process

(45:00) Chris’ most memorable X post, not of his own

(46:22) Wrap

Subscribe to this season of Turpentine Finance, where our guests speak candidly about big business inflections, market curveballs, and how they approach decision-making to tease out tactics and mental models you can use when the pressure is on.

You’ll hear stories from Instacart, Mercury, OpenAI, Andreessen Horowitz, Netflix, Runway, and more. Topics frequently touched upon M&A, Market Downturn, Macro, PMF, Fundraising, Financial Forecasting, Headcount, Equity.

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Turpentine Finance is a part of the Turpentine podcast network. Learn more: www.turpentine.co

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Chris Bakke on Negotiating with Elon Musk and Setting Up An M&A from Day One (3x exits)