In this episode of Run the Numbers, CJ breaks down Bending Spoons’ F-1 filing and the acquisition machine behind AOL, Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, and more. He unpacks the company’s playbook: buy under-optimized digital businesses, transform operations, raise prices, reinvest earnings, and repeat — while asking the core question: how much was built, and how much was bought? — SPONSORS: RightRev is an automated revenue recognition platform that lets your product team ship new pricing without asking finance for permission, and your sales team close deals without creating downstream chaos. Check out their free tool at calculator.rightrev.com It scores your rev rec process, shows what's exposing you to risk, and tells you exactly where to focus before it bites you in the rear end. Check it out at https://calculator.rightrev.com Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj EY has been part of Silicon Valley since it was just a valley, helping the most successful names in tech go from startup to exit to megacap. With teams across strategy, tax, audit, and transactions, EY helps you get your financials right early, long before your investors start asking for it. You build the next big thing, and EY will help you build it right. Learn more at https://www.ey.com/techstartups SpendHound cuts your SaaS and AI spend by up to 30% using real pricing benchmarks across 10,000 vendors, so you always know what fair pricing looks like before your next renewal. Rated #1 on G2 in SaaS spend management, it's free forever for teams up to 1,000 employees. Sign up by June 12th and get $500 just for getting started. Go to https://www.spendhound.com/cj Brex is an intelligent finance platform with AI-powered agents that capture expenses automatically, enforce policy before the spend happens, and close your books in minutes instead of weeks. 35,000+ companies like OpenAI, Coinbase, Anthropic, and DoorDash already run on Brex. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at https://www.brex.com/metrics Aleph is a modern FP&A platform built for teams that want more than another planning tool. By connecting your ERP, CRM, and other systems into one trusted data layer with AI workflows, Aleph helps you move faster with real-time insights. Get a personalized demo at https://www.getaleph.com/run — LINKS: Mostly Talent: https://mostlymetrics.typeform.com/to/cLTxtAsN CJ: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/ Mostly metrics: https://www.mostlymetrics.com — TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 What is Bending Spoons? 1:03 The Internet's attic: the portfolio 3:11 The metrics rundown 5:44 Revenue: $1.3B, 95% growth 6:04 82% of growth was bought, not built 6:29 Gross margin: 66% 6:50 Subscription mix and NRR 7:33 Net income: basically zero 8:00 Cash: $741M, debt: $4.4B 8:35 Revenue per employee: $2.57M 9:39 Sponsors — RightRev | Rillet | EY 12:42 Organic growth is mostly price hikes 13:50 A house of adjustments 14:54 Add-backs bigger than the profit 15:22 The reorganization line: cost of firing 19:21 Sponsors — SpendHound | Brex | Aleph 22:51 Does the playbook actually work? 23:07 Evernote: the proof point 23:45 Romini: the growth proof point 24:10 AI in three directions at once 25:45 The debt engine 27:50 Red flag 1: material accounting weaknesses 28:38 Red flag 2: pro forma numbers come with a confession 29:00 Red flag 3: App Store dependency 29:11 Red flag 4: no long-term contracts 29:30 Red flag 5: foreign private issuer 29:52 Red flag 6: they've never sold anything 30:19 Cap table and board 31:07 Valuation: 14–18x 33:00 Bull vs. bear case 33:55 Miscellaneous: the S1 is already stale 35:25 Credits
