AppLovin - History

Today's update will focus on the history of the company, as I try to provide a holistic overview of the business and arrive at a fair price target.

To do so, I'll be trying to answer the following questions:

History

1. Who founded the company
   1. has management changed significantly over time
   2. how credible is current vs previous management
   3. is this a significant factor in the price of the equity i.e. will this affect growth / the multiple that the market is willing to pay
2. How has their business strategy evolved?
   1. What has and hasn't worked in the past, and why?
3. What's the company's funding history and equity makeup?

Section 1: Key People

Founded by Adam Foroughi, Andrew Karam, and John Krystynak in 2012, Applovin is an American company with HQ in Palo Alto, exiting stealth in 2014.

A bit of background on the founders:

Adam Foroughi: CEO, Child of Iranian immigrants escaping the Iraq-Iran war. Founded 2 companies before Applovin:

1. LifeStreet, an ad network for Facebook performance marketers to help maximise usage of ad inventory. They have since pivoted toward in-app ads on mobile platforms. Interestingly, the website states that LifeStreet began in 2009, though Adam has his experience there listed from 2005-2008.
2. Social Hour, what seems like a social media-based company, presumably also in advertising. (stated to be a mobile marketing firm by Forbes)
3. Has also been the CEO and on the board of 2 other mobile-based companies - Playphone (a game store operator) and Style Page (a content-sharing site)

Andrew Karam: VP of product at AppLovin, American, confound:

1. Social hour
2. Style Page

John Krystynak: CTO Till 2022, Cofounder, Information on him is more elusive.

Other Key People:
CFO: Matt Stumpf - ex PWC, rose up internally from VP finance. Recently replacing harold Chen.

CMO: Katie Jansen - OG employee (since 2013), AL's first marketing hire, previously VP marketing at PlayFirst, a mobile gaming publisher.

CTO: Basil Shikin - Early hire, previously VP Engineering, helped build and optimise the platform.

Board: list of big names, including the following:
*Seems that most leadership are either OG employees or very similar - people who's risen internally and therefore likely to have a better understanding of the company and run a cohesive ship

Most execs have been at the company for at least 7 years - well before the transition toward the current platform model, which increases confidence to work cohesively, if not deliver the strategy successfully.

As their current play is dependent on a successful transition to a platform based revenue stream, a cohesive team is valuable and leadership is experienced in this industry.

While I do think this is a material factor in the price of the equity (since it affects the likelihood of a successful transition) personally I don't know how exactly to put a value on this here, so any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Additionally, I feel tracking revenue numbers and other key indicators will be the crux, so getting data on those stats will be mission-critical and will allow us to bypass the above, as management competence merely acts as a predictor of performance, and getting hard data seems better.

Section 2: Changes in Company Strategy

Unfortunately I ran out of time today so I'll finish sections 2 and 3 tomorrow.







Sources:
Section 1: Information gathered from Applovin Website, Forbes, and Linkedin.

tldr: Management team looks solid, with veteran employees at the reigns - a good indicator, but hard data likely to be more important.

Price at time of writing: 86.37