To paraphrase Visa founder Dee Hock, how many of you know Visa? Great, all of you. Now, how many of you know how it started? Or, for that matter, who started it? Who runs and governs it? Where is it headquartered? What’s its business model?

For the 11th largest market cap company in the world, Visa’s history and strategy is almost shockingly unknown. A huge portion of the world’s population uses their products on a daily basis (you might say Visa is… everywhere people want to be), but very few know the amazing story behind how that came to be. Or why Visa continues to be one of the most incredible and incredibly durable business franchises of all-time. (50%+ net income margins!! On $30B of revenue!) Today we do our part to change that. Tune in for one heck of a journey.

Sponsors:

Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get:

• 
  Free access to our episode research on Blinkist plus our favorite books on Ben & David’s Bookshelf
  


• 
  Scalable, clean and low-cost cloud AI compute from Crusoe (and listen to our recent ACQ2 interview with CEO Chase Lochmiller)


• Your product growth powered by Statsig

More Acquired!:

• 
  Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes


• Join the Slack


• Subscribe to ACQ2


• Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!

Links:

• Burger King rolling out credit cards in 1993


• 
  Get your BankAmericard MasterCard today! (!?)


• Episode sources

Carve Outs:

• I Think You Should Leave


• Mistborn

‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.