Episode 6: Lucasfilm

**Ben Gilbert** (0:00)
This is a great time to tell you about one of our very favorite companies, Crusoe.

**David Rosenthal** (0:05)
So Crusoe, as listeners know by now, is a clean compute cloud provider specifically built for AI workloads. NVIDIA is one of their major partners, and literally Crusoe's data centers are nothing but racks and racks of A100s and H100s. And because Crusoe's cloud is purpose built for AI and run on wasted, stranded or clean energy, they can provide significantly better performance per dollar than traditional cloud providers.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:30)
Yes, we talked about that on our ACQ2 episode with Crusoe CEO, Chase Lockmiller.

**David Rosenthal** (0:36)
The other element that makes Crusoe special is the environmental angle. Crusoe, of course, locates their data centers at stranded energy sites. So think oil flares, wind farms that can't use all the energy they generate, etc. And uses that power that would otherwise be wasted to run your AI workloads instead.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:54)
Yep. Obviously, it's a huge benefit for the environment and for customers on costs, since Crusoe doesn't rely on the energy grid. Energy is the second largest cost of running AI after, of course, the price you pay NVIDIA for the chips. And these lower energy costs get passed on to customers.

**David Rosenthal** (1:10)
It's super cool that they can put their data centers out there in these remote locations where quote unquote energy happens, as opposed to the other hyperscalers such as AWS and Google and Azure, who need to build their data centers close to major traffic hubs where the Internet happens because they are doing everything in their clouds.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:27)
Yep. If you, your company or your portfolio companies would like to use the lower cost and more performant infrastructure for your AI workloads, go to crusocloud.com/acquired, that's C-R-U-S-O-E cloud.com/acquired, or click the link in the show notes.
Welcome to episode six of Acquired, the podcast where we talk about technology acquisitions that actually went well. I'm Ben Gilbert.

**David Rosenthal** (2:09)
I'm David Rosenthal.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:10)
And we are your hosts. Just a quick administrative thing, if you like the show, we would love for you to rate us on iTunes. We're doing a lot of research on podcasts recently and how the iTunes search algorithm works. If you like it and you think other people would like it too, we would love, love, love for you to leave a review.

**David Rosenthal** (2:29)
And likewise, as always, if you have feedback, hit us up on Twitter at acquired.fm or leave a comment on the website.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:38)
Yes. So, this week we are, I'd say we're timely, we're probably a month late. We were talking about the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm and all of Lucasfilm's franchises.

**David Rosenthal** (2:52)
Ben, I am your father.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:56)
Wait, that wasn't in the script.

**David Rosenthal** (2:58)
Cut.

**Ben Gilbert** (3:02)
All right. David, over to you first for Acquisition History and Facts.

**David Rosenthal** (3:06)
Oh, man. Lucasfilm. Star Wars. What more can you say? So, George Lucas, obviously, founded Lucasfilm, 1971 in San Rafael, California, which has personal significance for me and my family. That's where my wife is from, where my in-laws live, and...

**Ben Gilbert** (3:29)
David, where did you watch Star Wars?

**David Rosenthal** (3:30)
And I was going to say, episode seven, we went over the holiday break to the theater in Corte Madera that George Lucas himself helped renovate, for the, I believe, for the prequels when they came out. It's a one-screen theater in Marin, and it was amazing. There's a great Vanity Fair article about this theater and the work that Lucas has done on it. Super fun. So early 70s, Lucas founds Lucasfilm, and the first project that the company does is American Graffiti, which comes out in 1973 And then the next film that the company produces, 1977, is A New Hope.
I guess it was called Star Wars at the time. We know it as A New Hope.

**Ben Gilbert** (4:27)
On this podcast, it's just called Star Wars, David.

**David Rosenthal** (4:29)
All right, Ben. And then since then, over the years, pretty incredible what this company has produced both itself and what's come out of it. This is our second episode about a Lucasfilm company.

**Ben Gilbert** (4:48)
Disney acquisition?

**David Rosenthal** (4:49)
Yeah, Disney acquisition of a Lucasfilm company.

**Ben Gilbert** (4:53)
I was going to try and catch you there. And, well, David, I think you mean, because Pixar was also acquired by Disney, but was also spun out of Lucasfilm.

**David Rosenthal** (5:01)
Yeah, well, essentially, I mean, you could argue started at Lucasfilm. The company and the product itself, I believe, was started at Lucasfilm.