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Podcasts · Technology · Business

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

218 episodes

Every company has a story.

More about the show

Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.

Episodes page 2 of 5

  1. LVMH

    · 3 h 25 min · S12 E2

    We tell the full history of LVMH, and how Bernard Arnault turned a $15m investment in a bankrupt French textile company into the world’s largest individual fortune. It’s a story that’s equal parts Berkshire Hathaway,…

  2. Holiday Special 2022

    · 2 h 13 min

    Cozy up to the fire and join Acquired as we do our annual strategic review of the show and our business “in public”. We recap our perspectives on Acquired’s big moments from the past year, a bit of commentary on the…

  3. Stratechery (with Ben Thompson)

    · 1 h 48 min · S11 E8

    Ben Thompson joins Acquired to discuss the business of Stratechery itself and celebrate 10 years (!) of the internet’s best strategy analysis destination. Even beyond Stratechery’s enormous impact itself on business…

  4. Enron

    · 3 h 26 min · S11 E7

    The FTX fraud has dominated headlines now for weeks, during which we’ve debated if and how Acquired could uniquely add to the conversation. Then we realized there was an angle so perfect that we had to drop everything…

  5. Qualcomm

    · 2 h 20 min · S11 E6

    Qualcomm, or “Quality Communications” — despite being one of the largest technology companies in the world, few people know the absolutely amazing technological and business history behind it. Seriously, this story is…

  6. Benchmark Part II: The Dinner

    · 1 h 53 min · S11 E5

    We sit down with all five current Benchmark GPs for one of their legendary weekly dinners, during which we ask all of the unresolved burning questions from Part 1. How do THEY think about Benchmark v3? What are their…

  7. ACQ Sessions: Jason Calacanis

    · 2 h 12 min

    We kick off ACQ Sessions with the-behind-the-scenes story of All-in, from the world’s greatest moderator himself Jason Calacanis. ACQ Sessions is our new, occasional “MTV Unplugged” version of Acquired: a great IRL…

  8. Benchmark Part I

    · 3 h 36 min · S11 E4

    Benchmark Capital. We tell the tale of the legendary equal partnership that accomplished something no other venture firm can claim: twice it has produced the highest returning fund of its cycle, each time with a 100%…

  9. Amazon Web Services

    · 2 h 37 min · S11 E3

    So, how DID an online book retailer end up building the infrastructure layer that powers the entire internet? (Or at least 39% of it, per latest market share data.) While many myths, legends, and some downright…

  10. Howard Marks & Andrew Marks: Something of Value

    · 1 h 23 min

    We sit down with legendary investor Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital and his son Andrew who, while less-well-known, is also an incredibly accomplished investor in a very different arena: early-stage VC. The purpose of…

  11. Amazon.com

    · 4 h 10 min · S11 E2

    Amazon. No company has impacted the internet — and all of modern life — more than this one. We’ve waited seven years to do this episode, and are so, so excited to finally dive into every nook and cranny of this…

  12. From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez)

    · 1 h 49 min

    This episode is a first for Acquired: we’re joined by a sitting US Congressman (from Ben’s home state of Ohio!), Republican House Representative Anthony Gonzalez. Anthony serves on the House Financial Services…

  13. Walmart

    · 2 h 53 min · S11 E1

    We kick off Season 11 with the incredible story of the retail “granddaddy of them all” Walmart, and its founder Sam Walton. Once you study Walmart, you realize just how deep its heritage runs through Amazon and so many…

  14. The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories

    · 57 min · Bonus

    When Patrick O'Shaughnessy and Brent Beshore asked us to give a talk at their incredible Capital Camp conference, we knew we had to bring something special. So we spent months combing through the Acquired back catalog…

  15. American Dynamism (with Katherine Boyle)

    · 1 h 11 min · Bonus

    We sit down with a16z General Partner Katherine Boyle to discuss investing in “American Dynamism”, why it’s so important and why now is the right time to pursue it. Katherine has a fascinating background, beginning her…

  16. Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner)

    · 1 h 01 min · Bonus

    We sit down with the CEO founders of two of the most capital efficient success stories of all time — Zoom and Veeva Systems — to understand how they grew to billions of dollars in revenue (and tens of billions in…

  17. Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber)

    · 1 h 04 min · S10 E8

    For the final act of the Arena Show, we’re joined by Brooks CEO Jim Weber to tell the amazing story of how he transformed the company from a 3rd tier, deeply cashflow negative “also-ran” into one of the world’s…

  18. Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity

    · 1 h 20 min · S10 E7

    We did an Arena Show!! This evening was so big and so special, we had to split it into two episodes for the podcast feed. First up is the Idea Dinner with our best internet buddies, Packy McCormick and Mario Gabriele…

  19. Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)

    · 2 h 05 min · S10 E6

    By 2012, NVIDIA was on a decade-long road to nowhere. Or so most rational observers of the company thought. CEO Jensen Huang was plowing all the cash from the company’s gaming business into building a highly…

  20. Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)

    · 1 h 17 min · Bonus

    We sit down once again with one of the world’s very best strategy thinkers, 7 Powers author Hamilton Helmer — this time joined by his impressive Strategy Capital colleague Chenyi Shi — to discuss platform businesses,…

  21. Nvidia Part I: The GPU Company (1993-2006)

    · 1 h 53 min · S10 E5

    He wears signature leather jackets. He can bench press more than you. He makes cars that drive themselves. He’s cheated death — both corporate and personal — too many times to count, and he runs the 8th most valuable…

  22. Altimeter (with Brad Gerstner)

    · 1 h 46 min · S10 E4

    We hear a lot these days about hedge funds becoming venture firms, and venture firms becoming hedge funds. But a decade before either of those approaches became mainstream, a tiny $3m fund in Boston named Altimeter…

  23. SONY

    · 2 h 55 min · S10 E3

    Born in the unlikeliest of places — the terrible, wasteland-like aftermath of post WWII Japan — Sony rose to capture the imaginations (and wallets) of consumers and engineers around the world. The company produced hit…

  24. Super Pumped (with Brian Koppelman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

    · 56 min · Bonus · Explicit

    We sit down with two of the most talented and respected people in Hollywood — Brian Koppelman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt — to talk about the process of adapting Mike Issac’s story of Uber, “Super Pumped”, into their new…

  25. The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave)

    · 1 h 35 min · Bonus

    We sit down with perhaps the only person besides Marc Andreessen who’s had a major influence on each of the Web 1, 2 and 3 eras: Brave Browser CEO (and former Netscape + Mozilla Chief Architect) Brendan Eich. In true…

  26. Peloton

    · 2 h 12 min · S10 E2

    The Peloton journey has been one seriously wild ride. From can’t raise money to one of Tiger Global’s first venture investments, to pandemic darling to the stock being down 85% in 6 months... there’s never a dull…

  27. Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version)

    · 2 h 31 min · S10 E1

    Not only is Taylor Swift the biggest music artist of our generation by nearly every metric (it’s not even close!), with the re-recording of her original albums she’s in the process of reshaping the entire music…

  28. CAA (with Michael Ovitz)

    · 1 h 44 min · S9 E8

    Season 9 ends at the beginning — with the man who changed Hollywood forever and wrote the blueprint for A16Z’s upending of Silicon Valley a generation later, Michael Ovitz and his “Dream Factory”, Creative Artists…

  29. FTX (with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele)

    · 1 h 29 min · S9 E7

    Note: This episode was published on Dec 14, 2021, approximately a year before FTX’s subsequent meltdown. The apparent negligence, fraud and self-dealing at FTX has given us much to reflect on after we — and many others…

  30. 7 Powers with Hamilton Helmer

    · 56 min · Bonus

    You've heard us talk about him every episode for the past two years... but until now most of you have never actually heard us talk to him! We've remastered our first, canonical interview with Hamilton Helmer,…

  31. Not Boring (with Packy McCormick)

    · 2 h 39 min · S9 E6

    When does a creator become a company? Who says that media companies — or venture firms — have to be organizations? How high is the ceiling on one person + the internet? Acquired has the answers and they are... Not…

  32. Complexity Investing & Semiconductors (with NZS Capital)

    · 1 h 36 min · Bonus

    Of our 65+ sources for the TSMC episode, one stood above the rest: a wonderful Knowledge Project episode with Brinton Johns and Jon Bathgate of NZS Capital laying out the state of the semiconductor market. When…

  33. Standard Oil Part II

    · 2 h 15 min · S9 E5

    We bring the epic saga of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller to a close (for now) with two of history's greatest second acts: Rockefeller's pioneering of modern philanthropy (and really modern life itself), and…

  34. Michael Mauboussin Master Class — Moats, Skill, Luck, Decision Making and a Whole Lot More

    · 1 h 17 min · Bonus

    We sit down with the one & only Michael Mauboussin to dive deep into his incredible body of work: untangling skill and luck, measuring moats, persistence of returns in venture capital, decision making and —…

  35. Standard Oil Part I

    · 2 h 07 min · S9 E4

    It's time. We dive into the *original* American capitalist mega winner, Standard Oil, and its legendary founder John D. Rockefeller. This company and man almost defy characterization -- Elon, Bezos, Gates, Buffett...…

  36. TSMC

    · 2 h 21 min · S9 E3

    We dive into the unbelievable and unlikely history behind the quietest technology giant of them all: the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Founded in 1987 by the then-56 year old Morris Chang, already a…

  37. Kevin Rose from Web 2.0 to Web3

    · 1 h 33 min · Bonus

    We sit down with the one and only Kevin Rose to talk about his journey from pioneering Web 2.0 with Digg to leading the charge on Web3 and NFT + DeFi investing as a partner at True Ventures and his new show Modern…

  38. Andreessen Horowitz Part II

    · 2 h 47 min · S9 E2

    Alright, backstory's out of the way, and Acquired is rolling three hours deep on the venture firm that changed the game for everyone — a16z. • VC marketing? Check. • "Founder-friendly?" Check. • Platform services?…

  39. Andreessen Horowitz Part I

    · 1 h 59 min · S9 E1

    We kick off Season 9 with a classic: Part I of the a16z story. How did this brand new venture firm charge out of the gates in 2009, going from zero to disrupting the entire venture industry overnight? You probably know…

  40. Special: Solana (with CEO Anatoly Yakovenko)

    · 1 h 06 min · Bonus

    We sit down with the hottest new protocol layer in crypto today: Solana, and its cofounder Anatoly Yakovenko, who is the CEO of Solana Labs. If you listened to our Ethereum episode or follow crypto even at a cursory…

  41. Ethereum

    · 2 h 57 min · S8 E8

    We close out Season 8 with the most ambitious organization we've ever covered on Acquired: Ethereum, and it's celebrity wunderkind founder Vitalik Buterin. If you thought Mark Zuckerberg IPO-ing Facebook at $100B by…

  42. Special: Ho Nam from Altos Ventures — A Different Approach to VC

    · 1 h 44 min · Bonus

    What do you get when you combine Berkshire Hathaway's approach with early-stage venture capital? Altos Ventures. We're joined by Altos's wonderful Ho Nam to discuss their highly unusual approach to VC, which has…

  43. Berkshire Hathaway Part III

    · 2 h 50 min · S8 E7

    It's time. We wrap our Berkshire Hathaway trilogy with Warren and Charlie entering a new era: the age of the internet. Can they and Berkshire adapt to this brave new world? We find out. And, after 9+ hours, we render…

  44. Special: Amazon Unbound (with Brad Stone)

    · 1 h 11 min · Bonus

    Brad Stone joins us to discuss the making of the modern Amazon, and how it's morphed from the "flywheel company" of The Everything Store into a set of interlocking and self-reinforcing businesses that extended both…

  45. Berkshire Hathaway Part II

    · 2 h 55 min · S8 E6

    In Part II of our Berkshire Hathaway Trilogy (!), we pick up the story with Warren wandering in the woods of Omaha, searching for his life's next chapter after retiring from the professional investing business at the…

  46. Special: 2021 China Tech Trends (with Tech Buzz China)

    · 1 h 13 min · Bonus

    We team up with two of the very best English-language analysts covering China tech today, Rui Ma and Ying Lu from the Tech Buzz China podcast, to talk about the big trends happening on the ground in China right now.…

  47. Berkshire Hathaway Part I

    · 3 h 04 min · S8 E5

    It's time. After 150+ episodes on great companies, we tackle the granddaddy of them all — Berkshire Hathaway. One episode alone isn't nearly enough to do Warren and Poor Charlie justice, so today we present Part I:…

  48. Special: "Why Now" for Digital Health (with Levels founder Josh Clemente)

    · 1 h 21 min · Bonus

    We dive into the fast-changing world of direct-to-consumer digital health, with perhaps the best person in the world: Levels founder Josh Clemente. (Shoutout to Ben Grynol and Michael Mizrahi from our LP community for…

  49. Rec Room Part II (with CEO Nick Fajt)

    · 1 h 50 min · S8 E4

    Last Acquired left the plucky Rec Room crew in our 2018 "Part I" episode, they were a seed stage startup making a VR game that users loved but grew slowly and barely monetized. Fast forward to today, and they're now a…

  50. Meituan

    · 2 h 15 min · S8 E3

    We dive into the history behind Meituan, the juggernaut Chinese "super-app" which dominates China's services economy, offering consumers everything from food delivery, restaurant reviews, travel booking, bike-sharing,…

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