Acquired
400K subscribers·95 episodes
Vanguard: The communist capitalist who saved investors a trillion dollars (Audio)
Vanguard: The communist capitalist who saved investors a trillion dollars (Audio)
Ferrari: What happens when you staple a luxury brand to a sports team? (Audio)
Ferrari: What happens when you staple a luxury brand to a sports team? (Audio)
10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)
Michael Lewis helps Acquired unpack its decade-long podcast success formula
Coca-Cola: The Complete History & Strategy
How Coca-Cola engineered a global brand-and-bottler system for dominance
Acquired Live at Radio City Music Hall (Presented by J.P. Morgan)
Acquired goes Broadway: CEOs on risk, media, and disruption
Trader Joe’s (Audio)
How Trader Joe’s built cult grocery success through constraints and storytelling
Google Part III: The AI Company. Google is amazingly well-positioned... will they win in AI? (audio)
Google’s AI roots, breakthroughs, and the innovator’s dilemma today
Google Part II: Alphabet (Audio)
How Google built a web platform and dominated mobile, too
The Jamie Dimon Interview: How JP Morgan Became an $800 Billion Bank
Jamie Dimon on building JPMorgan through risk, culture, acquisitions
Google Part I: Origins of Search. How the Best Business in Human History Happened (Audio)
How Google turned better search into history’s most profitable business
The Steve Ballmer Interview
Steve Ballmer on Microsoft’s luck, enterprise muscle, and missed waves
Epic Systems (MyChart)
Epic Systems built healthcare’s integrated software empire without VC money
Indian Premier League Cricket (Audio)
How the IPL engineered cricket into a global entertainment powerhouse
Rolex (Audio)
How Rolex engineered modern luxury through paradox, precision, and scarcity
TSMC founder Morris Chang
Morris Chang on TSMC’s customer trust, nodes, and compounding scale
Mars Inc. - The Chocolate Story (Audio)
Mars built global candy empire through scale, secrecy, and strategy
IKEA (Audio)
How IKEA engineered low-cost design, scale, and experiences for masses
Meta (Audio)
Meta’s rise: engineered network effects, relentless adaptation, platform ambitions, AI-...
Acquired LIVE from Chase Center (with Daniel Ek, Emily Chang, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg)
Acquired fills Chase Center with tech leaders and candid insights
The Mark Zuckerberg Interview
Zuckerberg on Meta’s evolution: AI glasses, open platforms, resilience strategy
Chase Center + Summer Update (Audio)
Acquired’s summer update: Chase Center live show and growth surge
Microsoft Volume II: The Complete History and Strategy of the Ballmer Years (Audio)
Microsoft’s Ballmer era: internet wars, antitrust shock, enterprise rise, cloud seed
Starbucks (with Howard Schultz)
Howard Schultz reveals Starbucks’ origin, growth engine, and current challenges
Microsoft Volume I: The Complete History and Strategy of founding through Windows 95 (Audio)
Microsoft’s PC-era origin story: BASIC, DOS, Windows, and dominance
Renaissance Technologies (Audio)
Renaissance Technologies’ secret quant playbook and unbeatable Medallion fund returns
Hermès (Audio)
Hermès: craft-first luxury empire built on scarcity, whimsy, family control
Novo Nordisk (Ozempic)
Novo Nordisk’s century journey from insulin to Ozempic dominance
Holiday Special 2023 (Audio)
Acquired reflects on 2023 growth, episodes, interviews, and future plans
Visa (Audio)
Visa’s rise: bank consortium becomes global payments network juggernaut infrastructure
Charlie Munger (Audio)
Charlie Munger on Costco, investing discipline, and market dysfunction today
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang
Jensen Huang on NVIDIA’s bets, platforms, and AI’s future economy
Nvidia Part III: The Dawn of the AI Era (2022-2023) (Audio)
How Nvidia’s data-center platform powered the generative AI boom
Costco (Audio)
Costco’s membership flywheel, disciplined trade-offs, and enduring retail execution model
Nike (Audio)
Nike’s rise: distribution hustle, athlete marketing, and scale flywheel dominance
Porsche (with Doug DeMuro)
Porsche’s engineered luxury: family drama, racing, SUVs, VW takeover saga
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
Dara Khosrowshahi on turning Uber into a disciplined platform company
Lockheed Martin (Audio)
Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, spy tech, and Silicon Valley’s origins
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek
Daniel Ek on Spotify’s growth, podcasts, audiobooks, and culture-building lessons
Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins on The Art of Business in Gaming
Gaming’s business models shape creativity, distribution, and enduring platform power.
Enron: From power to prison
Enron’s reinvention: branding, trading innovation, and early seeds of fraud
Is This The End For Amazon, TSMC and META?
Thompson’s take on Meta resilience, TSMC risk, and Amazon Day 2
The Aggregation Theory: What’s the Internet’s future?
Ben Thompson on Aggregation Theory, books, Twitter, and internet centralization
Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast)
Three podcasters dissect founder biographies, leverage, craft, and durability lessons
PROVEN Strategies for Quality Content Creation
Build durable content businesses through consistency, catalogs, and subscriptions econo...
Why Venture Capital is a Probabilistic Game
Venture capital rewards optimistic forecasting through diversified, high-variance bets ...
The Apple Qualcomm Wars
Qualcomm’s licensing model clashes with Apple and national security politics
Stratechery (with Ben Thompson)
How Stratechery pioneered subscription tech analysis and expands into podcasts
Enron
Enron’s rise and collapse: deregulation innovation, accounting fraud, fallout lessons
Crazy Story: Qualcomm Had to Sell Half Their Company to Their First Customer!
Qualcomm’s lifeline deal: OmniTRACS funded CDMA’s eventual wireless breakthrough
Qualcomm
Qualcomm’s CDMA breakthrough: patents, chips, and wireless industry domination explained
Using Cash Flows and Moats to Evaluate Investments
Using Cash Flows and Moats to Evaluate Investments
How AWS Became a Victim of Its Own Success
AWS’s rare misstep: data warehousing and product sprawl challenges
This Was The First Venture Capital Firm to Have a Website
This Was The First Venture Capital Firm to Have a Website
Benchmark Part II: The Dinner
Inside Benchmark’s no-agenda dinner: culture, focus, and commitment playbook
The Downfall of Webvan: Oasis to Smoking Crater
The Downfall of Webvan: Oasis to Smoking Crater
Is Jeff Bezos the Best Investor of All Time?
Is Jeff Bezos the Best Investor of All Time?
You Had to Know the Future to Beat John Doerr in the 1990's
Why beating John Doerr required seeing Silicon Valley’s future early
ACQ Sessions: Jason Calacanis
Jason Calacanis on podcasting, venture, motivation, and San Francisco’s future
Benchmark Part I
Benchmark’s equal-partnership venture model, rise, stumbles, and renewals explained
Market Size UNCONSTRAINED!!! Why AWS is the Best Business of All Time
Market Size UNCONSTRAINED!!! Why AWS is the Best Business of All Time
The Under-Discussed Database Market Gives SO MUCH POWER to AWS
The Under-Discussed Database Market Gives SO MUCH POWER to AWS
Amazon Web Services
How AWS emerged from Amazon’s internal pain to dominate cloud computing
Howard Marks & Andrew Marks: Something of Value
Value vs growth investing: open-mindedness, judgment, and selling discipline discussed
From NFL to Startup COO to Congressman Regulating Crypto (with Rep. Anthony Gonzalez)
Anthony Gonzalez on crypto regulation, democracy, and American industrial renewal
The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories
Acquired founders distill 12 enduring rules from 200 company stories
American Dynamism (with Katherine Boyle)
a16z’s American Dynamism thesis: rebuilding real-world industries with tech innovation
Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner)
Zoom and Veeva CEOs reveal disciplined, product-first growth playbook
Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber)
Brooks CEO Jim Weber on focus, turnaround, and durable moats
Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity
Acquired’s arena show: investment ideas, YC Continuity, sponsor spotlights live.
Nvidia: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)
Nvidia’s CUDA bet transformed a gaming chipmaker into AI platform
Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)
How to analyze platform power beyond product-market fit flywheels
Nvidia: The GPU Company (1993-2006)
Nvidia’s scrappy early bets that turned graphics into computing power
Altimeter (with Brad Gerstner)
Altimeter’s lifecycle investing: founder-led hedge fund meets venture capital
SONY (75 years of electronics history in 3 hours)
Sony’s rise from postwar radio repairs to global entertainment conglomerate
Super Pumped (with Brian Koppelman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
How Super Pumped turns Uber’s rise into a cultural cautionary tale
The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave)
Brendan Eich on Brave, privacy economics, and browsers’ next era
Peloton - the entire history and strategy behind America's trendiest workout
Peloton’s rise, pandemic whiplash, and Barry McCarthy turnaround blueprint
Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version)
Taylor Swift’s business strategy, music rights battles, and industry power shift
CAA (with Michael Ovitz)
Michael Ovitz on how CAA reshaped Hollywood’s power structure
FTX with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele (Extended Cut)
FTX’s rapid rise: arbitrage roots, better risk engines, brand-building strategy
Not Boring (with Packy McCormick) - Extended Cut
Packy McCormick builds Not Boring into media-investing solo empire fast
Complexity Investing & Semiconductors with NZS Capital (Extended Cut)
NZS Capital explains complexity investing, resilience, optionality, and semiconductors ...
Standard Oil Part II (Extended Cut)
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil: philanthropy invention, antitrust showdown, breakup windfal...
