Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity

1. SPSpeaker0:00

   [audience cheering] Ooh!

2. BGBen Gilbert0:01

   ... Holy crap. [chuckles]

3. DRDavid Rosenthal0:03

   Wow. [chuckles]

4. BGBen Gilbert0:06

   [audience cheering] Hello, Acquired listeners. [chuckles]

5. DRDavid Rosenthal0:11

   [audience cheering] You didn't tell me you were gonna say that. That's good.

6. BGBen Gilbert0:15

   I, well, I'm ad-libbing. [chuckles] I got up here, and I was overcome with emotion, and none of this is scripted. [chuckles] Thank you so much for coming tonight. I, I, um, I, like, prepared things, and I should read them off my iPad here. [audience laughing] Uh, but the only thought that can occur to me right now is how different this is than what you and I normally do. [chuckles] Uh, David and I are very used to being on Zoom, talking to each other through the internet. There are zero people, uh, watching live, and if we say something wrong, we delete it, and that's not happening tonight. [chuckles]

7. DRDavid Rosenthal0:53

   [chuckles]

8. BGBen Gilbert0:55

   But, uh, more important than that is, you know, we, we get evidence that people listen in the form of analytics or tweets or, uh, a- anecdotes here and there of someone saying, "Oh, I listen to the show," but there's no human, visceral way to feel that. Like, we literally just refresh an analytics dashboard, and a number goes up, and this is so cool to see you real. [chuckles] [audience cheering] Well, as fun as it is going to be to, like, watch the show, and we've got some great stuff planned, I think it will be much cooler to meet each other. For as many... uh, they call it parasocial relationships, where you hear us talk, but we don't get to meet you. We're gonna try and meet as many of you as possible. We want y- uh, a lot of you to meet as many other people as possible, 'cause you have an easy opener, like, "What's your favorite episode?" Or, uh, "How did you hear about Acquired? Like, uh, my buddy dragged me here tonight, and I never heard of it before this." [chuckles] Uh, but everyone's got some answer to that question, so meet each other, take selfies, enjoy the time together. We have freaking Climate Pledge Arena, uh, and, and enjoy the time in it. Thank you to PitchBook. [audience cheering] Holy crap, that-

9. DRDavid Rosenthal2:09

   Yeah.

10. BGBen Gilbert2:09

    John's not kidding. [audience cheering] PitchBook's is- uh, PitchBook is Seattle's, like, monster, amazing business hiding in plain sight, and it's been really cool to get to know their team more and more and more, uh, and understand the business and, uh, just learn how on $4 million, they've been able to build this multi-hundred-million-dollar business, and it's inspiring to us. Uh, so thank you to John, thank you to Kai, uh, thank you to Lauren and Val, thank you to Nas.

11. DRDavid Rosenthal2:43

    Thank you, guys.

12. BGBen Gilbert2:44

    Uh, everyone we work at, with at PitchBook is, is just awesome, so thank you to them. [audience cheering] And-

13. DRDavid Rosenthal2:50

    Uh, Happy Star Wars Day, Ben.

14. BGBen Gilbert2:52

    Happy Star Wars Day. May the fourth be with you all. [chuckles]

15. DRDavid Rosenthal2:57

    And may the... [chuckles] [audience cheering] Uh, I hear Paul McCartney's here.

16. BGBen Gilbert3:01

    Yes, Paul McCartney is here tonight. We have a great show for you, uh-

17. DRDavid Rosenthal3:05

    [chuckles]

18. SPSpeaker3:06

    [chuckles]

19. BGBen Gilbert3:06

    That was last night?

20. DRDavid Rosenthal3:06

    That was last night.

21. BGBen Gilbert3:07

    We do have a great show, though. Uh, tonight we have Jim Weber, the CEO of Brooks Running, another Seattle monster business that we're very excited to talk to you about. Uh, we have Anu Hariharan tonight from Y Combinator, the infamous Packy McCormick from Not Boring, Mario Gabriele from The Generalist, two of the internet's finest publications, so very excited to chop it up with them. Uh, we learned from arena shows past, live shows pa- very small live shows past, that, uh, our normal format of telling a three-plus-hour story of a business doesn't work very well in this sort of, uh-

22. DRDavid Rosenthal3:46

    [chuckles]

23. BGBen Gilbert3:47

    ... time where you're sitting down, and, um, you know, you could feel the audience getting antsy in, in, in those long stories. So we got three, just, like, fast-paced, great stories, great segments for you tonight. Um, be in and out in a couple hours. I don't know. We'll, we'll enjoy it along the way, but it's gonna feel fast relative to your normal Acquired episode.

24. DRDavid Rosenthal4:08

    Speaking of, should we start our normal Acquired episode?

25. BGBen Gilbert4:13

    We gotta do it the way that, uh... I don't know. It feels like we have a way that we start Acquired episodes, so we should do that.

26. DRDavid Rosenthal4:20

    We should do that. [upbeat music]

27. SPSpeaker4:31

    Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Sit me down. Say it straight. Another story on the way. Who got the truth?

28. BGBen Gilbert4:49

    Welcome to season 10, episode seven, the Arena Show, presented by PitchBook of Acquired, the podcast- [audience cheering]

29. DRDavid Rosenthal5:02

    Ooh. [chuckles]

30. BGBen Gilbert5:02

    ... About great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert, and I am the co-founder and managing director of Seattle-based-

Episode duration: 1:33:37