CHAPTERS
Summer mini-episode and the reason for the hiatus
Ben and David open with a summer check-in and explain why they’re taking a rare break from publishing. The time isn’t really “off”—it’s being redirected into a major live event project.
Chase Center live show announcement: scale, partners, and headliner
They formally announce the September 10th Chase Center live show in San Francisco, produced with J.P. Morgan Payments. The event is positioned as the biggest thing they’ve ever done, with Mark Zuckerberg on stage plus additional surprises.
Building an “Omaha for tech” community weekend around the show
They describe the live show as a community celebration and encourage listeners to organize meetups before and after. The Slack will be a hub for coordination, but anyone can initiate dinners, happy hours, and company meetups.
Ticketing details and accessibility goals
Ben and David explain the simple two-tier ticket pricing and emphasize accessibility. They highlight that the pricing is unusually low for the venue and that they’re prioritizing broad attendance over maximizing ticket revenue.
Behind the scenes: a whirlwind spring for Acquired
They shift into a reflective “Acquired land” update, including David’s new baby and the rapid sequence of events that followed. The past few months are framed as intense and hard to fully process in real time.
Wall Street Journal profile: what happened and why it mattered
They unpack the WSJ article’s impact and why it felt like a definitive summary of Acquired. The piece helped push the show to #1 on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify, creating compounding visibility.
Quantifying the growth and welcoming new listeners
They share concrete audience numbers and contextualize them against Acquired’s historically steady word-of-mouth growth. They also emphasize that WSJ readers are an excellent fit for the community ethos.
“You can’t plan lightning”: exceptions, outliers, and unpredictable inflection points
They relate the WSJ moment to a recurring Acquired theme: extreme outliers and idiosyncratic success. The takeaway is that major trajectory-changing events can happen, but they’re hard (or impossible) to engineer deliberately.
Group tickets and companies turning the live show into an offsite
They note unusual and exciting group attendance patterns, from entire companies attending to a teen’s birthday party plan. They provide an email channel to facilitate large group ticket purchases.
Show structure update: main feed vs. ACQ2 for interviews
They clarify that the main Acquired feed will stay focused on the signature researched, multi-hour narrative format. Interviews that don’t fit that format will primarily live on ACQ2, including upcoming guests.
Carve-outs: parenting gear—Ben’s running stroller pick
Carve-outs begin with a new “parent category” recommendation from Ben. He recommends a specific running stroller that works well once a child is old enough, and ties it to getting back into running.
Carve-outs: David’s Hawaii trip—why Disney’s Aulani works for young families
David recommends Disney’s Aulani resort in Hawaii as an unusually good fit for parents with very young kids. He frames it as not the best in any single luxury category, but ideal for the constraints of early-family travel.
Carve-outs: lifestyle + sports viewing—sunglasses and Netflix NFL series
Ben recommends Meller sunglasses for lens quality at a modest price, then David recommends Netflix’s Quarterback and Receiver series for offseason football viewing. They highlight how the shows reveal the mental demands and role differences in the NFL.
Closing: final logistics, Slack meetups, and thanks to J.P. Morgan Payments
They wrap with reminders to buy tickets, organize meetups via Slack, and attend in September. They also credit J.P. Morgan Payments for extensive behind-the-scenes work to make the event exceptional.
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