Acquired

16 Jul 2025

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We sit down with Jamie Dimon for a live conversation at Radio City Music Hall, covering the incredib...

Sun, 29 Jun

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We tell the story of the single greatest business ever created: Google search. From its origins as a...

Sun, 01 Jun

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We sit down with Steve Ballmer, the legendary former Microsoft CEO and owner of the LA Clippers, for...

Mon, 28 Apr

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A few weeks ago, we told you that Acquired is doing something in New York City on July 15 with our g...

Sun, 20 Apr

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What if we told you that the most important company in US healthcare was run from a farm in rural Wi...

Sun, 23 Mar

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When you saw this episode pop up in your feed, you either jumped for joy and hit play immediately (i...

Sun, 23 Feb

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Rolex is a series of paradoxes. They sell obsolete and objectively inferior mechanical devices for 1...

Sun, 26 Jan

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We flew to Taiwan to interview TSMC Founder Morris Chang in a rare English interview. In fact, the l...

Mon, 20 Jan

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We dive into the unbelievable and unlikely history behind the quietest technology giant of them all:...

Sun, 15 Dec

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M&M’s, Snickers, Milky Way, Double Mint, Ben’s Rice, Pedigree, Whiskas, VCA, Banfield… all...

Sun, 17 Nov

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IKEA may be the most singular company we’ve ever studied on Acquired. They’re a globally scaled,...

Sun, 27 Oct

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Meta is a company everyone knows (literally, everyone). But, somehow, it’s also a company that few...

Sun, 29 Sep

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Here it is: the complete video of the most unbelievable night of Acquired’s nine-year life… our ...

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 22:46:38 -0700

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Mark is the iconic founder CEO of our time. At Chase Center on September 10, 2024, he did an unprece...

Thu, 08 Aug 2024 13:39:49 -0700

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Summer greetings from Acquired! Two items for this “mini-episode”:Tickets are now available for ...

Sun, 21 Jul

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In 1999, Microsoft became the most valuable company in the world. And in 2019, Microsoft became the ...

Mon, 03 Jun

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Starbucks. You’d be hard pressed to name any brand that’s more ubiquitous in the world today. Wi...

Sun, 21 Apr

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Microsoft. After nearly a decade of Acquired episodes, we are finally ready to tackle the most valua...

Sun, 17 Mar

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Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time. And yet no one at RenTe...

Mon, 19 Feb

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In luxury, there’s Hermès… and there’s everyone else. Stewarded by one French family over six...

Sun, 21 Jan

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Last year Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, overtook LVMH t...

Sun, 17 Dec

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Ben has some big news. Actually, double big news! On what has become a holiday tradition here at Acq...

Sun, 26 Nov

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To paraphrase Visa founder Dee Hock, how many of you know Visa? Great, all of you. Now, how many of ...

Sun, 29 Oct

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We sit down with the legendary Charlie Munger in the only dedicated longform podcast interview that ...

Sun, 15 Oct

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We finally sit down with the man himself: Nvidia Cofounder & CEO Jensen Huang. After three parts...

Tue, 05 Sep 2023 23:47:30 -0700

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It’s a(nother) new era for Nvidia.We thought we’d closed the Acquired book on Nvidia back in Apr...

Sun, 20 Aug

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Costco is not only Charlie Munger’s favorite company of all time (plus he’s on the board, natch)...

Mon, 24 Jul

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Nike — it’s perhaps the most iconic and most prolific brand of the modern era. On any given day,...

Mon, 26 Jun

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Nobody’s perfect — including Porsche. Despite that phrase appearing in their famous 1983 magazin...

Mon, 12 Jun

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Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi dropped by the Acquired studio for an Eats delivery, so we broke out the ...

Mon, 29 May

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Today we bring you two absolutely incredible stories. The first is Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Work...

Wed, 17 May

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We sit down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek live in Stockholm at Spotify’s amazing HQ studio (check out...

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 23:45:10 -0700

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We sit down Benchmark’s legendary gaming investors Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins (now also of the ...

Mon, 17 Apr

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Sega and the Genesis was THE underdog story of the early 90’s. In a single console generation, Seg...

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 01:12:54 -0700

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In the 1980’s Nintendo was on top of the world, with the NES achieving over 90% market share of ho...

Mon, 03 Apr

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7 Powers author Hamilton Helmer and his Strategy Capital colleague Chenyi Shi join us again to discu...

Wed, 29 Mar

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ACQ Sessions returns with David Senra of the Founders Podcast. David is one of our very favorite peo...

Wed, 15 Mar

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You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn...

Tue, 21 Feb 2023 05:16:53 -0800

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We tell the full history of LVMH, and how Bernard Arnault turned a $15m investment in a bankrupt Fre...

Wed, 25 Jan

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The NFL — it’s almost synonymous with America today. And its history is a fascinating lens to ex...

Sun, 18 Dec

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Cozy up to the fire and join Acquired as we do our annual strategic review of the show and our busin...

Mon, 05 Dec

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Ben Thompson joins Acquired to discuss the business of Stratechery itself and celebrate 10 years (!)...

Mon, 28 Nov

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The FTX fraud has dominated headlines now for weeks, during which we’ve debated if and how Acquire...

Mon, 14 Nov

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Qualcomm, or “Quality Communications” — despite being one of the largest technology companies ...

Mon, 17 Oct

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We sit down with all five current Benchmark GPs for one of their legendary weekly dinners, during wh...

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 03:30:32 -0700

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We kick off ACQ Sessions with the-behind-the-scenes story of All-in, from the world’s greatest mod...

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 18:30:29 -0700

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Benchmark Capital. We tell the tale of the legendary equal partnership that accomplished something n...

Mon, 05 Sep

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So, how DID an online book retailer end up building the infrastructure layer that powers the entire ...

Mon, 29 Aug

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We sit down with legendary investor Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital and his son Andrew who, while le...

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 01:26:01 -0700

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Amazon. No company has impacted the internet — and all of modern life — more than this one. We’...

Mon, 01 Aug

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This episode is a first for Acquired: we’re joined by a sitting US Congressman (from Ben’s home ...

Mon, 18 Jul

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We kick off Season 11 with the incredible story of the retail “granddaddy of them all” Walmart, ...

Sun, 19 Jun

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When Patrick O'Shaughnessy and Brent Beshore asked us to give a talk at their incredible Capital Cam...

Sun, 05 Jun

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We sit down with a16z General Partner Katherine Boyle to discuss investing in “American Dynamism”...

Thu, 19 May 2022 00:42:11 -0700

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We sit down with the CEO founders of two of the most capital efficient success stories of all time —...

Sun, 15 May

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For the final act of the Arena Show, we’re joined by Brooks CEO Jim Weber to tell the amazing stor...

Thu, 12 May 2022 00:47:16 -0700

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We did an Arena Show!! This evening was so big and so special, we had to split it into two episodes ...

Wed, 20 Apr

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By 2012, NVIDIA was on a decade-long road to nowhere. Or so most rational observers of the company t...

Tue, 05 Apr 2022 22:46:55 -0700

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We sit down once again with one of the world’s very best strategy thinkers, 7 Powers author Hamilt...

Sun, 27 Mar

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He wears signature leather jackets. He can bench press more than you. He makes cars that drive thems...

Mon, 14 Mar

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We hear a lot these days about hedge funds becoming venture firms, and venture firms becoming hedge ...

Mon, 07 Mar

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Born in the unlikeliest of places — the terrible, wasteland-like aftermath of post WWII Japan — ...

Mon, 21 Feb

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We sit down with two of the most talented and respected people in Hollywood — Brian Koppelman and ...

Mon, 14 Feb

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We sit down with perhaps the only person besides Marc Andreessen who’s had a major influence on ea...

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 10:02:33 -0800

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The Peloton journey has been one seriously wild ride. From can’t raise money to one of Tiger Globa...

Sun, 23 Jan

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Not only is Taylor Swift the biggest music artist of our generation by nearly every metric (it’s n...

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 12:13:09 -0800

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Season 9 ends at the beginning — with the man who changed Hollywood forever and wrote the blueprin...

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 19:21:46 -0800

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Note: This episode was published on Dec 14, 2021, approximately a year before FTX’s subsequent mel...

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 21:46:20 -0800

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You've heard us talk about him every episode for the past two years... but until now most of you hav...

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 19:03:08 -0800

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When does a creator become a company? Who says that media companies — or venture firms — have to...

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 18:25:18 -0700

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Of our 65+ sources for the TSMC episode, one stood above the rest: a wonderful Knowledge Project epi...

Mon, 18 Oct

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We bring the epic saga of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller to a close (for now) with two of hist...

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 07:20:27 -0700

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We sit down with the one & only Michael Mauboussin to dive deep into his incredible body of work...

Tue, 21 Sep 2021 18:37:51 -0700

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It's time. We dive into the *original* American capitalist mega winner, Standard Oil, and its legend...

Mon, 06 Sep

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It's time. We dive into the unbelievable history behind the quietest technology giant of them all —...

Sun, 29 Aug

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We sit down with the one and only Kevin Rose to talk about his journey from pioneering Web 2.0 with ...

Mon, 09 Aug

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Alright, backstory's out of the way, and Acquired is rolling three hours deep on the venture firm th...

Mon, 26 Jul

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We kick off Season 9 with a classic: Part I of the a16z story. How did this brand new venture firm c...

Sun, 18 Jul

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We sit down with the hottest new protocol layer in crypto today: Solana, and its cofounder Anatoly Y...

Mon, 05 Jul

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We close out Season 8 with the most ambitious organization we've ever covered on Acquired: Ethereum,...

Sun, 20 Jun

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What do you get when you combine Berkshire Hathaway's approach with early-stage venture capital? Alt...

Sun, 06 Jun

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It's time. We wrap our Berkshire Hathaway trilogy with Warren and Charlie entering a new era: the ag...

Wed, 26 May

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Brad Stone joins us to discuss the making of the modern Amazon, and how it's morphed from the "flywh...

Wed, 12 May

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In Part II of our Berkshire Hathaway Trilogy (!), we pick up the story with Warren wandering in the ...

Wed, 05 May

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We team up with two of the very best English-language analysts covering China tech today, Rui Ma and...

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 19:02:32 -0700

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It's time. After 150+ episodes on great companies, we tackle the granddaddy of them all — Berkshir...

Mon, 05 Apr

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We dive into the fast-changing world of direct-to-consumer digital health, with perhaps the best per...

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 22:08:35 -0700

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Last Acquired left the plucky Rec Room crew in our 2018 "Part I" episode, they were a seed stage sta...

Wed, 10 Mar

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We dive into the history behind Meituan, the juggernaut Chinese "super-app" which dominates China's ...

Wed, 17 Feb

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For the entire 20th Century, you’d be hard pressed to find a better business than an American news...

Sun, 31 Jan

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We cover Sequoia Capital a lot on this show. Not only across our now four(!) dedicated episodes, but...

Mon, 18 Jan

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We had to do it. After 12 years and 3,000,000x appreciation, we kick off Season 8 with the best inve...

Wed, 16 Dec

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As regular listeners know, we typically cover some of the biggest companies who often receive the mo...

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 22:14:31 -0800

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Over 13 years after its founding, one of the defining startup companies of the past decade finally m...

Wed, 09 Dec

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Live from the scene of its blockbuster IPO, we recount the crazy, roller coaster journey of this "Pa...

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 21:47:36 -0800

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Acquired is live on the scene covering Salesforce's blockbuster $27.7B acquisition of Slack, with th...

Sun, 22 Nov

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Live from the 2020 ASCEND Space Conference, Acquired covers the full story behind the most "out ther...

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 07:18:26 -0800

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Superstar past guest and Superhuman CEO Rahul Vorha joins us for a deep dive on how Superhuman appli...

Wed, 28 Oct

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A week before the 2020 US Presidential election, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo joins us to tell th...

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 19:49:25 -0700

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On this special episode of Acquired, we're joined by a master interviewer himself, Patrick O'Shaughn...