Acquired artwork

Acquired

by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.

216 episodes

Podcast overview

About this podcast

Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.

Episodes216total
Frequencyabout 1.7 episodes per monthCalculated from 216 episodes published between Oct 2015 and Aug 2026.
Categories / tags
TechnologyBusinessInvestingPodcastEnglish

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Acquired

How can I listen to Acquired?

You can listen to Acquired on Apple Podcasts and directly on this site.

How often does Acquired release episodes?

Acquired publishes about 1.7 episodes per month, based on episode dates available in the RSS feed.

Where can I find old episodes of Acquired?

Older episodes of Acquired are available in the paginated archive, sorted from newest to oldest.

How many episodes of Acquired are available?

216 episodes of Acquired are listed in this archive.

Episodes

Latest first
S11 Ep. 1Jul 19, 20222h 53min
Walmart

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...

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Jun 20, 202256 min
The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories

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...

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Jun 6, 20221h 10min
American Dynamism (with Katherine Boyle)

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...

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May 19, 20221h 0min
Capital-Efficient Growth (with Zoom CEO Eric Yuan & Veeva CEO Peter Gassner)

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...

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S10 Ep. 8May 16, 20221h 3min
Arena Show Part II: Brooks Running (with CEO Jim Weber)

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...

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S10 Ep. 7May 12, 20221h 19min
Arena Show Part I: Idea Dinner + YC Continuity

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...

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S10 Ep. 6Apr 20, 20222h 4min
Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022)

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...

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Apr 6, 20221h 16min
Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)

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...

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S10 Ep. 5Mar 28, 20221h 52min
Nvidia Part I: The GPU Company (1993-2006)

He wears signature leather jackets. He can bench press more than you. He makes cars that drive themselves. He’s cheated death — both...

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S10 Ep. 4Mar 15, 20221h 45min
Altimeter (with Brad Gerstner)

We hear a lot these days about hedge funds becoming venture firms, and venture firms becoming hedge funds. But a decade before either of...

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S10 Ep. 3Mar 7, 20222h 55min
SONY

Born in the unlikeliest of places — the terrible, wasteland-like aftermath of post WWII Japan — Sony rose to capture the imaginations (and...

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Feb 22, 202256 min
Super Pumped (with Brian Koppelman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

We sit down with two of the most talented and respected people in Hollywood — Brian Koppelman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt — to talk about the...

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Feb 15, 20221h 35min
The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave)

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...

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S10 Ep. 2Feb 10, 20222h 11min
Peloton

The Peloton journey has been one seriously wild ride. From can’t raise money to one of Tiger Global’s first venture investments, to...

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S10 Ep. 1Jan 23, 20222h 30min
Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version)

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...

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S9 Ep. 8Dec 21, 20211h 43min
CAA (with Michael Ovitz)

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...

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S9 Ep. 7Dec 15, 20211h 28min
FTX (with Sam Bankman-Fried & Mario Gabriele)

Note: This episode was published on Dec 14, 2021, approximately a year before FTX’s subsequent meltdown. The apparent negligence, fraud and...

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Dec 8, 202155 min
7 Powers with Hamilton Helmer

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!...

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S9 Ep. 6Dec 3, 20212h 39min
Not Boring (with Packy McCormick)

When does a creator become a company? Who says that media companies — or venture firms — have to be organizations? How high is the ceiling...

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Nov 3, 20211h 36min
Complexity Investing & Semiconductors (with NZS Capital)

Of our 65+ sources for the TSMC episode, one stood above the rest: a wonderful Knowledge Project episode with Brinton Johns and Jon...

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