Acquired - Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Latest Episodes:

The New York Times Company Feb 17, 2021

Show notes

For the entire 20th Century, you’d be hard pressed to find a better business than an American newspaper — Warren Buffett famously described them as “franchises” — and no American newspaper stood taller than the New York Times. Controlled by a single family bound by a legal oath “to maintain the editorial independence and integrity of The New York Times and to continue it as an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public welfare”, the Times served as the paper of record for generations of Americans and people around the world. But no good thing lasts forever, and the dawn of the 21st Century saw both the Times and this once-mighty industry devastated by the dual disruptive forces of the internet and the 2008 financial crisis. And yet by 2021, The Times, essentially alone of its former peers, has reemerged from the American newspaper wreckage and transformed itself into a thriving digital business with an order of magnitude more subscribers than its print heyday. Curious how it all happened? We dive into 170 years of history to find out!

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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The New York Times Company Playbook is available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/the-new-york-times-company

Links:

The 2014 NYT Innovation Report: https://archive.org/details/pdfy-59s-4-I2qSvG6MnA/mode/2up
Mine Safety Disclosures’ NYT presentation: https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/newyorktimes

Carve Outs:

Ben:

Titan by Ron Chernow: https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr-ebook/dp/B000XUDGHG
Iteratively: https://iterative.ly

David:

Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes series: https://www.amazon.com/Ember-Ashes-3-Book/dp/B074VDZB17

Special: Sequoia Capital's Investment Playbook (with Alfred Lin) Jan 31, 2021

Show notes

We cover Sequoia Capital a lot on this show. Not only across our now four(!) dedicated episodes, but across a stunning nearly 50% of recent season companies where Sequoia was a primary or only investor — the most of any venture firm by an enormous margin. Today in this very special episode, we dive into the principles that have led to the firm's 49 years of unparalleled success in venture, and the playbook behind how they identify markets and companies that create outcomes worthy of the firm's namesake tree.

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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The Sequoia Capital Playbook is available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-sequoia-capitals-investment-playbook-with-alfred-lin

Links:

Our two-part Sequoia history:
- Part I: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/sequoia-capital-part-1
- Part II: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/sequoia-capital-part-ii-with-doug-leone
Don Valentine's talk at Stanford GSB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&t=2555s
Our conversation about Sequoia's Black Swan Memo with Roelof Botha: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/sequoias-black-swan-memo

Bitcoin Jan 18, 2021

Show notes

We had to do it. After 12 years and 3,000,000x appreciation, we kick off Season 8 with the best investment of all-time and our biggest episode ever: Bitcoin. From the first bitcoin transaction of 10k for two Papa John's pizzas (worth about $350m today!!) to $40k+ BTC and maybe the moon beyond, we cover the whole crazy, improbable journey of how a single 8-page PDF document changed the world of money — and perhaps the world itself — forever.

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

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The Bitcoin Playbook is available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/bitcoin

Links:

Satoshi's Whitepaper: https://www.bitcoin.com/bitcoin.pdf
Matt Huang's "Bitcoin for the Open-Minded Skeptic": https://www.paradigm.xyz/Bitcoin_For_The_Open_Minded_Skeptic.pdf
Nellie Bowles's "Everyone Is Getting Hilariously Rich and You’re Not": https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/bitcoin-millionaires.html
Square’s $50m investment in BTC: https://images.ctfassets.net/2d5q1td6cyxq/5sXNrlEh2mEnTvvhgtYOm2/737bcfdc15e2a1c3cbd9b9451710ce54/Square_Inc._Bitcoin_Investment_Whitepaper.pdf

Episode Sources:

Full list of episode sources available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16QCDNm2qzG3Bn5h1j1KXisxL_JGT7egDx7czX9ThHLY/edit?usp=sharing

Special: Acquired x Indie Hackers Dec 16, 2020

Show notes

As regular listeners know, we typically cover some of the biggest companies who often receive the most media attention (see Airbnb and DoorDash). But today's episode is a little different. In our conversation with Courtland Allen of Indie Hackers, the largest community of startup founders, we dive into the stories of underdogs. What happens when there are millions of people doing small business entrepreneurship? How does anyone having access to the globally addressable market of 3 billion internet users open the door for the niche-est of products? We tell the story of Courtland’s own “Indie Hacker” journey, how he came to found Indie Hackers itself, and the lessons learned along the way.

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-acquired-x-indie-hackers

Links:

Indie Hackers: https://www.indiehackers.com

Airbnb Dec 10, 2020

Show notes

Over 13 years after its founding, one of the defining startup companies of the past decade finally makes its public debut — and boy was it a big one. But for all the hype (and all the legitimately great things Airbnb has accomplished), this is a company that looks very different today than in the past. Even before COVID, Airbnb's once-exponential bookings growth had declined to linear levels while the company's costs continued to balloon at accelerating rates. What’s going on here? Are public investors smart to bet on a permanent shift in travel behavior coming out of the pandemic? Or is this a case of unrealistic expectations? As always, we dive in.

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/airbnb

Carve Outs:

David — San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker: https://www.sfballet.org/productions/nutcracker-online/
Ben — Star Wars Lofi HipHop: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iu1sp3UBb1rjf8KNKETtJ?si=WxPdJcRpSnelHN9qh0xYSw

DoorDash Dec 09, 2020

Show notes

Live from the scene of its blockbuster IPO, we recount the crazy, roller coaster journey of this "Palo Alto delivery company". From Sand Hill darling during their Series A and B fundraises to all but left-for-dead during the great unicorn massacre of 2015/16, DoorDash has clawed their way back from the brink and emerged as America's dominant meal delivery service, and its only unit-economic positive standalone logistics player. Is this the dawn of the next great Amazon-like story, or is the company simply benefiting from temporary tailwinds due to the pandemic? As always, we dive DEEP to find out.

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/doordash

Carve Outs:

David:

Hades on the Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/hades-switch/

Ben:

Watchmen on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/watchmen
Succession on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/succession
Palm Springs: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9484998/

Special: Slack + Salesforce Emergency Pod with Packy McCormick of Not Boring Dec 01, 2020

Show notes

Acquired is live on the scene covering Salesforce's blockbuster $27.7B acquisition of Slack, with the help of the internet's #1 Slack bull (and top internet analyst in his own right), Packy McCormick of Not Boring. We dissect the deal itself, Slack's relatively short life as a public company, the impact of Microsoft and Teams, and most importantly what this means for enterprise SaaS startups broadly. And oh yeah — we have a ton of fun too. :)

Note: you can find our full June 2019 episode on Slack's history and their DPO here: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/the-slack-dpo

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/slack-salesforce-emergency-pod-with-packy-mccormick-of-not-boring

Links:

Not Boring: https://notboring.substack.com
Packy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/packyM
Packy's bull thesis on Slack from November 2020: https://notboring.substack.com/p/slack-the-bulls-are-typing

Virgin Galactic Nov 22, 2020

Show notes

Live from the 2020 ASCEND Space Conference, Acquired covers the full story behind the most "out there" technology story of the past few years: Virgin Galactic. How did this space tourism company grow out of the winning X Prize team, and catch the eyes and fancy of billionaires like Paul Allen, Sir Richard Branson, and, most recently, company chairman Chamath Palihapitiya who took it public via the first "modern" technology SPAC transaction in history? Tune in to find out!!

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/virgin-galactic

Links:

Virgin Galactic's "One Small Step" reservation program: https://www.virgingalactic.com/smallstep/
The November 2020 launch delay: https://www.virgingalactic.com/articles/virgin-galactic-adjusts-test-flight-schedule-in-response-to-new-state-government-covid-19-restrictions/

Special: Superhuman Part II - Designing Software to Feel like a Game (with Rahul Vohra) Nov 12, 2020

Show notes

Superstar past guest and Superhuman CEO Rahul Vorha joins us for a deep dive on how Superhuman applies concepts from game design to building productivity software. We're not talking points and badges — we mean hardcore, Unreal Engine-style technical innovations and Fortnite-level understanding of fun and mastery. It's a topic where Rahul has serious cred: before Superhuman and Rapportive, he worked as a game designer on RuneScape, the pioneering browser-based MMORPG. This is a topic every founder, engineer, product and even sales person should listen to. Tune in!

You can listen to Part I of our Superhuman story with Rahul here: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/superhuman

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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Playbook Themes from this Episode available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-superhuman-part-ii-designing-software-to-feel-like-a-game-with-rahul-vohra )

Twitter (with Dick Costolo) Oct 28, 2020

Show notes

A week before the 2020 US Presidential election, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo joins us to tell the story of a company that has impacted all of our lives (political and otherwise) like none other. While it's easy to forget now, a very viable alternate history exists where it's Twitter, not Facebook, who owns Instagram, and Vine, not TikTok, that's the global platform for mobile video. We dive into it all on this episode — and of course while we had Dick, we also had to discuss his controversial recent deleted tweet.

Sponsors:

Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26
Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26

More Acquired!

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New! We're codifying our own Playbook notes and takeaways from each episode, and posting them on our website. You can read them at: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/twitter-with-dick-costolo

Links: