10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)

Happy 10 years.

>> Happy 10 year anniversary, Ben.

>> It's crazy. It's been 10 years.

>> I know. Here we are. Brought you down here to Silicon Valley to uh record our 10y year anniversary holiday special here. I wanted a special place.

here. I wanted a special place.

>> Yeah. What are we doing? You keep like teeing up like, "Oh, just come down. Oh,

we'll just record it here." And like clearly we're not at your house.

>> I was actually thinking uh we should try and find the Silicon Valley house. The

Eric Bachman Aviato.

>> This Aviato.

>> Aviato. Pabato.

Now, the reason I brought you down here is I booked us a very special place to record. It's actually right over here.

record. It's actually right over here.

>> It's a house.

>> Is this the Google house?

>> It's the house.

>> The where they had their first office in the garage.

>> This is Google's first office right here. They gave it to us for the day.

here. They gave it to us for the day.

>> Like, we can do our holiday special in it.

>> Come on in.

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? Welcome to

the way. Who got the truth? Welcome to

the fall 2025 season finale of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.

I'm Ben Gilbert.

>> I'm David Rosenthal.

>> And we are your hosts. Well, listeners,

today we're going to do something very different than our holiday specials of years past. We've received a bunch of

years past. We've received a bunch of requests over the years to do an Acquired episode on Acquired itself and to unpack why acquired worked when 99%

of podcasts do not. But it's always felt a little bit strange to me and we've always shied away from analyzing our own company.

>> Yep. But then this year we turned 10 years old and thought, well, maybe it's time for something at least a sort of uh pause and reflection, you know, to shout out the Coca-Cola episode.

>> Oh.

>> On our journey to this point and why acquired has worked.

>> And so we thought, well, if we're going to do something, we should bring someone in to do it with us. And we'd want someone who is great at dissecting the mechanics behind teams or companies.

Someone who distills complexity into simplicity. Someone who himself knows

simplicity. Someone who himself knows how to tell a great story. And there was really only one choice.

Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, Liars Poker, The Blind Side, The Undoing Project, Going Infinite, on and on and on. And of course, host of his own

on. And of course, host of his own podcast, Against the Rules. And Ben, you and I have looked up to Michael forever.

So, this was really special.

>> Yes. And then, of course, there's the venue. We thought it'd be a fitting way

venue. We thought it'd be a fitting way to cap off the year of our three-part Google series to record in the literal garage where that nearly $4 trillion company got started.

>> Yes, indeed. Well, listeners, if you want to know every time an episode drops, vote on future episode topics, and get corrections on past episodes, check out our email list at acquired.fm/e.

acquired.fm/e.

And that email list just got a whole lot better with our first overhaul in five years. So you'll now get episode

years. So you'll now get episode summaries, our big takeaways, and exclusive photos from our research process. That's acquired.fm/e.

process. That's acquired.fm/e.

Chat about this episode with us and the whole Acquired community in Slack.

Acquired.fm/slack.

And if you want more acquired, check out our interview show, ACQ2. Our last

episode was with Andrew Ross Sorcin, founder of the New York Times Deal Book, host of CNBC's Squawkbox, and author of 1929. That's ACQ2 in any podcast player.

1929. That's ACQ2 in any podcast player.

And before we dive in, we want to briefly thank our presenting partner, JP Morgan Payments. Yes, just like how we

Morgan Payments. Yes, just like how we say every company has a story, every company's story is powered by payments.

And JP Morgan Payments is a part of so many of their journeys from seed to IPO and beyond.

>> So with that, this show is not investment advice. David and I may have

investment advice. David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss and this show is forformational and entertainment purposes only.

>> With that, onto our conversation with Michael Lewis.

>> Well, Michael, thank you for joining us.

>> Total pleasure.

>> We have a little something since this is our 10 year anniversary that we're celebrating that we need to do before we start.

>> Okay.

>> So, you went to Princeton. I went to Princeton.

>> Yep.

>> My senior thesis would become impactful for acquired. Um, I was a French

for acquired. Um, I was a French literature major. I wrote my thesis on

literature major. I wrote my thesis on the history of Dom Perin and the marketing history of >> very serious college student a little different than yours.

>> They let you do that.

>> They they uh somehow I conned the French department into letting me do this and what probably 12 13 years later we made our LVMH episode and uh it was a big

moment for a choir. Muent Chandon has just released the 2015 vintage >> on Don Perry. 2015 is the year we started.

>> So I thought you were gonna say uh that the that the effect that the Princeton thesis had on on Acquired. I didn't

think it was as specific as that, but I feel like when I'm listening to your episodes, I'm listening to someone who's worked for up to a thesis that that it is thesis like immersion in a subject.

Well, I can tell you our episodes are much better than my actual thesis was, >> but but that is exactly how it feels.

>> But that is the process we go through.

>> Yeah. And cramming for finals the night before. There's a lot of like academic

before. There's a lot of like academic feelings that happen as we get close to recording day.

>> So, um it's your show and I don't want to take it over, but I but I wanted I wanted to start by saying that I didn't discover it until this year. Uh I disco

in July. Uh uh I was at Google camp,

in July. Uh uh I was at Google camp, which is kind of a good way to discover acquired. Uh, and

acquired. Uh, and >> we should talk about where we are now, too.

>> And we we are sitting in the Google uh garage where Yes.

>> I mean, I don't know exactly. I'm not

sure exactly what happened in the Google garage. So, this was the it's a nice

garage. So, this was the it's a nice idea.

>> Like, literally, uh, Susan would just ski lived here. She I think this was her house. She had just bought the house

house. She had just bought the house >> and was looking to sublet part of it, like just make some extra money on other people using the house. posted a

bulletin notice on the Stanford campus that there was space available here.

>> And so Larry and Sergey's first desks when they got kicked out of Stanford's offices were right there.

>> Right here.

>> I I actually think this actual door saw is the one that they were using cuz Google pulled it out of storage for us.

>> So I'm at this camp with a lot of kind of well-known people and a prominent CEO uh says to me, "You ought to listen.

have you listened to acquired? And I

didn't know what he was talking about.

And I went and listened I can't remember what I listened to first. I think it might have been the Morris Chang uh episode, but I had about eight different reactions to all positive. I and I

thought this is it's kind of amazing which you all are doing. So I then I was from July until now I've listened to maybe 10 of the episodes which is a lot of a lot of hours of listening to this.

The first thing struck me could not believe you were getting away with with a 4hour podcast and um and I couldn't believe that even after four hours I was

still kind of looking for even more that that you you created you created the environment with the podcast that I tried to create with the book. you grab

the listener like I try to grab a reader and get them to the state of mind where they'll let you take them anywhere uh and teach them about stuff that they don't even know they want to learn about.

>> I think if we're going to we're doing this as a 10th anniversary sort of celebration. Yeah.

celebration. Yeah.

>> I'm honored and I feel like kind of like I'm going to let a lot out of my depth here because I'm just a new listener and I haven't listened to all of it. I'm

hardly the world's authority on your on your podcast and I didn't prepare at all except to listen to it except I did one thing and that was I went back and listened to your very first.

>> Oh wow. Oh wow.

>> Just to compare >> and be kind please.

>> It is shocking how different it is from you where where you started from where you have you probably haven't ended up but where you are now. So, I'm going to start by this 10-year journey.

I think I can see some things you've learned.

>> Oh, but I I want to know what you think you've learned. Give me Let's do the 10

you've learned. Give me Let's do the 10 lessons from the 10 year the 10 year journey.

>> Do you have yours like crystallized because I don't want to taint you.

>> No, no, no. I do have It's actually one big thing. Uh and um and I'll and if you

big thing. Uh and um and I'll and if you if you say it, I'll acknowledge that you you know sunk my battleship and I have nothing to add. Uh but it's it's I'm I'm

I'm curious what you think. There's no

way that first thing you did was ever going to become a hit.

>> Well, it's I'm I'm curious if you think I've always believed something that's always been there from the beginning is the magic between me and Ben.

>> That's interesting to me. You all meet at like a Passover seder.

>> Yes.

>> And your colleague, you have been colleagues at a VC firm.

>> Yep.

>> I'll come back to that. I want come I want to talk a little bit about you as investors, but we'll come back to that boy and how that's different from being a podcaster. But at what point do you

a podcaster. But at what point do you decide that oh there's a kind of odd chemistry here?

>> Well, we really just wanted to spend more time together. It was one of these things where >> you're both straight.

>> Yeah. Okay. This is married.

>> It's not a It's not a romantic relation.

>> We We like to say that we each have two spouses. We have our actual romantic

spouses. We have our actual romantic spouses that we have families with >> and then we have each other.

>> David and I shared a bank account before my wife and I shared a bank account.

>> So, are either of your spouses threatened by the relationship?

>> No.

from just from a sheer time perspective.

I mean, a little bit.

>> My spouse loves it because she doesn't actually want to spend that much time with me. She likes like, you know, I

with me. She likes like, you know, I used to I used to all the stuff we do on acquired, I used to just talk at her and she wasn't interested.

>> That is true. She loves it cuz I get to talk to, you know, >> although she gets the rough draft. Like

my wife won't listen to episodes because she's like I' I've already heard four versions of the episode and unfortunately I heard like four worse versions and because I endure that and give you feedback the listener actually gets the better version.

>> Right. So you so you meet you meet and there's a chemistry.

>> Yeah.

>> Explain that chemistry like what what is it that you when you what is it that makes you excited to see each other?

>> David knew all the Apple rumors in real time just like I did.

>> Uh you had read all the latest stratey posts. We bonded over Ben Thompson

posts. We bonded over Ben Thompson originally.

>> And I think you can tell me if this is mutual, but I looked up to you because you were doing a thing that was mysterious to me, which was venture capital. I was a software engineer and I

capital. I was a software engineer and I got hired to work at a venture firm to do some incubation work, but I didn't know anything about like the real job of venture capital. And here's David,

venture capital. And here's David, someone who's just a few years older than me, like doing that thing, but kind of in my like peer age group. And I

could I could like lean over and be like, "What what are they talking about?"

about?" >> Well, it's I I kind of felt like a fraud in a lot of ways as a like I I repressed this deep down like uh but if I'm honest with myself, I think I felt like a fraud

as a VC because I'd never but I I went I went to Princeton. I was a French literature major. I worked on Wall

literature major. I worked on Wall Street. I worked briefly at the Wall

Street. I worked briefly at the Wall Street Journal and then I became a venture capitalist. I had no

venture capitalist. I had no qualification to >> Have you ever coded coded or you ever done anything? I mean, I took some CS

done anything? I mean, I took some CS classes in college, but like I'd never built anything. And so I was like, Ben

built anything. And so I was like, Ben built all these things. Like you built the the this for that website. You you

built so many products. You had products that millions of people use. And I was like, >> I'm just masquerading here.

>> That Ben knew stuff that was exciting for you to to know about.

>> Yes.

>> Did you feel that David knew stuff?

>> Absolutely.

>> What kind of stuff?

>> Business.

>> Really?

It was No, no, no. I I only found out years into doing acquired he was a French lit major.

>> Huh.

>> But that's important that French that that background >> it ended up becoming >> kind of broad curiosity about things other than business and technology. I I

hear it in your program.

>> I hear it in your podcast. So what I'm thinking of in my head is Conoran interverski >> uh that I wrote a book called the undoing project and and and you could see if you could see two people and then

it got me thinking about collaboration and the I've had exciting collaborations with people and the feeling I get is >> this person is making is bringing out a better version of me which is why I

asked if your spouses were threatened because the because Conor and Diverski's spouses were threatened is too strong a word but they were very aware that the relationship that that was the most

important in their lives was with not with their spouse but with with >> I got the sense from the undoing project that um Conoran and Tverki's relationship was very intense.

>> Mhm.

>> I I don't know that I would describe our relationship and yes it was >> and competitive >> compet was not competitive on Danny

Conorman felt um was was always at felt at risk of being dismissed thought the lesser partner. Um, there was a status

lesser partner. Um, there was a status difference between the two of them, right? Going into it. Uh, everyone in

right? Going into it. Uh, everyone in the world thought Amos was the smartest person they'd ever met.

>> You two didn't have that ever have any of that.

>> Not for me.

>> But you said you felt like a fraud.

>> I think I felt lesser. Like there were a lot of things when we started doing Acquired where we were doing this like business analysis podcast, but I didn't know finance.

>> Like it was >> funny. You've become more, you know, the

>> funny. You've become more, you know, the keeper of the analysis on acquired >> and I'm more the keeper of the story.

It's different though than a difference in status. I don't feel that you or I

in status. I don't feel that you or I have ever felt we had a difference in status and and the number of like fights we've had or or real tension we've had is like two three ever in 10 years. I

mean it's it's weirdly >> let's come back to those and let's get to the lessons. What have you learned?

>> We started thinking about what have we learned from the companies we've covered that we've then applied >> Yep.

>> to acquired.

>> All right. In particular, it's it acquired has clearly worked. Why? And

does that why have something to do with the fact that we study the world's best companies? Like is there some osmosis

companies? Like is there some osmosis that happens from the subject matter bleeding into the property itself?

>> And >> so that's our frame.

>> Okay, let's let's go with that frame.

>> Yes. So the the one I was going to start with is the NFL. The product is scarce.

you know, 162 baseball games a year.

It's called America's pastime. You pass

a lot of time with it.

>> But with the NFL, >> because the product is scarce and then they have very smartly cultivated that and engineered it to be more scarce,

more of an event driven sport. That's

made all the difference. And like to me, as I look at what like what we do is insane for the podcasting industry. Like

it's completely insane. We release for the last three years we've released 12 episodes and next year we're going to do eight eight episodes for the whole year.

>> No. As a hobbyist podcaster, what I get told is you have to be on all the time.

>> Yep.

>> And I I can't do it and so I'm not going to do it.

>> Podcasting is like your second or third thing that you do, right? And you make more episodes, I think, per year than we do.

>> That's correct. But they're just, you know, they're it's except for the scripted ones which I do throw myself into. It really is. I do no preparation

into. It really is. I do no preparation and it is a conver and I don't do don't do very much of those. The script of ones I I do put time into and and but it's it's a different sort of thing than

what you're doing. It tends to be a very narrow little story that I'm telling.

You you didn't start out though.

>> We used to make 26 episodes a year, you know. Uh

know. Uh >> they were 40 minutes long to an hour 20.

So, how do you go from that to realizing and did you really learn it from the NFL or did you just do it and then >> we were starting to do it and then we covered the NFL and we like aha >> this is what we're doing.

>> Most of these things are actually I think are confirmation bias. We get some inkling that like we should continue to go in this direction. Like my in calling out Hermes it's because

>> I think quality and scarcity have become an important part of acquired and in some ways we like learned that from Hermes but we covered Hermes last year.

Yeah, >> I think we found our way to that probably fourish years ago, maybe 5 years ago, where we used to feel like >> we were bad at podcasting because we

couldn't make very many and because we didn't have a whole production team and we didn't have professional ad sales people and we didn't have >> we weren't full-time for a long time.

>> Yeah. And at some point we kind of looked at each other and we're like maybe if we just admit that we we are heavily constrained and then try to just

lean into that constraint in the way that Hermes leans into every single Birkin bag must be handmade by one artisan and we're going to build a business model around that. And it turns out to be a great business. We sort of

thought every episode is going to be entirely handcrafted by us. All the

research, all the recording. We work

with this amazing audio engineer, Stephen, who does the the like literal waveform editing, but you know, we go in and in a transcript highlight a thousand cuts per episode. Like, it's this made

with love product. And it turned out we could actually build a big platform and a good business out of something heavily constrained.

>> But that's not where you start.

>> No, no, no.

So, let's just people who don't know, where you start is you're two guys who've met each other. Y

>> and and got a crush on each on each other. You're being you love being with

other. You're being you love being with each other >> and you you're going to you get this idea that oh it would be really cool to do a podcast on corporate acquisitions that worked.

>> Yeah.

>> That worked and bad idea that well it is an idea. I I would find you could easily

an idea. I I would find you could easily have started the opposite corporate acquisitions that didn't and you'd have done much you had much more material >> which is what most press at the time was. It was let's talk about how crappy

was. It was let's talk about how crappy this acquisition It's interesting to me that your first step right from the start is positive. It's like what worked, not what didn't work, it's what

worked.

>> That's cuz we were VCs and I was trying to build companies. I mean that the goal was create things that have enough value to get bought and or or go public. And

when people buy things, it's because they're working. So let's try to reverse

they're working. So let's try to reverse engineer >> understand why things worked.

>> Right? So that's a different starting spot from almost all journalism.

>> Yeah. In fact, if most journalists started there, they'd be accused of heography of yes that but you but you because of where you where you're coming from and because you're thinking of this

in very practical terms like how why did this work?

>> You do get away with it. It's just that first episode you're almost like different people. But I'm going to hold

different people. But I'm going to hold back on what I think you learned because I want to see if you get to it. So we

got two. What's the third episode that you have learned some a lesson from?

I think Berkshire we learned so many things from. We did this three-part uh

things from. We did this three-part uh I have not listened to it and I am a big investor in Berkshire Hathaway.

>> Good for you. Well,

>> since when >> I bought it right at in in the middle of the financial crisis >> uh because I thought I I mean I had done a take I mean it's not it's a little

putting a little strongly but oddly I had written a takedown of Warren Buffett on the cover of the New Republic magazine called the temptation of St.

Warren. You can probably dig it off off of the way back.

>> What was the thesis? The thesis was that he may have started out being who he says he is, but that he's become this very different thing in the marketplace.

His money is not like other people's money.

>> And you don't have a couple of things Warren Buffett has. And his money is valued differently. But secondly, he was

valued differently. But secondly, he was willing to do deals that I at the time bothered the hell out of me. And what

had happened was like the Goldman De was a Solomon Brothers deal that bothered the hell of me. He kept he kept a CEO in place who I thought should not have been Were you there? I was there.

>> Yeah. You you lived through it.

>> No, I was through part of our virtue series. It turned me briefly, only

series. It turned me briefly, only briefly actually cynical about Warren Buffett and then I came out of it and fell in love with him all over again.

But I had written this thing and pissed him off entirely. I mean like I it would clearly upset him and then kind of started watching him for a longer and I thought, you know, I just liked him.

Just liked him. you couldn't help but like him. So I started to soften and

like him. So I started to soften and whether when we get to the financial crisis I thought well his money is going to be so valuable here that what is needed is credit and I think it might if he stays alive long enough it might

happen again soon.

>> So you invested in Berkshire before the legendary deals coming out of the financial crisis.

>> Yeah. And so I bought a chunk of the ashares and I've just sat on them. And

let me tell you can I tell you a Warren Buffett story? Yeah, I mean this is a

Buffett story? Yeah, I mean this is a little talking a little bit out of school, but uh I've never met him. Uh I

know he was really irritated with me and then I I actually looked back at that.

It's the only time I've ever looked back at a piece I wrote and I thought I overdid that and went right back to the New Republic and wrote another 5,000word thing about Warren Buffett in which I basically apologized for the first

piece. I bought these shares in 2008

piece. I bought these shares in 2008 when I was working on going infinite. I

was working on the Sam Bankman Freed book and um I was talking to a publicist completely unrelated to Warren Buffett

and she said, "You know, I also represent Warren." And she said, and I

represent Warren." And she said, and I told Warren that I've been talking to you and he said, "He has a question for you." And I said, "What?" She says, "Is

you." And I said, "What?" She says, "Is he the is he the Michael Lewis who bought shares back in the I swear to God. I swear to God." So this tells you something about Warren Buff

more about Warren Buffett than me and and he said he bought it like what the book value to you know that thing that ratio he bought it as cheap as it's ever been and he says he says but

>> you made the best trade and then he says then he says so he's the Michael Lewis who >> who sold some Burkshire Hathaway two

years ago and four years ago and he was like why did he sell? So he's tracking I I'm not a huge >> I can't imagine you tracking Vanguard here.

>> No no no and I said well actually I actually just gave him to charity is what I is what I'd done. I given them given the money away and when he heard and she said that he'll be relieved to hear that kind of thing. It's like so

can you imagine can you imagine that Warren Buffin is taking the time to watch who is coming in and out of the ashares and and thinking about it? I I

mean I just thought he has that he and Munger had that whole thing about don't put your money in an index fund, put your money in a big bundle of stocks.

Put it in a few stocks and watch those stocks like a hawk. It's like they watch that thing in a way that like I I just in history has anybody ever done anything like >> I mean all these people are they're maniacs. You don't build something like

maniacs. You don't build something like this if you're not >> That's exactly right. So anyway, sorry I just digressed here but you did your what did you learn from your Bergkshire there three episodes of Bergkshire Hathaway? Well, as it applies to

Hathaway? Well, as it applies to acquired, we got really obsessed with the circle of competence that it's okay to have a giant two hard pile. There's a

bunch of things that like I'm not intelligently saying no to the same all the time would be like too hard pile.

>> Every phone call we'd have would say pile the expression.

>> So the uh Warren and Charlie had this thing. There was the um

thing. There was the um >> the the like the yes pile, the no pile, and then the too hard.

>> The two hard pile. I see. Okay. Right.

And it's okay to just like all the technology was a too hard.

>> Yeah. It was just all Yeah. Like there

might be something in here, but like I'm just just too hard.

>> It's basically admitting that like our opportunity cost is so high like the the things that we say yes to are so awesome that it's okay to say too hard to just a

giant amount of things. And that was really freeing once we started just like I mean truly on most >> So what's an example of something that you I I'm surprised you say this what's too hard

>> the reason that one of the reasons besides just wanting to meet you because you've been an inspiration to us forever uh that I I wanted to to meet you a few months ago was Hollywood uh we've had

lots of opportunities to work with Hollywood >> it keeps >> to this point they have thus always invariably ended up in the too hard pile. Are you talking about doing

pile. Are you talking about doing episodes about how income >> creating TV shows documentaries adapting into film these stories into films? Uh

they all sound good until we start digging in and then we're like >> the time it would take us to think through all the implications of this. Uh

>> we should we should just make another episode.

>> The answer >> the answer almost always is we should just make another episode. That's a

really intelligent way place to land because what they will do is woo you with their enthusiasm and then take you down a rabbit hole where you will spend years of your life and have nothing to show.

>> Well, this is one of the reasons I want to talk to like Michael's a very smart guy. You've been very successful.

guy. You've been very successful.

>> I've gone down the rabbit hole knowing that wasn't didn't have a whole lot else better to do at the time. It's

like between books. It's a pallet cleanser. You don't have a between books

cleanser. You don't have a between books period. You you know Yeah. I don't have

period. You you know Yeah. I don't have that. I don't have a I don't have the

that. I don't have a I don't have the machine you have. You've got an assembly line going >> and it's a compounding asset. I mean,

this is the craziest craziest thing about podcasting and like a giant amount of why this has worked for us is we do a lot of work that looks a lot like the research and the writing of a book. But

when we make our book and we release it to the world, people click subscribe.

And so when we release the next one, those same people go listen. Like it's

almost guaranteed.

>> We're always growing our base.

podcasting, being an author, there's loose compounding elements to it, but there's not a like literal >> not when I got into the business of writing books, I thought there was going to I thought about this a little bit and

I So, you're right. It's

>> But you've probably done it better than >> You're one of the few people who probably does have a brand.

>> I thought I'm going to move around America to the various arenas of ambition. Wall Street, Silicon Valley,

ambition. Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Washington, movie business, sports, the various things. and I'll naturally

various things. and I'll naturally attract the audience that is interested in that arena.

>> Y >> and then I'll drag them along to the others >> and it hasn't really happened that way even for you.

>> Not really. Not really. Uh the books the books have a kind of >> market and it's a big market bigish market but it doesn't I see no evidence that I'm dragging people along with me.

I feel like each each book feels like another startup and that I've got to go out and make it happen almost as if I've not written one. Now that's

>> moneyball audience is not necessarily fifth risk.

>> Exactly. And that the audiences end up just being different. So it's just the way it is. But that's not true.

>> That's not true. So every time if you were to take time off to go do something in Hollywood, you'd be abandoning this glorious network. The opportunity cost

glorious network. The opportunity cost is so high of spending a month not making an acquired episode because when we publish an episode of acquired the base does come with us not all of it but

like I you know we make epic systems about healthcare and all the people who listen to LVMH are now learning how doctor's office it works right >> so podcasts are unique in that it does

have that true subscriber base but unlike anything else where you click subscribe there's not an algorithmic platform that disintermediates I mean, you think YouTube or uh Twitter

or any of these when someone clicks follow or subscribe, they're like, it's like signal in the algorithm, but it's not >> guaranteed, but like you subscribe in Apple Podcast or Spotify and those people are actually subscribed and

they're going to get the next episode, >> right? And they learn to trust you.

>> right? And they learn to trust you.

>> Yeah.

>> They learn to trust you that if you're interested, they'll be interested. That

what in fact what they're buying into is not the subject, but your interest in the subject.

>> Yes. And I am terrified of betraying that trust. Like anytime we make an

that trust. Like anytime we make an episode, I think of it as a churn opportunity. If we put this in the feed,

opportunity. If we put this in the feed, if we don't live up to the expectations that our listeners have, we will burn them and they will leave us forever.

>> In the why does acquired work uh framework, there's there's a strong element of terror of why it works. Like

we're we're we are constantly terrified every time we make an episode.

>> Every minute is a turn opportunity.

>> Are we letting are we letting people down?

>> All right, listeners. Now is a great time to thank our presenting partner JP Morgan Payments. And we want to tell you

Morgan Payments. And we want to tell you about something pretty cool that we just did with them last week, which was a big live show in Las Vegas together.

Acquired residency in Las Vegas, baby.

No, no, no, no. But what we did do is we took the stage at the beautiful Venetian Theater at AWS reinvent. We did four really just incredible interviews with

the CEOs of Netflix, Perplexity, AWS, and JP Morgan Payments. And I will say, Ben, it was extra special in retrospect.

We were talking with Greg Peters, the coco of Netflix, and asking him how Netflix is reshaping Hollywood just a few hours before they announced the Warner Brothers acquisition. Uh, he has a pretty good poker face given that we

were, you know, in Vegas and all that.

>> Yeah, that he does. Also very funny to interview Matt Garmin from AWS at his own event. And I will say one of the

own event. And I will say one of the most interesting conversations was with Max Newer, the global co-head of JP Morgan Payments. We dug into this

Morgan Payments. We dug into this question that I've always wondered about. How did the leading global bank

about. How did the leading global bank also come to own this technology business that does $18 billion a year in annual revenue on its own separate from the rest of JP Morgan?

>> Yeah, it's wild. If JP Morgan Payments were a standalone company, it would very likely be in the Fortune 500, but it's also part of JP Morgan.

>> Max also told us about JPMCoin, developed by Kexus by JP Morgan, and how it's helped the bank and even Jamie evolved their thinking on how blockchain technology is transforming financial infrastructure.

>> Overall, it was a great week. We hung

out at JP Morgan's booth on the show floor and got to see their developer portal being demoed live in action to customers too.

>> Yep. So, if you want to learn more about these innovations in payments and how JP Morgan can help power your business, head on over to jpmorggan.com/acquired.

>> Are you more terrified than you were 2 years ago?

>> Yes. So, you're growing the terror is growing.

>> The terror is growing.

>> At some point, it's not going to be a good thing.

>> I mean, it's good to be a little on edge, >> but you don't want to get yourself in a situation where you feel like you do the same thing over and over again because eventually it will get old. We'll come

back to this is we're going to get to the bull and the bear case at the end.

>> Okay. But but but but it's it's this is so back to your the lesson that you gleaned from Munger and and Buffett.

It's okay to have a two hard pile and you said and the two hard pile is like doing things in Hollywood. But I when I asked the question, did you ever run across this? Have you run across this?

across this? Have you run across this?

Have you ever had a subject where you thought ah this is just too hard to do?

>> Yeah.

>> Oh yeah.

>> What would be an example of that?

>> We got pretty far down the line on doing an episode on the Fed.

>> Yeah. and walked away from it.

>> Yep.

>> Uh >> so you walked away from it.

>> Yeah. We might come back, but it's been quite >> There'll be a moment to come back to it.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad we didn't do it.

Although it's going to violate your rule about doing newsy things.

>> We always try and find things must be timelessness is like a must. M must

everything we do must be timeless. The

company we're covering >> nothing's timeless. So what do you mean by that? It must be that like if you

by that? It must be that like if you listen to this an episode that we make five years after we made it, it's 80% as relevant. Uh it's still it it will still

relevant. Uh it's still it it will still be an important institution in the world, >> right?

>> But like a CNBC article is worth 2% of its original value within a month, >> right?

>> And we want to be worth 80% of our original value 5 years from now on piece of content.

>> So So does that mean you're picking institutions that you think will survive?

>> Yes.

>> Yes. But okay, so that's like baseline such a volatile you're so much of your stuff is tech and finance where there's so much churn.

>> Well, yes, >> this didn't used to be true. You look at anything pre201 uh we we had not yet discovered this principle.

>> But our real bangers are timeless and timely.

>> Doing Google this year was timeless and timely, >> right?

>> Having that, however you do it that you're getting to something that I try to get to when I'm picking subjects, but you're doing it in a slightly different way. Um, what I like what what gets my

way. Um, what I like what what gets my when my socks start to go up and down about a subject is when I'm really interested in it and nobody else is that

that there isn't that there aren't people it's not hot and I found with I think it's true of basically all my books couple maybe a couple exceptions

but a lot of the books that if I'm at a dinner party and someone asks me what I'm what are you working on and after about 60 seconds I can see their eyes glaz

like why is he interested in that? You

know, it's just not registering with them in any way.

>> And I've learned just to not even talk about it cuz it kills my interest to watch it kill their interest. But I know why I'm interested and why it's important and I'm not I'm not relying on

the world telling me it's important. Uh

that that's a really good sign. This is

a difference between what you do and what we do because I feel like when I think through all your books, they're almost always a story of obscurity >> that once it becomes a Michael Lewis

book, >> then it becomes a well-known phenomena, Moneyball, like you are discovering these things that kind of nobody's talking about. Whereas when we do

talking about. Whereas when we do something like Trader Joe's, someone says, "What are you working on?" And

we're like, "Trader Joe's." They're

like, "I love Trader Joe's."

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> So that is a difference. Your subjects

are not obscure, >> right? They're the most corporations,

>> right? They're the most corporations, right?

>> People love it, >> but they don't really understand a secret in hiding in plain sight. Like

people didn't understand Trader Joe's or people didn't understand Google. We

thought when we >> There's three things that make a great acquired episode. One, there's a

acquired episode. One, there's a compelling hero protagonist that t that takes a hero's journey where we're going from obscurity to ubiquity. How it

starts is this thing that nobody cares about and then it becomes the most important thing in the world. Two is

there's a secret hiding in plain sight.

Like Costco, I think when the ordinary consumer sees Costco, they're like, "Oh, I love Costco." But when someone who's listen to an the acquired episode on Costco thinks about Costco, they see like all the gears turning of the

machine. Like we there there has to be

machine. Like we there there has to be some way that we can expose something.

And then our third criteria is it has to be important in the world. And I think that's something we picked up later. I

mean, we used to do these like little $10 million acquisitions. And now when we're gonna go spend two months of our life researching and making that like the acquired episode, it has to be

something worthy of the acquired stage.

When did that happen? So I'm a little unclear you again getting back to this first episode you did and where you are now and the difference between them.

What sort of compelled you or propelled you into the current form of acquired?

the decision to make it a business and the decision to actually live off of what you were what you earned from your podcast. So, it had to work

podcast. So, it had to work commercially. So, then you started to

commercially. So, then you started to make these adjustments. Is that

>> Yes and no. There's um you're on the right track. I like the Bergkshire. Uh I

right track. I like the Bergkshire. Uh I

thought you were going to say partnership as a lesson from it. So, we

did a series on Sequoia Capital, the right venture firm.

>> Yep.

>> I went full-time on acquired in 2020.

Mhm.

>> 5 years in, Ben didn't go full-time until January 24, right?

>> Correct.

>> End of 23, beginning of 24 when I went.

>> You remained equal partners.

>> Yes.

>> Oh, it it wasn't a business when we started. It was just like I mean, we

started. It was just like I mean, we didn't make money till our third year, >> but those three years while you're full-time and you were part-time. It was

an equal >> equal.

>> Yes. David was uh never once raised the issue. I'm depending on this for my

issue. I'm depending on this for my livelihood and it's my only thing, so I should own more or get a greater share.

That never once came up.

>> That's great. It never crossed my mind.

>> There we go. That's an important point.

>> You're not you.

>> I guess I'm glossing over it because it like it wouldn't even like it didn't even cross my mind now. Like it's just it's always been a has always been the two of us, >> right? Equally. That's it would be it

>> right? Equally. That's it would be it would be profane for it to be anything.

>> It would actually break it if we ever if we ever started trying to figure out like little carveouts or pieces of the pie for well I did this therefore I should get >> it's true collaboration. You don't

recognize there's no boundary to where you start and you >> This is where I'm going with the story.

>> It's funny you bring up Sequoia because it's actually benchmarky in that way.

>> Well, it's the quote. It's Leon's quote.

>> Okay.

>> So, uh end of 22, uh FTX happens. Uh

interest rates go up, you know, all the uh podcast advertising market, you know, falls off a cliff. Our revenue dropped 40%. So, we went from this wasn't a

40%. So, we went from this wasn't a business. I went full-time. We made it a

business. I went full-time. We made it a business. It worked amazingly well

business. It worked amazingly well >> from 20 to 22.

>> From 20 to 21 into 22, >> right?

>> And then our revenue dropped 40%. Right.

>> Overnight.

And that was the moment when we changed everything. And uh

everything. And uh >> Oh.

>> So, how many episodes are you making in 2021?

>> A lot.

>> Oh, I see. Okay. And is it But it's not no longer just corporate acquisitions.

>> We started broadening with the Tesla episode in like 2019, maybe 18.

>> And why did you broaden? Uh it was David's idea and he said I have this thesis that the audience doesn't listen to us because they want to hear if a tech acquisition worked or not. They

want to hear the story and strategy of the most important technology companies.

>> There you go. So you you you were you kind of foul hooked the listen the your your audience. Yes.

your audience. Yes.

>> They they were listening.

>> What's a foul hook?

>> You when you go fishing and the fish you catch the fish by the belly rather than the mouth. It's like the hook gets the

the mouth. It's like the hook gets the hook gets in the some weird way. Yes.

You didn't actually catch the fish in the in an honest way.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> But yeah, we would get all these, you know, emails every time we'd meet people and they'd talk about the show be like, I love the story. Like you guys are just gifted storytellers. That's what we'd

gifted storytellers. That's what we'd hear over and over and over again. And

like eventually we're like, well, we should believe that. So, can I I'm gonna at that moment I'm going to interject what I noticed because because we're

that in that first episode you were so unsure of yourselves that there is you were so choked both of you and you were you have a background

in theater. You were a kid.

in theater. You were a kid.

>> So, you did not come across as people who had been on stage.

>> You you it was there was a it was it was kind of an effectless performance. It

was flat. There's a flatness to it. You

were you you were afraid to whether you knew it or not re exhibit a lot of emotion. You didn't realize that one of

emotion. You didn't realize that one of your secret sauces is emotion. It's the

way you respond to each other when you're presenting material is teaching the a is helping the audience understand how they should feel about it. that

you're giving them sometimes very dry facts like I don't know their revenues doubled every year for 100 years straight and and and the audience may not know that that's something that that's an incredible thing

>> right >> and the way you respond even sophisticated listeners are helped oh pay attention now this was a that's an important thing I should I should get

excited about that >> we used to share our research such that we were doing research in the early days I think we only had a single Google doc that we >> were dumping everything into the same shared document.

>> We were on this. So by the time we would actually go to record the episode Yeah. There's no surprise.

Yeah. There's no surprise.

>> There's no disagreement.

>> You can't pretend to be surprised.

>> We can't or you would be pretending to be surprised. Neither of us are good

be surprised. Neither of us are good actors.

>> I don't When did we we did a little This is really important. So you added an improvisational component.

>> Yes.

>> There's another way of putting that.

You're added risk.

>> You're taking risks when you don't know what's going to happen when you come on.

>> 100% agree. Every episode now going into recording day feels like a high wire act because we haven't fully scripted it out. I'm like I think this is going to

out. I'm like I think this is going to come together. But like we had to add

come together. But like we had to add this thing called a production meeting about 6 months ago. One week before recording we are required to get together and share agree on an episode

structure but not share any details >> because we got so into this like improvisation thing that some of our episodes would sort of end and you're like >> that had no flow to it. Like you guys had two different ideas.

>> You're not taking risk if it doesn't work sometimes. Right. But it's the

work sometimes. Right. But it's the difference between >> I mean, do you know how your heart sinks when someone gets up at a podium with a script with a with a speech and they're going to read their speech.

>> The audience is waiting for you to get through this thing because they know nothing's going to happen. Like

whatever's on that page, that's what's going to happen.

>> Pre-announcing the score of the Super Bowl.

>> It's exactly right. And that if you get up and you just start talking, the audience also knows, oh my god, this could be a disaster. This could they don't know where it's going. Just having

just some of that has a huge effect on the way the audience responds to the performance. And so that that's that is

performance. And so that that's that is not in the beginning.

>> Do you remember when we started doing that?

>> Well, I I think in the first 10 episodes, first five episodes, we got feedback saying you guys need to disagree more. But I don't think we

disagree more. But I don't think we quite realized that we should reveal surprises for each other until 5 years ago, four years ago.

>> But at some point we made it a you know an unwritten rule of like we have separate documents we prepare >> separately.

>> We try to do like that was that was 5 years ago you say. So the so we start with the corporate acquisitions in 2015 and you two knowing everything that you're going to say when you get on

basically and it's short and it's 40 minutes.

>> Yeah. So,

>> and we're not confident. What you're

hearing, too, is like I'm supposed to be doing financial analysis as someone who's never been taught how to read a financial statement, right? And so,

you're also hearing a little bit of like >> imposttor syndrome.

>> I'm trying I can't get overenthusiastic because I'm afraid David's going to catch me and be like, you don't know what you're talking about.

>> Okay. So, plus there's so there's an uncertainty about your own abilities.

>> All right. So, so first thing that happens is you move off the corporate acquisitions.

>> We went from acquisitions to IPOs, >> right? which was unbelievable timing in

>> right? which was unbelievable timing in 2017 18 when Uber, Pinterest, Slack, yeah, uh the eight IPOs in a row of tech companies that everyone had been

following and then it it went really for two years and kind of culminated at the end of 2020 with Door Dash and Airbnb, which we recorded and released one day apart cuz we wanted to do that today on IPO day.

>> Yeah. So, but once again, you're constraining yourself unnecessarily.

Yeah. Exactly. that that eventually you get to we're just going to do stories, big success stories basically.

>> So it was acquisitions, IPOs, uh then it was broad histories and strategies of tech companies and then broad histories and strategies of companies period >> and people

>> and people with Taylor Swift we frame them as companies in a funny way. You're you're still constraining

way. You're you're still constraining yourself. You feel like you need this

yourself. You feel like you need this frame >> and you actually you're not really living in a frame anymore. Yeah, but

constraints are good. Like format,

forcing yourself.

>> Sure. But you should, but at some point you're going to wake up and say, you know, we should be doing more biography.

We should be doing more people. And if

that person is not, you know, is not naturally a huge corporation. You may

still I have a feeling there's more there's there's more there's an evolution to come that you're not just saying you haven't reached like the end point of this. So, at what point do you

start to feel confident like we know what we're doing?

>> Well, when the crash, you know, crash when when uh the reset happened in 2022, 2023, >> so pretty recently, >> crypto bubble, tech stocks plummet, podcasting,

>> advertising budgets kind of dry up, end of 2022.

>> Ben and I looked at each other and it was like it it wasn't even like really a conversation. We just knew what we had

conversation. We just knew what we had to do. We watched a lot of other people

to do. We watched a lot of other people >> go for easy secure money now >> try and keep the music playing >> right >> and we was we were just like party's

over we need to get to work we need to focus on only what is enduring and like make great great great work and stop doing everything else like up to that

point we we were we used to do these things called specials. We would just do you know not totally random but essentially random kind of interviews

and undifferiated topics and we said you we need to start making stuff that is only out of one only we can do will only be great. We need to stop doing

be great. We need to stop doing everything else >> and we did it on the commercial side too. We said, "Let's go cut deals with

too. We said, "Let's go cut deals with our favorite partners, >> most of our sponsors." Yeah.

>> And try to just figure out when we come out the other side of this that we have like the best companies to work with commercially as well as the most durable stories and brands associated with us because of the editorial side of the

house.

>> The JP Morgans of the world. Did they

join before you proved that this new way of doing >> No, we did a year. 2023 was the first year.

>> And what were the What were those episodes?

>> That was LVMH. That was the NFL. Okay.

>> Uh that was Porsche. That was that was the beginning of what we really >> Yeah. And I think that's when we started

>> Yeah. And I think that's when we started to build the confidence of like, oh, we can do something that >> Isn't it interesting that you grabbed this kind of commercial attention only after you went really long?

>> Yes. And so then JP Morgan came in in the January 24. So we had did the year of kind of building this out.

>> You're right. It was only after we had sort of leaned into acquired as a brand about durability about compounding over decades and you know centuries and I

don't think I appreciated that as a person uh in the early days of acquire and it certainly wasn't what the show was about.

>> Yeah.

>> Anyway, so I we I got us a little off track. Your lesson number three was

track. Your lesson number three was Bergkshire Hathaway and don't be afraid to have a two hard pile which pick another >> Okay. Then my frame for all this story

>> Okay. Then my frame for all this story was was Sequoa. So this story is very different than than Sequoia, but uh we interviewed Doug Leone uh who was you

know one of the the I guess two stores ago of of Sequoia and he told us that after the dot crash for the the Sequoia

fund that was the the dot bubble fund >> every other venture firm out there after the bubble popped were taking mulligan funds. They went to their LPs and they

funds. They went to their LPs and they said, you know, there's nothing we can do on this one. We're going to be more disciplined next time. We said,

absolutely not. We will never lose money for our investors ever. We will do everything we can possibly do to make this fund in the black. And he said the best I think the best line anyone's ever

said on acquired. He said, "We looked at each other and you could burn cigarettes on our arms and we wouldn't flinch." And

they spent the next like five years.

They didn't raise another fund. They

just like went to work with the portfolio and like >> they stopped taking fees for a while.

>> Stopped taking fees. Yeah. And and and got it back and it ended up being a you know a positive returning fund.

>> This is how you get a reputation.

>> Exactly.

>> And and that was that moment for us >> and easy to lose one too. And so I mean it's so they they were really sensitive to reputation.

>> Yeah. Yeah. We had studied enough businesses by that point where we saw what led to durability and I think we already were awake to the idea that all

that matters is the late years of compounding. Like in any given year you

compounding. Like in any given year you look at a mag seven company and their profits from the last year are greater than the first 20 years combined or

whatever. And I think realizing that

whatever. And I think realizing that being around and being respected on the other side of this, you know, economic chasm is like the key to everything. We

who cares about making money this year?

It's about 5 10 20 years from now and we have to like have the brand that people want to be a part of then, >> right? But it but you don't know that

>> right? But it but you don't know that you are a mag seven podcast.

>> It's kind of ridiculous to compare when you when you make this decision.

You don't know that there's going to be great riches 10 years out or 5 years out or three years out.

>> Yeah.

>> But really like I think we were just we both so believe it was like the burn cigarettes on our arm. Like I think we just both so believed that that was the right thing to do.

>> Something has happened. Yeah. So

something had happened up before that and you had figured out how to do this.

You'd figured out how to study a business >> in a way that was really interesting.

The first episode's not that interesting. Yeah. There's just not that

interesting. Yeah. There's just not that much I didn't know. Hadn't thought of.

Yeah, >> you know, whatever and it's 30 minutes or whatever it is there now in that first episode. I think

there are more ads than there are you all you YouTube speaking but but >> and now we pride ourselves on having the lowest entire industry. So let's just let's pause here before we get to number four.

>> How do you study a business? Like what

have you learned about how to study a business that's different from when you started out? explain to the audience

started out? explain to the audience what you do to prepare to tell what you do to learn about a business.

>> Great.

>> I read everything ever about them.

>> So, Yep. You do what I do.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. You go whatever's out there, >> right?

>> Right. AI. That's just the AI part of it.

>> Who's who started with canonical who's done great canonical work in the past and then what ideas do you have from reading the previous canonical work?

>> And you know, you you then say like, I wonder if I can find this old YouTube video. And then those YouTube videos

video. And then those YouTube videos mention something else. And the the spiderweb always starts with the pre-existing canonical.

>> And at what point do you pick up the phone and start calling people who maybe have information that isn't on the worldwide web?

>> Zero ever until about 2023. And now that is the most important way that we probably about 50% for me at least about 50% of the way through the like start to get your arms around then start calling.

>> Right? You don't call uninformed. You

call knowing as much as there is to know and then you start picking the brains of people who might know more and have not said.

>> There's like the obvious people to talk to like you know for Google we talked to you know Sudar Deis are like you know like obvious then there's like the less slightly less >> obvious you just say that so casually

who gets to pick up the phone part of the compounding effect >> and talk to the CEO of Google about Google I mean nobody.

>> We're in a scale economy.

>> We're in a compounding business right?

So, the fact that you when do you first realize that you can pick up the phone?

>> That's a good question.

>> And call Tim who you know that you have you're on this first name basis with all these people. When does that

these people. When does that >> uh I think it was our Microsoft series when we talked to to Steve to >> Steve. Here we go. Steve

>> Steve. Here we go. Steve

>> cast acquired guest.

>> Cast acquired guest. Steve I love name dropping in your world is so different from the name dropping in like Hollywood. None of your names mean

Hollywood. None of your names mean anything in all, but but they mean everything here.

>> And the and the arenas are so funny because like these people aren't most of them aren't famous and they're a thousand to 10,000 times wealthier than these these Hollywood stars. This

different yard.

>> Well, what's funny with Microsoft? So,

we had some access because Ben used to work at Microsoft uh before >> which got us zero access.

>> Well, no, no, but you knew some people like here's in my mind what sort of happened with this as I'm trying to think about how to answer Michael's question. Um because we had started in

question. Um because we had started in Seattle and you still live in Seattle and you had worked at Microsoft when we started our Microsoft journey.

>> We knew some people.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's true.

>> We like well let's see if we can talk to Steve and so then we we talked to Steve and we got his you know perspective on things and it completely changed.

>> Was that a cold email?

>> I think it was.

>> Is that the first time you do that?

>> First time we reached that high.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. And you know what? This is where reputation matters. Steve didn't get

reputation matters. Steve didn't get back to us for a day and then we heard back and he said, "I don't listen to podcasts. I haven't listened to your

podcasts. I haven't listened to your podcasts, but I talked to some people that I trust and they say, "You're great."

great." >> Yeah.

>> So, let's hop on a call. And we wouldn't have gotten the response back if >> And he gave us probably 3 hours, four hours in research for >> He did. Yeah.

>> Yeah. And you learned a lot.

>> Yeah. This before we even interviewed him. That was later, but uh just just in

him. That was later, but uh just just in research.

>> I see.

>> And we learned a lot. Did you all have a moment where you thought, "Oh my god, let's keep doing that. That works."

>> Yes. Well, yeah. So, then we were like, "That worked great."

>> It kind of worked with Jensen, too. So,

originally when we had the idea in 2021 to do Nvidia, we thought we were like an interview show, then we thought the interviews would be better than our core storytelling episodes cuz we hadn't discovered that the Ben & David

storytelling is our NF1 product. It is

the thing that we uniquely can do that no one else can do. And we thought getting these big gets would be the key to success. Uh, which is funny because

to success. Uh, which is funny because usually they underperform our standard format. And so in 2021, we emailed

format. And so in 2021, we emailed Nvidia through the warmest connection we could find and said, "Can we interview?"

>> We're planning to cover the company. Can

we interview Jetson?

>> And they said, they gave us a nice party line back. He's very busy. And then in

line back. He's very busy. And then in 2022, we did our NVIDIA part one. We did

our standard research process and I think we did our part two. We did part two >> and then we got a note from Nvidia saying Jensen has listened and wants to know who your inside sources are because it's the most correct telling of

Nvidia's story ever. And we were like oh this was all just public information and if you're good at spidering the internet and just like digesting it and thinking about why he would have said something

at this point in time to this audience in these various random university talks and stuff. You can kind of piece

and stuff. You can kind of piece together the story and so that >> it's still flying by radar a bit. Oh

yeah, we were totally flying by radar.

Yeah. Yeah.

>> But that landed us, they were like uh that started the relationship and eventually >> then they're like, "All right, who wants to meet you?" And then >> do you want to do an interview and follow up on your episodes?

>> But that but you did an interview episode with him, but it doesn't do as well as your own Nvidia episode.

>> That one may have been like at some particular peak of Nvidia buzziness. So

it was our probably our then largest episode.

>> Well, here's what happens with interviews.

>> Makes it they spike faster.

>> Yeah. and then they go and those listeners don't retain the way that >> whereas if you look at our um Costco episode which is now two and a half

years old or um LVMH or MEZ Rolex like they just they just keep going they just I mean I'm sure your books are like this like they just they just keep going.

>> Yeah.

>> Every time I bring out a new book it has the same effect on the old books that a new podcast has on old podcast. Yeah. It

sells all the backlist. So that so yes.

>> All right. So um I was asking you how you studied a business and you told me you you read everything there is you so and you must find when you go and read everything there is

>> you're very polite and you're very generous about citing your sources and all that but you must find >> my wife is an academic my wife has a PhD she was trained as an academic and she was like you guys got to site your

sources like what are you doing like >> oh well yeah but it's also but you you are you ever surprised by the weakness of the source material.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes.

>> In fact, literally today, >> we are no longer surprised, but >> we got an email from a company that we recently covered saying, you said a a factually incorrect story in the episode and we know the book that you got it

from because it was factually incorrect in that book. We told the author that it was factually incorrect and it went out anyway right?

>> And now you're repeating the incorrect story. And you know, we have now an

story. And you know, we have now an Arata section where we publish our email list. And I bet you're mainly correcting

list. And I bet you're mainly correcting other people's errors that you just repeated.

>> I mean, sometimes there are sometimes there are.

>> Yeah.

>> Sometimes we make a financial calculation error or something like that but >> right. So, we read all source material

>> right. So, we read all source material and then and then we start to make phone calls in 2023 and now the phone calls are more are are have become extremely important and you're making >> extremely 25 of them.

>> Google is 40 probably across.

>> And do you find that when you're reaching out on by phone to all these people that that they always want to talk to you or no? Sometimes it makes.

>> Yeah.

>> But usually when you approach it with a spirit of >> I'm just trying to understand its own background.

>> Yes. We are going to tell a narrative here. Our biggest question to you is

here. Our biggest question to you is what is most misunderstood >> and what incorrect stories are out there where we can set the record straight.

>> And you get lots of great information after that. It's a very good way to go

after that. It's a very good way to go about it.

>> It's I do the same thing when I'm researching something. I I don't know

researching something. I I don't know what the story is for the longest time and I'm holding everything very loosely and all the almost all the relationships I have with people I'm interviewing is hey this is all in background I just

want to try to understand this can I hop on a call with you and they're usually pretty open to it and like I just want to be educated kind of thing and it's a great way to say like what's the stupid thing people say because everybody has

an opinion >> but it's not a trick like this isn't here's one cool trick to get people to talk to you what I think you mean it earnestly and we mean it earnestly of I want to make something >> that's good.

>> Everybody has different beliefs about the truth, but I want to I want to make the story that most correctly approximates the average truth that exists from all these different truthy sources.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I don't think of it quite that way. I But I do think it's like I want

way. I But I do think it's like I want to give something that's good and pure and true and is like is like the thing that will once it's said there's nothing else to say. It's like done.

>> Yeah. I got to imagine for your subjects and I think a big part of us too is like there's the truthy aspect which is very very important but there's also the like this is going to be great like this is

going to be really fun this is going to be entertaining to read and people are going to consume it that's I think a huge motivation for our sources >> have you so when you're working on one of these episodes

do you are you aware of how much fun you're having learning and do you ever have you ever shut something down just because oh this isn't that much fun the Fed. Maybe

Fed. Maybe >> that's kind of why we killed the Fed. We

we've definitely killed other episodes.

>> If you can find fun in the Fed, man, you are you are doing you're you're you can find fun.

>> You were doing Yeah.

>> We can generate all that enthusiasm for each other's insights about the Fed.

>> We killed Bell Labs cuz we couldn't find a throughine. There were so many

a throughine. There were so many different stories, so many different characters.

>> I know. We might come back to it.

>> Bell Labs. I that would that's one that if I saw it, I said, "Yes, I want to listen to that."

>> It feels like a Michael Lewis book >> there. You could kind of do it as the

>> there. You could kind of do it as the history of the transistor, but then you miss all these other things like radar and um >> yeah, there's so much stuff that came out of >> Did you do Xerox Park?

>> No.

>> No. No. But yeah,

>> it's another one, >> right?

>> Yeah.

>> I guess Google still has this spirit where they're doing lots of stuff that maybe you can't identify instantly.

Yeah. The payoff that's right around the corner. This kind of like let's just

corner. This kind of like let's just fiddle around, see what we find stuff. I

mean, >> corporate America, I think, just generally does less of that than it used to do a long time ago.

>> Uh, but the big tech No, I'm trying to think that's an interesting.

>> So, uh, I'm stealing this idea from our friend Hamilton Helmer, but he brought up this idea in conversation with us that, um, there is a positive benefit to

monopolies because they create the cash flows that fund these sorts of boondoggle basic research. And

a lot of the most important Yeah.

>> technologies that move society forward, >> you need some waste >> come out of these >> you need fat.

>> Yes. And like boy does Google have that.

I mean you just their last quarter was their first hundred billion dollar quarter ever.

>> Astonishing.

>> I know.

>> And that's how they fund you know the next Gemini.

>> Right. Right. And Whimo and Yeah.

>> So actually you just bring up your friend Hamilton Helmer. Yes. who I had never heard of until I listened to your podcast and you do that thing of the seven powers. Let's just briefly since

seven powers. Let's just briefly since we're here how you study a business that has been a useful analytical framework for you whatever these seven powers are and I'll never remember any of them but

that's why we say every network effects and all that uh what is it about Hamilton like where did you find him and why is you making him so famous

>> there there's a lot of good frameworks out there for analyzing business strategy and this one just clicked I just read it and I was like that is actually the complete list >> when Did you read it?

>> You found I think it was 2020.

>> Uh he was read that list. I read the list and it was all gobbly hook to me.

The there were these I mean it didn't the words did not mean things but you have to know what they mean.

>> If I asked you in plain English, can you brainstorm all the ways in which a uh industry-leading company gets away with being more profitable than their

competitor and gets to keep being more profitable.

>> That's the list you would come up with.

You might find >> what creates the moat.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah. Right.

>> Right. But so so why did you decide you even needed that framework?

>> We >> Oh, it goes hand in hand with the durability.

>> If you're trying to study why is a business durable, it the cause is the power.

>> We'd always been searching for a way to land the plane on the episodes. Like we

tell this story and we finish the story, but that unsatisfying like uh what's the takeway? Yeah. And so we had all various

takeway? Yeah. And so we had all various permutations of analysis at the end.

>> Buy or sell or hold, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. You know, we did bull and bear and grading and blah blah blah.

Once we shifted to like, hey, we're studying these great companies, these durable businesses, power felt like a a really good part of that like so what,

right? Why?

right? Why?

>> For me, a critical critical part of process, it goes back to writing a senior thesis at Princeton. Everything

needs to pass through multiple cycles of source material through my brain through my fingers onto a keyboard and recycle back through about three times. Yep.

>> Uh and and so like I don't use AI note-taking. I do

note-taking. I do >> write physical notes in hard copy books.

Like if I'm not doing that, uh I feel like it's not going to work. Yeah.

>> His what do you do?

>> So I have exactly the same issue and I discovered I wanted to be a writer writing my senior thesis. had no

ambition to do it before then and then all of a sudden I thought, "Oh my god, I love this." And what I loved was just

love this." And what I loved was just that was the was the constant recycling of the of the thought. And and so what I do my the process I don't want to get

too far away from your podcast, but I'm sitting with my notepad.

>> Yeah.

>> So this is a filter. Like if I'm talking to you, it takes effort to put it down on the page. I don't record anything that I've filtered it. It's interesting

enough to me that it belongs on the page. Then I go home and I write the

page. Then I go home and I write the notes up quickly. Uh, and that's another filter. If what's on the page interests

filter. If what's on the page interests me enough to put it in in in a word document, then I've got it's filtered again. Yeah.

again. Yeah.

>> Um, and I and I keep those notes while I'm working on a book and the file will be 500 pages long by it, maybe longer by the time and it's just stuff

>> and then I start thinking about how do you frame the story? What is this story?

Um, but it's that's months usually down the road like and there are times when I get into something and I am months into it and I realize there's nothing here with Sam Begmanf Freed I was a year into

it and I did not know what I was going to do with it until it blew up and THEN I THOUGHT OH MY GOD I I HAD THE story >> when it been sitting there for a year

watching >> Do you think you would have not published the book if it hadn't >> Oh no I wouldn't >> Wow, you would have killed the book.

>> Well, I might have found a way to do it.

I might have found a way to do it, but I hadn't found a way to do it. And it was always the same conversation with my editor. It was, I just don't know where

editor. It was, I just don't know where this is going. I don't know what the end is. When I don't know what the end is, I

is. When I don't know what the end is, I don't know what the beginning is. And

it's that simple. And it wasn't that, oh, I smelled fraud or anything like that. It was just it didn't have shape

that. It was just it didn't have shape to it. It was just it was pickarest

to it. It was just it was pickarest experience after pickarest experience.

It was like Doni Hody, but the but the first chapter over and over and over and over. And so there was material there,

over. And so there was material there, which is why I kept coming back. It was

fun. There were endless scenes. There

were, you know, but it was just like I don't know.

>> Yeah. But scenes don't make a scenes don't make a play.

>> They're necessary. They're necessary but insufficient.

>> Yeah.

>> So, but the bigger point I hate to we I don't want to be talking about me. We be

talking about you. But this proc you are doing I s I smell this from your your work.

>> You're doing a something that rhymes what I with what I do. You are gathering before you make judgments. You're open

to learning things. You're trying to be the world's best student. You want

people to want to teach you. And uh and then if you if people want to teach you, they will teach you. And then you could take what you learn and you could present it in the way the best way you can present it.

>> I basically take a note in two scenarios. One is

scenarios. One is oh I just figured out how that works and that is so cool. Like when I learned how a mechanical >> master of the like this is such a cool

thing, >> it was like I we got excited.

>> This is in some ways irrelevant to the business success of Rolex, but I it will it will make my year to explain on air how a mechanical watch works and how an

escapement is a thing and >> my excitement around the >> greatest moments. Yeah, it is.

>> Or or or the Costco ballet or like Yeah.

>> Yeah. So, there's the I just figured out how something worked and then there's the I just made a connection and I it's like I'll be on a run. I'll be listening to an audio book. It'll be the third audio book that I've listened to about a

certain subject and I'll I'll hear something and think, "Oh, that's why." And I'll stop and I'll

that's why." And I'll stop and I'll write my little Apple note. This

timestamp in this book, you know, just realized why. I can't think of an

realized why. I can't think of an example right now. This happened. And

then later I go and I look it up in the Kindle book and I figure out like how I want to explain the connection that I just learned on air. But it has to come from the I have to like remember and

bottle up my excitement of learning it in that moment to share that enthusiasm with the listener.

>> Yeah. Yep. That's that's all very familiar to me.

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>> You really don't want to be late to this. We talked on our Google series

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and just tell them that Ben and David sent you.

>> So give me a fourth example of a lesson learned from an episode.

>> Uh this we learned I I feel like I learned from Ben Thompson, which is >> tell the audience who Ben Thompson is.

Ben Thompson is the author of Stratecy, >> proprietor of >> proprietor, founder of strategy. Uh

>> we did an episode on on him and and with him a few years ago, >> but his writing is sort of the thing that we bonded over when we met.

>> He's a great strategy technology writer.

A the internet niches are way bigger than you think they are. So if you think you're writing about a niche topic, the internet being a global community of

fourish billion people means that any little niche, there might be six people in your geography that care about it in your local town, but there there's millions of people online, right?

>> And the internet is your way to reach them. So no matter how niche you are,

them. So no matter how niche you are, it's actually way way bigger. And the

correlary to that is in the media business in podcasting you can grow your audience and thus your revenue and thus your importance in the

world. All outputs can scale completely

world. All outputs can scale completely independently of your inputs. David and

I effectively do the same thing that we did not 10 years ago but two years ago to make an episode but the audience has grown so much that like every output from the business is dramatically different even though all the inputs are

the same. And so we really like took to

the same. And so we really like took to heart the niche of smart people who care about how these businesses work and why the world is arranged in this way is large and we don't have to scale our

operation to reach them. We just have to keep making the highest quality stuff and giving people reason to share it.

>> What is your operation? I mean we're in here with a a a large group of large men and and and this is a bigger operation but this isn't your normal operation.

What is your operation?

>> Uh, I have a basement studio. You know,

it's an office that we happen to have some lights and a camera in.

>> I built a studio in my backyard. So,

that's the YouTube. You mentioned that you send your stuff to an editor without naming the editor.

>> His name is Steven.

>> Steven is part of what we do.

>> Uh, he does. I'm not sure he'd want us to share on air.

>> So, Stephen So, Ste So, the mysterious Steven.

>> He's an independent contractor. We're

his only client.

>> And he works only for you.

>> He's And he's the best.

>> He's the best. So he's clearly good at his >> Stephen is as maniacal about creating the best audio product >> and video when we do it.

>> But we Yeah. No, we no assistance. No,

we we do everything.

>> You don't sell. You don't have ad sales.

We do all the >> We love doing the businesses.

>> You do right.

>> We love We love doing the business equally as much as we love making.

>> And I love the alignment. the business

and the content are equally important and they're they're like married.

>> Yeah. It's funny you're preparing for this like we're always tempted like to just talk about the business because we love the business as much as the show but we never talk about the business.

>> So I want So let's just stop here for a moment because I want to talk about this first before we move on from Stephen. So

Stephen is in this rare position of basically being the only person who helps you create this thing.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> How different is the >> We hired a wonderful production crew because we wanted to have a great video for for today.

>> Right. So, how different is what you give what comes out of >> Stephen from what you give him?

>> Eight, nine hours of raw audio with dozens of retakes, sometimes hundreds of retakes.

>> We produce each other as we go.

>> Hundreds of retakes.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. David will say a paragraph and I'll be like, >> "Wait, wait. I want to do that in an acquired tone."

acquired tone." >> Wow, that's amazing. Hundreds of

hundreds of retakes. You do hund That's incredible. Well, I would have guessed

incredible. Well, I would have guessed like if you just asked me five hundreds.

>> You sound You sound like a millennial.

>> I just want to be appropriately amazed.

>> The number of hundreds. You can't do hundreds of >> literalies that we cut.

>> We cut literally all the time.

>> Literally. Totally. But the retakes though are a different thing. The

retakes are >> We didn't say that clearly enough. We

didn't land the point.

>> I made a point where I wasn't paying enough attention to what David was saying cuz I was like looking over at my notes and then I make the same point and he's like, "Oh, I think you missed it. I

just said that. Can you just say the last >> Oh, I see.

>> thing as an uh and then we'll move on.

>> Or I explain something in twice the amount of time and David's like getting bored. And he's like, that was a real

bored. And he's like, that was a real monologue. I think we got to keep the

monologue. I think we got to keep the story moving. And I'm like, I agree. Uh

story moving. And I'm like, I agree. Uh

when I wrote it in my notes, I was really excited about it, but now that we're in the moment, I can feel that it's slowing down the energy. So, let me take two minutes. let me retype some stuff and let me figure out if there's a

condensed way to say that so that it can flow seamlessly in the energy of the story.

>> Right.

>> But that is all in the eight nine hours.

>> So and so he's cutting it in half.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> And when he come when he when it comes back to you from him.

>> So he be he he turns eight nine hours of that into an intelligible >> into like five is probably appropriate to call it like release candidate one to use like a software analogy. Right.

>> And then we make 5 to 800 additional cuts to cut another hour off of it. And

that stuff we're >> Are you doing it on the page? You doing

it on the page.

>> Uh we use a a tool called Descript. Uh

which we we sort of use it. Not

>> You're not listening to it. You're

reading.

>> We are listening to it and we are watching. Yeah. Yeah. Watching.

watching. Yeah. Yeah. Watching.

>> And how long does that take?

>> Days.

>> Three days.

>> Three days to edit.

>> Yeah.

>> Cuz we usually do We usually do two cycles of that.

>> And then do you send it back to him after you've done that? Yeah.

>> And then we do it again. and you do it again.

>> I listen at 1x and you have to like feel where you get bored or feel where you're just like I don't care. Like you have to get so sick of the material where you're just like cutting bone.

>> You You're the hero on this. I can't

bring myself to do it. I listen on on two and a halfx just it's it's you are the hero for doing >> you don't actually listen it to it at normal speed.

>> Ah it's so like Ben really jumps on the grenade for this >> almost always. You can cut the beginning of almost everything you that that there's always throat clear.

Yeah. Wind up. You don't need it. You

just go right to it. And uh and then once I start to feel it get taught, I just love it. I love it. I love I like I like make the hardest thing is getting the stuff out in the first place. And

then once it's once it's out on the page, then you could start ah each time it gets better. I find there's no despair associated with it. And there's

stuff in the original draft that is a remnant of the point you thought you were going to make and by the time you get to the end you're like that's actually not the the important thing here. I no longer need that whole setup

here. I no longer need that whole setup or that that >> or it's in there in all kinds of other ways.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah. But it's important that you had the idea, but it's buried in the in the story some which way.

>> Yeah.

>> David will often highlight something and go at Ben okay to cut belaboring.

>> So the minute you're there, you know it's got to be cut.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Mostly, right? Our default

is always cut. Always cut. Yeah. And so

you get 5 hours down to whatever it is.

Three and a half. Four.

>> We we three and a half is the sweet.

>> And how do you know when you're done?

>> We Yeah.

>> So deadines.

You're never really done. I would love one more edit.

>> We'd always There's always more. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

>> We have both the gift and the curse of deadline and next episode coming.

Whereas like you you have a infinite timeline right?

>> No, no, no. I have a I I mean I owe a book on June the 1st that will come out September the 29th that I will start writing on January the 5th and I will write it in five chunks and each chunk will be delivered at the end of the

month and I won't be able to go back.

>> Okay. Wait wait wait wait. What happens

if you get to June and you're like I'm not I'm not uh >> can't can't >> Okay. So it's it's a hard dead. It's a

>> Okay. So it's it's a hard dead. It's a

drop dead.

>> Yeah. But I I always find I once I establish that deadline which is a reasonable deadline because I've done all spent a year doing the work. I have

the material. By the way, it's very polite of you to ask me questions about myself.

No, it's like No, but but but that that it's >> somehow if you take your deadlines seriously, that's the key. You take the deadlines deadly seriously and you just

refuse to violate them. Um then you're serious when you establish them and you your mind just finishes when it needs to finish. I I and I'm always like a couple

finish. I I and I'm always like a couple of days ahead of it.

>> Yeah. So, I would talk a little bit about the business side because this is something that I certainly don't know anything about in in your lives, but you turn this into a very lucrative franchise and you go out and you and and

unlike most podcasts, you're not you're not subcontracting this the the sale of ads to some other company and you're not just promiscuous in who you have as

advertisers. So, you have two or three,

advertisers. So, you have two or three, four, whatever it is, major advertisers you every season and um and some stability there.

when you go, walk me through, pretend Michael Lewis, Inc. is your target that you want me to be a like the anchor tenant in your building and you're

coming in to tell me why I should do this. Give give me a give me a sense of

this. Give give me a give me a sense of it with that.

>> I'll let David give you the sales pitch.

The philosophy of the whole thing comes from we want to create a durable business on our side and a great listener experience on the listener side. And I always feel as a listener so

side. And I always feel as a listener so disrespected when there is this content of the podcast that is diamond quality >> and then they are running scratch

McDonald's ads in the middle >> usually not read by the host usually with some jingle playing underneath.

>> It bothers the hell out of me too and I haven't been able to do anything about it. I I agree. I it and I it it's it's

it. I I agree. I it and I it it's it's the biggest complaint I get about my podcast. It's like

podcast. It's like >> I got to listen to these ads. The very

first ad we ever sold, we said, "What sponsor could we get that would make people perceive acquired to be a higher quality brand?" So, we could like have

quality brand?" So, we could like have our cake and eat it too. We'll get

>> I tried this. I had a thought about this on mine and no one ever took me up on it. Just find the things I actually use

it. Just find the things I actually use and I'll and I and it will be fun to talk about them. I want to I want to tell the whole world about exeicio

underpants and and I can't get Exeicio to return my calls. I mean, that kind of thing. foolish.

thing. foolish.

>> I just sleep with the Wait, so literally you're telling me that Michael Lewis called I didn't I just gave them a I gave my podcast a list of things that I really love. Just love.

love. Just love.

>> Oh, wait. You got to call them. That's

the That's the problem.

>> And well, that probably is the problem.

My podcast company does not does not actually sell the ads. Another company

sells the ads. And so it's just I that I thought that was the way to make it seamless is actually integral to my life will be the things that we're talking about.

>> So that is a structural blocker to creating the best experience, >> right?

>> And everything has a trade-off. The

trade-off for us is we spend an enormous amount of time engaging with our sponsors. We write a custom read for

sponsors. We write a custom read for every single sponsor, every single episode. We try to write it as if we're

episode. We try to write it as if we're almost like talking about what we think is interesting about the business. We're

doing this like mini two-minute analysis and you know there's some horse trading there of we have to make these points.

Okay. But like for the most part and the best sponsor relationships are the ones where they say like yeah your listeners are going to respond the best >> to what you have to say.

>> Yeah. So so if you're Michael Lewis we want you to be a sponsor. I would say we're not coming to pitch you like we're we're deciding a year in advance >> now too >> when we're when we're now two years in

advance like what do we want our slate of partners to look like right >> so we start Michael Lewis Inc. we think is going to be super strategic for us in 2027, 2028. We start planning like,

2027, 2028. We start planning like, okay, how are we going to make this happen? How are we going to make sure

happen? How are we going to make sure that we we really you you Michael Lewis Inc. is as good as we think it could be.

>> How are we going to make sure that we're going to work really well together that you're going to see massive ROI from us?

>> At any point, do you sit there worrying that you're compromising the, you know, the the shows because of your the relationship you're about to have with an advertiser?

>> No. There's been companies that don't feel Switzerland enough that come to us that want to sponsor and we just like the idea of not picking a venture capital firm to

say we think this is the best venture capital firm. It's like too much of a

capital firm. It's like too much of a picking team.

>> That's I've never heard anybody say that. They don't feel Switzerland

that. They don't feel Switzerland enough. Is this a is this a is this a

enough. Is this a is this a is this a cliche in the VC business?

>> No, I think that's a lovely line. So

you're looking for Switzerland.

>> Yes.

>> And what do you mean by that? companies

that we think are great where we don't have to take a side in like a big contentious current thing conversation >> or the industry dynamics are >> Coca-Cola >> we don't really deal with

>> we don't okay number one >> okay here we go >> B2B companies with high very high LTB products >> so not not ex official underwear >> basically we want companies that are

doing a significant number of multi-million dollar annual deals with customers because we want to feel like we can deliver a couple incremental of those for youirectly to us. Yeah. And

then like it's just a no-brainer.

>> Many of our sponsors have been ROI positive on signing one large customer who heard about them unacquired. That is

awesome.

>> And often it's not even just heard about unacquired. It's events are are a big

unacquired. It's events are are a big part of this. Uh so we do events with almost all of our sponsors. So

>> there's the funnel of like heard about unacquired. That helps. But then like

unacquired. That helps. But then like we're doing a event together with them.

We're sitting next to their best prospect.

>> So, so I'm I'm thinking about hiring you. What kind of event will you do for

you. What kind of event will you do for me?

>> We're happy to join for a customer dinner. We're happy to speak at your big

dinner. We're happy to speak at your big annual customer conference.

>> We're happy to uh we're happy to go to a sporting event with you with your top clients. We're happy to

clients. We're happy to >> And at that sporting event, will you do like some >> fireside chat? Some fireside chat. Yeah.

>> Interview your CEO.

>> Interview a legend from the sport. How

many hours of your time am I gonna get?

>> A couple days. Couple days.

>> We're there full and while we're there with you, it's like there. How can you maximize using us?

>> You promised to be my friend.

>> Yeah, of course.

>> You'll be my friend, too, in the bargain.

>> We're great friends with a whole bunch of Okay, so then it gets even better.

So, we um let me let me tell you more.

>> Tell me more. I'm getting interested.

I'm on the edge of my seat here.

>> The reason this whole thing works is the people who listen to a choir are the most valuable audience in the world. And

so if you want to market your B2B software or financial product or whatever to them, >> founders are executive decision makers, right?

>> But really, I mean, take a step back. I

think the whole business side and a lot of the content too, but the whole business side of acquired starts with we were venture capitalists. We're not

media people. So we have just always taken an approach. You're aspiring to be a great partner to them. You know,

you're going to help recruit employees, you're going to help with whatever. And

so we just like like great that's how we approach our partners, >> right? Why do you think maybe you've

>> right? Why do you think maybe you've just answered the question? Why do you think no other podcast has approached their business in the way you approach your business?

>> I think we just came at it from like this this >> you think coming from a kind of media space and the media space was kind of bad business.

>> Okay, here's a take. The media business model of splitting the commercial activity from the editorial >> is a societal benefit that we all

benefit from from publications like the New York Times.

>> Yep.

>> Journalism.

>> It is really good for journalism that that exists. The rest seems to have

that exists. The rest seems to have adopted it and everyone doesn't need to.

>> Right.

if you're the host of Acquired, it's kind of great if you're going and learning about your sponsor's business and working with them and trying to build partnerships with them. It was

almost like it um we had the luxury of getting to rethink what our operational model looks like.

>> So then the thing that brought it full circle a couple years ago is we added an investment fund. So not our public

investment fund. So not our public company sponsors, but almost all of our private company sponsors, we invested them. So it came full circle.

them. So it came full circle.

>> You all you created an investment fund.

You two are met, you are you you're the ones who are making the investments.

>> Yes.

>> Is it how you doing?

>> It's quite full circle. We're only a year in, but we've we've invested in uh five of our sponsors, and several of them are more valuable than when we've invested.

>> Yeah. We we we asked ourselves, we're like, how do we do this? The focus is the show. If we're for a venture capital

the show. If we're for a venture capital firm with the podcast, it does doesn't work. We need to do a podcast for the

work. We need to do a podcast for the venture capital firm. The way we make this work is we just invest in our sponsors. We put all this work into

sponsors. We put all this work into finding the best partners for our sponsors in every category that we think are great. Why wouldn't we just invest

are great. Why wouldn't we just invest in them? We don't do any incremental

in them? We don't do any incremental work.

>> Invest in all of your sponsors.

>> No, but a lot of the time like we'll just get a call that, hey, we're raising an up round. We we want to talk about it in the next ad read. And we say, oh, that's cool. Can we can we invest a

that's cool. Can we can we invest a couple million dollars? And they're

like, the round's like 300 million, so no one on the cap table's going to care, and we love that you're more aligned with us now, so we'll make room. So you

you're only really accepting as sponsors companies that you would like to invest in.

>> That's essentially the frame we we put on the whole thing.

>> It's not a perfect mobile.

>> JP Morgan is not an example.

>> Right. Right. We we think it we like having a couple public companies JP Morgan, Shopify, Service Now.

>> And how deep is this market? How many

acquireds could be created on the back of this business model?

>> Oh, I think a lot. The question that I'm always wondering is why aren't there more acquireds out there?

>> I'm asking that question now.

>> The format. Here's the ingredients.

>> Two hosts that independently go do research and through storytelling, like narrative storytelling and analysis, create a conversational audio book.

Could be about businesses, could be about sports teams, could be about movies, >> political parties, could be about any how >> any arena of ambition as you would say.

>> There should be unacquired in all these other verticals. In fact, the business

other verticals. In fact, the business vertical >> there's a lot more lot more money in business.

>> Yes. in tech and finance.

>> I think there's there's a bit of a cold start if you were to propose >> going and creating an acquired for um sports. Uh you would the sort of risk I

sports. Uh you would the sort of risk I guess we took we didn't think about it as risk at the time because it was just a hobby was you you're looking at years of no or little monetization, right?

Because it's going to take a long time to build up the audience, right?

>> Versus, oh, I could go join a network. I

could join make a show on the ringer.

could, you know, do whatever.

>> Acquired was path dependent on us having day jobs for sure.

>> Right.

>> And day jobs in the industry that you're going to cover, >> right?

>> Yeah. Right.

>> We built half the relationships and all the knowhow and all the shortorthhand none from being in the industry before.

>> So I asked you how many acquireds could be created in in just your space.

What percentage of the advertising revenues do you think you're hoovering up >> in the way you're hoovering them up >> in like b business >> the B2B like the things you the kind of

people you will accept as your sponsors how many times >> well they're uh fortunately for there there are a lot more people who want to sponsor acquired than >> that's what I mean like how many more are there >> a lot

>> there's probably we're probably three or 4x overs subscribed on on like >> people who really could convert on becoming sponsors. If we said, "Sure,

becoming sponsors. If we said, "Sure, we'll take you."

>> How come you don't spawn an extra acquired or two? How come?

>> Well, I think that that uh why don't you create Why don't you create the next use?

>> Then we're not acquired.

>> Then we're not usually >> do less.

>> Then we become CEOs, right?

>> We do not want to build.

>> Yeah. So now you've decided No, it's funny. You There's a line that um that

funny. You There's a line that um that you don't you don't have bosses.

>> Yeah.

>> You you have incentives.

>> Yeah. But you don't have bosses >> and we're not other people's bosses.

>> That's like my life, too. I have a lot of incentives. I have no bosses. When

of incentives. I have no bosses. When

you're in any kind of creative thing, there is this benefit to not just following the financial incentives and and not trying to kind of like milk

every last penny out of it. And to

creating scarcity, not just for the sake of the scarcity, but for the sake of the quality.

>> Yeah.

>> And only do it if it's great. If you

only do it, it's it's a long-term strategy. I mean, it's not that I think

strategy. I mean, it's not that I think all my books are great. I don't write them, though, unless I think they're going to be great. Yeah. I just don't.

>> Well, why would you allocate? Let's say

you have a portfolio of however many more years you think you're going to write, 20, 30. Why would you allocate, you know, I don't know how a year and a half? Why would you blow a slot on a bad

half? Why would you blow a slot on a bad book?

>> That's a gaping hole.

>> I give you a a reason why some people might. a publisher offers me gazillion

might. a publisher offers me gazillion dollars to write a book about X >> and how much >> I know the book's gonna suck because it's not actually a good idea for a book and it's not gonna be fun to do because all the fun is in it may be great.

>> Is there any chance any of those dollars make your life better at this point?

>> Zero.

>> So this is the thing people miss. What

is Lane Kein going to get out of an extra couple of million dollars going to LSU from Old Miss? Yeah. the average

athlete who's taking a few million dollars more to move his wife and kids from one family, one city that they loves him and that he loves to some strange place where everybody's going to be unhappy.

>> People do this all the time.

>> All dollars do not have equivalent value. No,

value. No, >> the the marginal dollars have way smaller value than the early dollars.

>> Sometimes they end up having kind of negative value and you become a person who that's what you're about. It's like

you're saying, "I'm going to be the person who just follows the financial incentives rather than I'm going to control the I'm going to let these incentives do." They could be useful.

incentives do." They could be useful.

They get you out of bed in the morning for a while, but you you have to kind of kind of control them. So, I love that you're not milking the market.

>> I think there's two different things that we're talking about here. One is uh milking the market, yes or no. Uh the

other one is do you want to build an enterprise or do you want to stay a boutique? So like to to your question

boutique? So like to to your question for us like why don't we create more of choirs like we we we don't want to manage other shows podcast hosts >> people people often tell us like oh you're building this business you guys are sort of foolish because there's

there's all this keyman risk like you're building this great business but if either of you leave unfortunately your business has low enterprise value and we're like >> okay >> but if we sold this business then we

would just go start acquired >> like we're already doing the dream >> yeah the dream is what we're doing >> all right so I took us off on a sid track. We've only gotten through four. I

track. We've only gotten through four. I

want to hear the fifth. We've gotten

like five or six. We've got a bunch. I

want to hear number. What's the fifth lesson you learned? Founder control was my a huge one.

>> Is this from Google?

>> I think we we again this is one of these things that we like learned early but then got reinforced through episodes.

Meta Rolex >> Trader Joe's, >> IKEA.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh like stay private, be familyowned.

>> You don't even have to take Meta's public company, but but yeah, Founder. I

mean Google, too. Google's founder

controlled to >> the important things in the world probably should be big publicly traded corporations. But like there's these

corporations. But like there's these amazing wonderful things you can create by being boutique and and maintaining control.

>> I think there's an argument to be made that in any industry where they're both private and public companies. The

private companies end up being much better run. And I mean like that mostly

better run. And I mean like that mostly bad things happen when companies go public and certainly less pleasant. So

public or private, your point is founder control.

>> But there's also just like a personal choice element. Uh last year we

choice element. Uh last year we we we had a like a existential crisis is way too dramatic. But I think something that was on our minds was like are we being wussies?

>> We're not doing Hollywood. We're not uh adding more shows. We're not building an enterprise.

>> What triggered this? Are we being wussies?

>> We were currently researching Bell Labs.

>> And I think I felt like we were like chasing this like esotericness.

So, we we sought some advice and we went to one of the best investors ever who who we've gotten to know who's a fan of the show, you know, some somebody everybody would know. And uh we we asked him to dinner and we just sort of like,

hey, we we've got this, you know, we could do all these things. We're we're

not like Hollywood, etc. >> And we sort of expected his comment >> to be like dream bigger. Like, you know, go for it. Like, you know, you guys are being wussies. And he sort of sat there

being wussies. And he sort of sat there and he thought a minute and he said, "I have seen so many founders become trapped in prisons of their own

making in their own companies."

>> And they're successful prisons.

>> Yeah. Yeah. You guys have avoided that fate. Don't go down that road.

fate. Don't go down that road.

>> But what is I'm I'm missing actually the connection. Oh,

connection. Oh, >> why if you why if you were less wussy-ish would you have created >> higher people uh take on business, start

a second show.

Yeah, business wussies.

>> I thought maybe you were I thought you were saying you were avoiding like the >> cont Yeah, that's a whole separate wussies. But no, no, we we asked

wussies. But no, no, we we asked ourselves, are we being business wussies?

>> I see. Uh

>> but they sort of go hand in hand like cheap growth is covering the current thing.

>> It it will uh I've been toying with this idea of um stored potential energy that like great businesses have a stored potential energy that you can't see in

the current financials. And

>> great people have that too.

>> Great people have that too. They have

these reserves that you just they come out when they need them >> and they're not like presented in obviously they aren't sparkling there in front of your eyes anyway. And I think

we um we're trying to like store up as much potential energy and acquire it as we can rather than anytime there's a way to uh make it show up on the financial

statements sort of like letting out the pressure and being like, "Yep, second show. Yep, more ads. Yep, dynamic ads

show. Yep, more ads. Yep, dynamic ads from an ad network." Yeah, like just you can say yes to all these things and you can sugar high the current profits or you can try to like figure out how to store up as much potential energy as you can,

>> right?

>> And I think once you kind of hit the point in life where money won't make you any happier, then there's there's actually not a point to letting any of that potential energy

out. It just creates goodwill for

out. It just creates goodwill for everyone, most principally, selfishly yourself, to to keep it bottled.

>> Right. All right. So, how do we get on that? We I don't know how we get we got

that? We I don't know how we get we got that from >> founder control.

So, that was number five. Number six,

>> uh okay, I've got one from um this is a nonobvious one.

>> Also, can I just say like sometimes we do some stuff like this. We are not like saints. We're capitalists. Like, we're

saints. We're capitalists. Like, we're

running a capitalist enterprise here.

>> Sometimes we hire a production crew.

>> Yeah. Sometimes we uh last year we added a fourth ad slot. We always had three.

Last year we looked at ourselves and we said there's four podcast episodes.

We're currently at like 2% 3% ad load.

Everyone else is at 15%. God forbid we go to four and a half% of time. So like

we we indulge occasionally.

>> All right listeners, this is a great time to thank our friends at Sentry.

That's s N T R Y, like someone's standing guard, >> which is exactly what they do for developers. Sentry helps teams debug

developers. Sentry helps teams debug everything from errors to latency issues and fix them before users get mad. And

since this episode we are reflecting on 10 years of acquired, it's fitting to look at Sentry's journey, which actually looks a lot like our story. They started

in 2008 as a tiny open- source project, not even a company. And the goal was to solve one simple problem. Alert me when something is broken. It wasn't born out

of a big budget or a funding round. No

big strategy offsite. just a developer seeing something broken in the world and fixing it.

>> And from there, they just listened to what developers needed. More language

support, insight into what happened before an error, who was affected, which release broke, and where the bug lived.

Century delivered all these and slowly started compounding and making the product better every week for 17ish years. And that's why more than 150,000

years. And that's why more than 150,000 organizations trust them today. And the

range of those companies is incredible.

Disney Plus, Duolingo, Friends of the Show over at Verscell and Anthropic.

There's Cloudflare, GitHub, At Lassian, also a ton of indie developers who are shipping features at 2 in the morning.

Sentry has just become a key part of how modern software gets built. The product

has grown the way the best companies do, expanding organically into other tools that give developers granular context like tracing, profiling, and session replays. And now Sentry is taking the

replays. And now Sentry is taking the next step with AI. Their agent, Seir, can pinpoint root causes with nearly 95% accuracy by using everything that Sentry

already knows, including errors, logs, traces, and code. It even suggests fixes. And because Seir has that full

fixes. And because Seir has that full context, it can review a pull request and spot bugs before they ever ship.

This is not noisy code review. This is

like real error prediction. So, as

Acquired celebrates our own decade of learning and improvement, it is fitting to partner with a company that has been on a learning and improvement journey right along with the rest of the software industry over that same time.

Yes. So, thanks to Sentry for helping make sure that everyone's favorite apps work the way they should. You can check them out at centry.io/acquired.

That's s ny.io/acquired.

And just tell them that Ben and David sent you.

>> Okay. So sometimes we make episodes that either we think are going to be great or we're just really interested in them and they like in the numbers wise they don't perform.

>> They don't or they you know we the the great thing about podcasting is like it's always within like a 20 30% range.

So it's not like it's a total flop.

>> But give me an example of the of the podcast the extreme version of the one you all were most excited about that didn't resonate with your audience in the same >> Okay. Well, so the the lesson here is is

>> Okay. Well, so the the lesson here is is going to be Yeah. Um Nintendo, we thought Nintendo was going to be a >> big such a great it's an incredible

history, incredible story, incredible company. N of one company, durable over

company. N of one company, durable over a hundred years plus. Uh has been through so many iterations. People love

it.

You know, 20% underperformed our benchmark at the time. Um we're like, "Oh man."

"Oh man." >> And then we did a part two to really dig ourselves. Yeah.

ourselves. Yeah.

You know what people don't love is part twos.

>> Yeah.

>> They really don't love part two when they don't love part one.

>> Let me tell that joke again. It's so

funny that you might do better the second time.

>> Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

>> It's is a necessary subset. You never

tune in to something called part two without part one. And so the dumbest thing you can do if you're focused on growth is have an underperforming part one followed by a part two.

>> Right. Yeah. Yeah.

>> But we did it and you liked it. We had a great time.

>> Nintendo, it's like one of the most interesting I mean it started as a a Yakuza company. Uh like it's it's crazy.

Yakuza company. Uh like it's it's crazy.

>> How did it start?

>> It was playing cards. So gambling was illegal in Japan uh after the major restoration. Okay.

restoration. Okay.

>> And so they made Hanafuda cards which are cards in Japan and the Yakuza was the main customer.

>> And then they got into toys and then they way later found their way into >> Japanese mafia was the main customer.

That's funny.

>> Yeah. This is amazing amazing story and that they have this uh philosophy called lateral thinking with withered technology which is if you look at Nintendo systems you can go way way way

back it's not bleeding edge technology it's like >> a couple generations back technology how can we take withered technology and think outside the box with it so like the Wii is the best example of this the

game boy was the original example of this the game boy was basically a calculator but like you know it didn't have a color screen it had two buttons like you know but it was this incredible success.

>> You can see the passion.

>> I feel like I'm about to get you into part three.

>> Yeah, exactly. WE'RE GOING TO DO PART THREE.

>> OKAY. OKAY. OKAY. But but here's the lesson. Another episode that was totally

lesson. Another episode that was totally like this. Indian Premier League

like this. Indian Premier League cricket. Underperformed.

cricket. Underperformed.

>> Love that show.

>> Incredible story. Incredible story.

>> You either really loved it or didn't listen at all.

>> Yeah. This is the lesson. It's first.

It's the first of your shows I listened to.

>> That was started with IPL. You are

making the point.

>> This is why we did IPL. It's all worth it if we just got Michael. I'm I'm a partial owner of the RAJASTHAN ROYALS.

>> YOU ARE NOT.

>> I HAVE A ROYALS JERSEY.

>> YOU and Minaj is the majority owner.

He's a majority owner. So, it's a very tiny slice, but I but as I haven't been over I still can't explain the game, but the league >> Okay. How did you become a minority

>> Okay. How did you become a minority owner?

>> Two friends, I leave their names out of it. Um, but you know who they both were.

it. Um, but you know who they both were.

>> Okay.

>> Call and said, "There's this guy who's got this cricket team. He wants to make it the money ball of >> Oh, they're the Oakland days of the IPL.

Exactly. I got it. Yeah.

>> And he's he'd be open to having you invest. And they were both good filters.

invest. And they were both good filters.

Like if they were interested, it was already smart.

>> And I also thought >> it was small enough that if it went wrong, it would be an amazing story.

>> And even if it goes right, even if it goes right.

>> Have you met Lot Modi?

>> No. No. No. I haven't met anybody but Maninoj and and and it's oh boy oh boy oh boy no I know there's a whole >> have we got a subject for you >> but I'm not I don't want to redo your podcast it's just like there may be some

way down the so that was the other thing I was thinking like that a number of this could work out a number of ways >> so that anyway that was the first one I listened to it and you >> that was a un that was an it's an unbelievable story

>> oh it's unbelievable >> everybody in the world should listen to this thing >> and it underperformed >> and yet it underperformed >> okay but here but here's the lesson >> both Nintendo and IPL

we got they were the first listening experiences for some incredibly influential people who have changed the >> direction I think we can share the whole story yeah >> Nintendo was

>> specifically listened to by one person on the meta executive team who found it thought it was amazing sent it to the entire Metaexecutive team right and then they all listened >> right built >> we built a relationship with them and

then when JP Morgan called us and said >> we've got Chase Center >> yeah and they were like what would you do? And we asked this person like, hey,

do? And we asked this person like, hey, do you think Mark would want to do it?

And >> and he said, I don't know, but I'm going to ask him right now.

>> Right. And so without the Nintendo episode, >> without the Nintendo episode, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't do >> no 6,000 person.

>> And we have some similar stories with IPL. The point is that uh doing episodes

IPL. The point is that uh doing episodes uh that we one or both of us is just like insanely passionate about.

>> Where'd you learn this from? from doing

these episodes and like underperforming.

But >> no, we learned it from LVMH. I pitched

that like three times and you were like, >> "No, no, but LVMH was a banger. It

performed great."

>> Which is why we learned the lesson that if one of us feels passionate about something, go for it.

>> Oh, no. But I'm making a different point, which is that if one of us feels passionate about something, even if the episode is a relative dud, it's still worth doing because somebody latches on to that.

>> That's exactly right. If you don't feel anything, no, there's chance nobody's going to feel anything. If you feel a lot, someone's going to feel >> someone's going to feel something.

>> That's right. Yeah,

>> that's right. So, go. So, trust that feeling.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. It's about the magnitude of the way a small number of people feel about episodes often more than the >> Yeah. the spread.

>> Yeah. the spread.

>> I think that's right.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> No, sometimes we're passionate about something and it becomes a banger. You

know, that's that's the ideal. Rent

Renaissance Technologies. That was

amazing. That was incredible.

>> That's one of the episodes I've listened to. I loved it, too.

to. I loved it, too.

>> So great. It's one of like the two great mysteries on Wall Street. How they do what they do >> and who is Satoshi.

>> Those are the two.

>> Those are the two.

>> I kind of like the take that they invented machine learning a decade or two before and kept it secret that resembles LLMs and that they were able

to find signal that existed only in really weak ways in in a predictable alpha generating >> but that nobody else found it too. So

that it all went away because they hid it at the same time as they found it.

>> Yes.

>> That's mindblowing if true >> that that could still be going on with I mean you can see why it worked through the ' 90s.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> It's really hard with like Jane Street and Citadel and all these other places looking for every bit of signal in the marketplace. It is an amazing story and

marketplace. It is an amazing story and that is of the books I didn't write that I wished I'd written.

>> Were did you consider doing? I so Jim Simon's son had a kid in my oldest child's class in high school and I tried I appro I said look I can't do it unless

you want me to do it there's no point and he said like dad just like no no no this whole business of kind of doing it by radar completely from the outside you know you're going to get so many things

wrong yeah >> and it's like and embarrass yourself that you need to be so inside so that you don't so that the person you're writing about doesn't and say like that's just completely wrong and uh and

that I could have done that book but why you know that that that didn't appeal to me. What appealed to me was he was at

me. What appealed to me was he was at the end of his career. I didn't need all the secrets but I needed some of the secrets and uh and I and I would need

him and uh but that's one that's on my Oh, that's too bad that one got away.

>> Yeah. If a butterfly had flapped its wings differently and he collaborated, >> it would have been fabulous book. Yeah,

>> it would have been a fabulous book. Um,

all right, number seven.

>> It's a different twist on the NFL that, but we definitely learned it from the NFL. Create spectacle.

NFL. Create spectacle.

>> All right, we now >> a live event strategy.

>> Yeah, there's twofold. One, we now have stopped thinking about acquired as a habit for people. Most podcasts, your dream is to create a habit.

>> Yeah.

>> And ours, we've thrown that out the window and said, >> you don't do enough of them.

>> Right. Right.

>> So, we need to create events. It needs

to be the current thing when we release an episode for whatever your group of friends or you know acquaintances is like it has to be the watercooled conversation.

>> It has to be Monday Night Football >> and then once a year we have to have a Super Bowl.

>> Yeah.

>> And doing the Chase Center show and then the Radio City show. Very small amount of people in the audience. I mean

>> 6,000 >> 6. So it's Yeah. Great. It's the world's

>> 6. So it's Yeah. Great. It's the world's largest indoor theater. It's 6,000

people in this incredible venue in New York City. relative to the number of

York City. relative to the number of people who still it's >> uh point4% of the audience it's very small >> tiny percentage

>> but the amount of heat and light created from the the idea that you did that show >> right >> is more impactful to building the

franchise of acquired than any given episode maybe even than a whole season of episodes.

>> What's uh what's the first spectacle you created?

Well, Chase Center was the first we we had been steth we had been um uh we did a show in climate pledge arena in Seattle uh but it was one section

>> but actually by being able to say we did an arena show even though >> we talked about it on air as the acquired arena show and that had some >> we were able to say to to JP Morgan to

Chase Center to the Warriors like we have done this before. I'm gonna ask rude a couple of rude questions. You're

you're a Radio City uh musical event.

This is with Jamie Diamond. 6,000 people

>> and Meredith Copet Levian New York Times CEO and Barry Diller.

>> Okay. So, the three how many people are there for them and how many people are there for you?

>> We did not announce the guests.

>> Oh, >> so they were they were all there for acquired >> mostly because I wanted to give this answer.

>> We knew Michael at the end of the year was going to ask this >> question. So I So So all they knew was

>> question. So I So So all they knew was it was going to be acquired with the guest.

>> Was it sold out before you announced the guest?

>> We didn't announce the guest. So the

guest stage is a surprise.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, >> it hurt in my soul when we did Chase Center afterwards reflecting on it.

There was this little thing of like did all those people show up because it said Mark Zuckerberg on the poster.

>> Yeah. Well, now you know. So now we know. So now you know. So are you So

know. So now you know. So are you So that's this is your form of spectacle is these big public shows. Any other forms of spectacle on the horizon? Well, we

are doing the actual Super Bowl, so this is coming. We We basically manifested

is coming. We We basically manifested this. Uh,

this. Uh, >> are you the halftime show?

>> I wish us and Bad Buddy. We're gonna be on >> I would love the reaction of the NFL fan base. It's not going to be music.

base. It's not going to be music.

>> Ben and David are going to be an acquired episode.

>> Yes.

>> Yes. With Payton and Eli Manning.

>> The NFL that would so good. Manning has

the only way I watch Monday Night Football. Now,

Football. Now, >> we're doing the Innovation Summit. So

the NFL is launching >> launching a innovation summit the Friday before the Super Bowl because the Super Bowl's here in uh in San Francisco this year. So they're launching an innovation

year. So they're launching an innovation summit Friday before the Super Bowl with all the you know big partners in the NFL with Roger Goodell. Uh it'll be in the city in San Francisco and we're going to MC it.

>> Okay. So do you know who your guests are going to be?

>> We do. They haven't been announced yet, but it'll be it'll be on par with with our past.

>> Where are you doing this?

>> Uh venue SF Mama. Oh yeah. Okay.

>> It's it's not uh it's not going to be open to the public. It'll be it'll be streamed.

>> Um so it'll be a different style of event than uh >> VIP for the for uh it's for the NFL's partners right?

>> Um but uh yeah, it's going to be it's going to be incredible.

>> All right, let's go to I think we're on number nine.

>> All right, we're home. So, we made Costco uh in the back half of 2023, but it was one or two episodes after we made Nike.

Nike, I think, ended up being a fine episode, but I tried way too hard, like way too much pressure on myself. I won't

speak for you, on on the Nike episode, and it it uh it came out flat.

>> We read nine books between us, right, to prepare.

>> I think it was 11. So, it was just too much for all sorts of reasons. And so,

like we were like burnt out. We're not

happy. We decided to do Costco. I said

like I I just gota I got to take a different approach here. I got to play loose on this one. Like I can't, you know, play tight to use the sports analogy. And I said like let's let's

analogy. And I said like let's let's find the the one book like the right book, >> right?

>> Help that there was only really one book. Read read that book. Uh Salt

book. Read read that book. Uh Salt

Price's autobiography, right?

>> Read that.

>> Right.

>> Use that as the main source. Uh you got maybe one of the best primary source interviews ever. the the CFO of Costco

interviews ever. the the CFO of Costco gave you a one-on-one presentation.

>> Come over to the office and I'll sit you down and give you the entire whiteboard and PowerPoint on how the Costco business model works and we spent the whole afternoon together and it was >> and between those two things, the book

>> and that time that you you spent with Richard, that was that was the and we didn't need to do more than that.

>> When you went into it, did you know anything?

>> Yes.

>> What did you know >> when we went into starting work on Costco? We we knew nothing.

Costco? We we knew nothing.

>> Correct. But I knew a lot going into that meeting. I want I wanted to be able

that meeting. I want I wanted to be able to hear the things he was saying that were different than common wisdom. When

you there's a lot of think pieces out there about Costco. The Wall Street Journal loves to write about it.

Investors love to write about the stock.

So you can kind of >> Charlie's favorite company. You know,

there's lots of stuff out there.

>> And I I wanted to hear this was actually one of the last pieces of research because I wanted to be really prepped.

What did you you know you were talking about when you're working on an episode and you're going for a run and you some and you make some connection or some insight occurs to you and you stop and you write

it down.

>> What? Give me a few of the ones about Costco.

>> Low skew count drives everything.

>> Oh, all right.

>> That's that's the like the the >> number of things they have on the do you want the Charlie Mer talk? This is the >> the number of things they have on the shelf. So unlike Walmart, they has

shelf. So unlike Walmart, they has billions of things.

>> Walmart has 100 to 200,000 skis.

>> You get what you get. You don't pitch a fit. Whatever's there is there.

fit. Whatever's there is there.

>> 4,000 things.

>> Walmart is 100 to 200,000.

>> Yeah. And here's like all the knock-on effects of that. If you only sell 4,000 things, it doesn't take a lot of volume before very quickly you are a meaningful

seller to every single one of those products, those vendors.

>> Suddenly you become really important to that vendor. Right.

that vendor. Right.

>> Your merchandisers, since you only have 4,000, >> so your incentives start to enign.

>> Yes. The the merchandisers have a very small portfolio. You're not dealing

small portfolio. You're not dealing >> if you're a Walmart buyer, you're dealing with hundreds of vendors.

>> You're dealing with seven. And you would know the absolute crap out of their product line. If you sell chocolate, you

product line. If you sell chocolate, you monitor the price in cocoa commodities markets, right? And if it takes someone

markets, right? And if it takes someone who's managing a very small portfolio to stay that attuned to each one of the things, small skew count means that any

given thing on the shelf flies off the shelf pretty quick.

>> So there's not Yeah. So the turn, so there's more flow.

>> They're getting they're getting in some cases, they're getting multiple turns of cash flow before they pay the first time. On average, it takes them 27 days

time. On average, it takes them 27 days to sell through their entire inventory, which means that's on net 30 terms,

three days of grace where the inventory is actually financed by the vendors and then some.

>> And I think on average it's 27. So some

SKUs are selling in two days that they're turning. They're turning at 10

they're turning. They're turning at 10 times a month.

>> There's no working capital in this business other than building more Costos, >> right?

Low skew count for Costco is like low uh low episode volume for you. Right.

Right.

>> 100%. We Yes. Right.

>> And low number of partners so we can put like all of our being, you know, it's not normal. It's not really natural for

not normal. It's not really natural for a business to sell less of things, sell fewer things when you could sell more things. But actually doing that and when

things. But actually doing that and when you walk into it is the odd experience when you walk into Costco is the absence of choice.

>> Yeah. And in fact, consumers kind of like not having too much choice.

>> This is the >> There's all this there's all this research showing that if you if you sell 30 different kinds of jams in the supermarket, you will sell less jam than if you sell three kinds of jam because the the people just be paralyzed by the choice.

>> Yes.

>> And you smell you feel like Costco.

Someone has made all these decisions for me.

>> And they're good decisions.

>> Yes. It's curated.

>> Yeah.

>> You can't just run this strategy willy-nilly. If you're only going to

willy-nilly. If you're only going to sell very few things, you're only going to make very few episodes. It puts a lot of onus on making exceptional choices on the things that you do choose to carry, right? So, it's like a very high

right? So, it's like a very high leveraged strategy.

>> But, you didn't know anything about any of this when you went into the episode.

>> No, we were just The only reason we did the episode was it was Charlie Mer's favorite company.

>> All right. Give me another Give me another lesson.

>> How are we doing?

>> Is this the last?

>> This is acquired, Michael.

>> Okay. I KNOW. I KNOW. I know.

>> You said you didn't have any plans tonight.

We were sitting down with Morris Chang and he was talking about TSMC and he told us that one of the ways that they aired was trying to exit the integrated circuit market or diversify from that

market and go into >> solar memory >> memories and there was one other thing too and none of those were as good of a business and the the key insight was

you're already in the best business.

Integrated circuits are the future and will be for a long time and you're already the best at them. So stop trying to do other things and just do that really well. Uh probably to a fault and

really well. Uh probably to a fault and with a bias. We believe that about acquired every time we look at anything else >> we're do already doing the thing we should be doing. Don't go do something that we're less good at or it's going to

be less fun or right.

>> We should always just make another >> you have decided to become venture capitalists >> again. So the qu So here's a here's a

>> again. So the qu So here's a here's a I'm curious. What's the difference

I'm curious. What's the difference between what you do and what a normal Silicon Valley venture capitalist does before they put money in a company? Do

you think you know?

>> Well, I think there's a I think there's a there's there's just a um I think there's a top level misconception about what the venture capital industry is.

>> All right.

>> Uh I think a lot of people think it is a analytical industry. You're learning all

analytical industry. You're learning all about the company. You're doing

diligence. It's not that you're not. You

are doing that. But that's the commodity. It's an access business,

commodity. It's an access business, >> especially at the growth stage. Yeah.

Early stage, there's more picking involved.

>> But that picking is like a super art.

It's not a early stage picking is not a, you know, understanding a company, >> right? Early it's a it's a whole

>> right? Early it's a it's a whole different thing.

>> So the entire bet that we've made in this chapter of our venture capital careers is a bet that getting into the best companies is just an access thing.

the, you know, growth stage private companies, you can tell what the good ones are. Most people can't get in. If

ones are. Most people can't get in. If

you can, you should.

>> Or, you know, I mean, with we do the work in choosing our sponsors and then we you're like, "Okay, great. That box

checked. Our sponsors are not um nonobvious companies that all growth stage investors don't want to get into.

For the kind of work that you do to do a a podcast episode about a company, does it bear any resemblance to the kind of work a VC does uh about a company before

they invest in it?

>> Uh I don't think so. I wrote a lot of investment memos in my early stage career. They're all about

career. They're all about how big could this thing be if it goes right. But you're almost always

right. But you're almost always investing, at least I was, at the napkin stage. And so you're you're mostly

stage. And so you're you're mostly making stuff up. you're you're like dreaming what this market could look like when it materializes, but like you don't know. You're really just making a

don't know. You're really just making a founder bet and then you're trying to support it with all this like structural information that is a very um imprecise, >> right?

>> You're acting like you know the third or fourth decimal place when in reality you barely know the first one.

>> You answer my my question was is are these two things similar? And you're

saying basically not so much. So that

means that being a venture capitalist in no way really prepared you to create these podcast episodes because they're very different things.

>> Well, I think it I I think it prepared us to create the business that we created for sure.

>> But what have you learned? Put question

another way. What have you learned about telling a story >> uh that you didn't know how to do?

reading your books and you know being a liberal arts you know major at Princeton for me >> studying the businesses that we studied for acquired >> helps me make acquired far more than any

investment memo I ever wrote in fact I remember in one of my last few years of being a venture capitalist one of my partners uh asked me how I like learned

so much so quickly about different industry dynamics and I was like it's it's not cuz I'm talking all these early stage companies none of which know the future looks like. It's studying these mature businesses and understanding what

markets can look like at maturity.

Acquired helped me be an investor much better than the other way around.

>> Gotcha. What can you do now as storytellers that you couldn't do 10 years ago?

>> I think we think about narrative structure and acts uh and and what a story is, >> right? When we're reading books,

>> right? When we're reading books, sometimes a lot of books, especially corporate history books, are this happened and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened.

>> Y >> that's fine for you know cataloging history, >> right?

>> It's not a story.

>> That is not a story.

>> And at a certain point we realized like >> you can't do and this happened, >> right?

>> It's the why of it. It's the

>> it's the story flow.

>> The queen died and then the king died is not a story the queen died and then the king died of heartbreak is >> Yeah. If someone just told you they told

>> Yeah. If someone just told you they told me 10 years ago that two guys without any previous really literary podcasting any kind of experience we're going to

create this 4hour conversation about an individual company and people are going to be mesmerized by it. People are going to listen to the whole thing and and want even more. I said that doesn't

sound like very promising. Like I would not I wouldn't put money into that.

>> Yeah. You wouldn't as if you're an early stage. Like it's like why it works is a

stage. Like it's like why it works is a really good question cuz it's not obvious. It's counter to much of what's

obvious. It's counter to much of what's going on in the culture like attention spans supposedly getting shorter blah blah blah but you like it does work. It

clearly works. It works as a business but also works as just a creative thing.

Um and the why of it is like you must think about this all the time. The why

of it.

>> Yeah. I there's a bunch of different answers to this. One giant tailwind for us is a year after we started the podcast, AirPods came out >> and it became societally acceptable to

just listen to stuff while you're moving about the world >> while you're talking to your mother.

>> Yes.

>> So there there um our brains all got two input channels. Like we used to only

input channels. Like we used to only focus on one thing at a time. Everyone

now focuses on two things at a time. You

can't do the same thing. Like you can't read and listen at the same time, but you can drive and listen. You can run and listen. You can do the dishes and

and listen. You can do the dishes and listen. And so we have this massive

listen. And so we have this massive tailwind of people have like a large number of minutes throughout the day where they're doing stuff that they can also listen, >> right?

>> Yeah.

>> Which that's true for all podcasts, but like >> there are a couple things that are true for all podcasts. One one is AirPods. Uh

basically all the platform stuff that happened over the last 10 years and we started at the right time to advance. So

yeah, >> AirPods, um, Spotify, Spotify didn't enter podcast until 2018 and now is, I think, over half of the market. Uh,

brought hundreds of millions of people into podcasting.

>> Apple podcast not becoming YouTube was actually great for us that it's a place to to when you get a listener, you really get a listener and it's like this durable, incredibly valuable place to accumulate listeners. Spotify is too,

accumulate listeners. Spotify is too, but >> um, >> YouTube in its own way, too.

>> But there was zillions of podcasts and not many are doing what you're doing.

So, so and they all have the >> Yeah, we're dodging the question.

>> Uh, corporate America becomes ever more important.

>> Yeah, that's that's completely right.

Right. It's like that what is going on in the economy is is mysterious to people.

These companies a lot of your episodes have been about these companies about Tesla and Nvidia and and and Microsoft and Google and they people don't really get them explained to them. So, that's

that's a big part of it. If I had pitched you on acquired in 2015, there's no way I would have said acquired helps you understand why the world is arranged the way it is. Yeah.

>> But now I think that is absolutely the promise that we come through on.

>> Right.

>> I think the biggest reason acquired works is is kind of how you started off the conversation is just it it it's our partnership. Like it's it's uh if just

partnership. Like it's it's uh if just one of us were making acquired, it would be a shadow of itself. like the magic exists between us and there's so many there's there's a million times over the

last 10 years where like if we hadn't just been you know that burn cigarettes on our arms aligned that like it wasn't even a conversation but like had our partnership been slightly different like

it would have fractured >> that's why we're still here >> so I know I want you to do I want to conclude this conversation because we don't want to go three hours uh but but but I want to do it by doing the seven

powers and apply it I I want you I want you to apply I want you >> one of our most requested uh seven powers for >> acquire apply it to acquire >> great >> and then I can learn what these seven powers are.

>> All right. So we are definitely a scale economies business. The fact that

economies business. The fact that there's a large number of listeners to amortize all the inputs across makes it so that we can do an unreasonable amount

of things for each episode. Mhm.

>> I mean, if you were going to try to compete with Acquired today, you couldn't do all the stuff that we do with a million listeners.

>> Yeah. Or the access or the >> And you could do it for one or two or three episodes, but if it didn't grow quickly at some point, you'd be like, it's not even about the money. It's

about like, why am I doing all this work when no one is listening to it and it would feel like that. So there was this path dependent thing of we always had the right product for the current amount

of value that it created in the world which you can use listener base as a proxy for and now because the listener base is large we can afford to do things other people can't which is sort of the the definition of scale.

>> Put this even much more simply let's say we and another podcast made the exact same episode we've got a million and a half subscribers they have zero. Our

episode is a lot more valuable even if we said the exact same words in the exact same way.

>> Yep.

>> Yep. Okay. Scale economies. Yes.

>> Uh >> counterpositioning everywhere.

>> Counterpositioning. Counter position.

Okay.

>> Do a little meta thing and also explain these powers.

>> Okay. Explain these powers. Okay.

Counterpositioning is when you do something that your competitors just cannot respond to.

>> Give me an example outside of the podcasting world.

>> Yeah. So, what's a great example of this? Um

this? Um >> Southwest Airlines launches. they only

use 737s.

Everyone else who already has fleets of other planes can't do all the streamlined operations that um Southwest is going to do because they have all these other sunk costs in this diversified fleet, >> right?

>> Or counter position that we're we're not volume generally.

>> Most uh podcasts sell their ads on a CPM basis and they are incentivized to make as many episodes as possible with as many ad slots as possible. Right.

>> Our business is entirely structurally different.

>> Yes. We also to your benefit >> don't have shareholders. So we can do all these like non-economic things because the the the thing we're solving for the quotient is actually like our lives,

>> right? Four episodes as opposed to six

>> right? Four episodes as opposed to six or eight or one.

>> Yep. Right.

>> Right. It' be cool if it ends up being just one episode a season.

>> This is David.

>> No no no. That's my nightmare is is that we actually we can't end up if we if we end up at one episode a year we're or one episode a season where we It's time to hang it up. Time to hang it up.

>> Here's here's a rule. We we don't work with agencies. If an agency reaches out

with agencies. If an agency reaches out and says, "We want to place ads on your podcast." We write them a very nice

podcast." We write them a very nice note. If if we're if we're able to get

note. If if we're if we're able to get to the email and say, "Oh, we don't work with agencies, but thank you so much for your interest."

your interest." >> Can you imagine working at a podcast network where there's a revenue opportunity and you're saying, "Sorry, we just don't you're a middleman in a transaction and so therefore we won't

take your dollars."

>> Right. Yeah. So you're So >> counter positioning. Yeah. All

>> counterpositioning is that in the number of shows you do. So the kind of shows >> that's how it expresses itself. But the

the because our business is structurally different than most others like others can't do what we're doing.

>> Network economies uh not really but there's some water cooler effect of people talk about acquired episodes especially within companies right

>> so uh we release an episode it becomes a topic of discussion. This is this is a weak power but it exists to a small extent.

>> If you like acquired more people liking acquired is valuable because you get to talk about it with more people right no switching costs.

Switching cost is a power but it's super easy to >> explain switching costs.

>> Salesforce >> yes >> you got CRM on Salesforce >> okay >> and to switch to another CRM is just a huge amount of cost okay associated with that

>> even though you know let's say on a day-to-day basis it's the same price or cheaper it's just such a pain and an economic tax to do a new implementation of something >> right y

>> we there's none of that people people can Another podcast is one click away.

>> Listeners can switch.

>> There's no cost of switching out of acquired into whatever might come along that no cost to replace acquired.

>> Yep.

>> Don't have that.

>> Can I just also say this is so weird and uncomfortable for me. Uh cuz like while I think we've created this like beautiful gem and I love thinking about it and talking about it with you, it is

terrifying to um talk about it with everyone and also feel so self argrandizing to like a little thing.

>> What a great painting I have made.

>> No, no, no. This is but it's very useful to think about this in this way. You've

got a framework. Let's think about your frame. You and your framework. What's

frame. You and your framework. What's

the next power?

>> Uh branding. Uh

>> yes, >> yes. Same again thought exercise, same

>> yes. Same again thought exercise, same product released by a different podcast, not called acquired, people just acquired more, >> right?

>> Yep.

>> Um, >> and that's just growing.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, cornered resource. Uh,

>> the business owns us.

>> Explain cornered resource. Give me an example.

>> Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal.

>> Uh, intellectual property.

>> Okay. Uh, patents.

>> Disney owns the likeness of Mickey Mouse. Okay. You don't get to build a

Mouse. Okay. You don't get to build a business that benefits from the economic value driven by Mickey Mouse, >> right? Now, we're assuming hard to value

>> right? Now, we're assuming hard to value Ben and David.

>> We're assuming that you're a cornered resource that the reasons that people are tuning in is that it's your lovely voices and the way you enthuse over this stuff. It could be that you've just

stuff. It could be that you've just actually found a thing.

>> It could be >> that everybody wants and that if two other people came in, they do it even better >> and that we there are people who create it's early, they're small, but things that resemble Acquired a lot. the step

change podcast by our friend Ben Idolson is one of them where like it's doing really well for a podcast that has three episodes because the there's magic in the format even if it's not us >> yeah that is if there is a corner

resource it's you or your editor >> or yeah or >> whose name you won't divulge so suggesting that perhaps >> yeah yeah yeah it could be a resource >> okay >> uh and then the last one is process

power >> which almost always businesses don't have >> we and we have in spades >> we totally >> it's the same thing you have >> because We we kind of failed to articulate how an episode comes

together. We tried on this conversation

together. We tried on this conversation and we didn't really explain to you exactly mechanically how an episode comes together >> except I can understand the iterations

but you you you vomit out eight hours if your editor decides what's the best five. It comes back to you and you and

five. It comes back to you and you and and and you cut >> who I show up with on recording day.

>> Oh, I see. So, we should maybe do this a little bit here. Process. Can I guess?

Sure. because I actually don't know what you show up with the recording. You both

I assume you each take a kind of part of the story like either the history or um current analysis of the business and you're responsible for that and you go

learn about it and but but we there's got to be some improvisation here so that you don't tell each other exactly what you've learned.

>> More or less I'm responsible for the story with we carve out a one or multiple chunks that Ben will take and then Ben is responsible for the analysis.

>> Right. And then you probably have some lines you want to say that you know you want to say uh but you want to say them naturally. So you kind of have them

naturally. So you kind of have them stored in the back of your head and you wait for the moment where you can drop it where it sounds casual like but if you don't if that doesn't happen you set it up like Ben's point like skew is

everything in Costco that you that kind of insight the kind of you can reduce it to there some something you want to get across in a line or two. What's hard

about improv is disposing of all the things you imagine that were going to happen in a conversation before they happen. And nobody does it perfectly.

happen. And nobody does it perfectly.

And uh so there's this tension between, you know, the script and what's happening organically between the two of you.

>> The truth is is is it both.

>> It's both.

>> So I I write I write a script. I write

10 to 20,000 words.

>> You do?

>> In sentence form, word.

>> Do you read it?

>> Uh no. Well, I I mean I read it. It

doesn't come out of my mouth. It it

comes out as a natural conversation.

>> So, you write it, but then you put it to one side.

>> I have three screens in front of me.

>> You're kind of reading it.

>> I'm kind of reading it. Yeah. Yeah. Are

you? But but it but Ben interjects and it's, you know, it doesn't come out exactly as I wrote it.

>> It doesn't sound like a script.

>> Uh, but part of my process is I need to write a script >> to know what you think.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. It makes complete sense.

>> Well, but also to have it as a as a crutch there when we're performing of like >> we can't keep all this in our heads.

>> But the real crutch you have is you can go you're going to do it for nine hours and it's only going to be four. So that

you can you can make any kind, you know, you don't have to be perfect. You can

screw it up every which way.

>> And you have a real-time feedback agent where like I'm I'm like this is dragging. I don't care about any of this

dragging. I don't care about any of this prehistory. Like cut cut.

prehistory. Like cut cut.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> And then but yet yet all we hear the audience here is that's amazing. Oh,

that's so interesting. It's incredible.

I never thought of it that way.

>> You're the best. I love you.

So we don't see any of the other stuff.

>> No, no, no. Yeah, it's in there. It's

>> It's in there somewhere. Okay.

>> All right. What? So, take me further into the process. So, you have you have a script and you don't Ben, you don't have a script.

>> I have a giant text edit document with like just a whole bunch of mechanical points I want to get across, >> right? I have uh some story points in

>> right? I have uh some story points in there that I I know I want to interject in David's story, but I know the things that I'm going to bring to the episode that I really care deeply about or

explaining how something works. So, I

have like written out bullet point by bullet point by bullet point and then >> and we've usually identified that's going to enter in.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> But it only this thing works because it doesn't sound like you're reading anything.

>> It sounds like >> But the reality is it's a hybrid.

>> Okay. The reality is is a hybrid.

>> Yeah. And there's all sorts of stuff in there that like I we are sort of looking at about >> six hours into recording and we're like that's not going to make it in. And

that's okay. That turned out it was not at a salient point, >> right?

>> But the point of process power there is like we can describe all this. You could

probably I'm sure you have described in painstaking detail >> how I do >> how you do. But that doesn't mean anybody else can write a Michael Lewis book. the process. But your point is you

book. the process. But your point is you have the process power that that >> but the point of process power is you could you can tell them it's >> I see. Oh, I see. Yeah, that's

interesting. That you have a process that can't be replicated even if you explain >> even if we explain in excruciating detail exactly what it is.

>> What pops to my mind >> is that the the magic the pixie dusk in a process is trust.

>> That it's like something that you get when you trust a process >> here. Trust the process. Yeah, Daryl

>> here. Trust the process. Yeah, Daryl

goes to Sam Hinky, but the ownership of the Phil 76ers, they didn't trust the process. They they wanted the process.

process. They they wanted the process.

They wanted to replicate what they've been doing in Houston, but they didn't trust it. And

trust it. And >> where does trust show up?

>> I was just about to say that I think I trust my process. And it's it's a it's selfrust, but that's a form of trust.

And I know if I just told it to someone >> and they went and tried to do it, they'd be thinking they'd be it'd make them they'd wig out. Yeah,

>> I I got to record the things. I got to do this. I got And so that in fact doing

do this. I got And so that in fact doing it my way would be a kind of weird handicap for them.

>> That's the process. Like if you if you were to copy paste the process, it wouldn't have the same results and it might in fact be a handicap, >> right? But there's something emotional

>> right? But there's something emotional going on there. Uh

the difficulty in replicating it.

>> I also think it's because when you describe your process, it is lossy compression. The way compression

lossy compression. The way compression works in computing is you're taking a large amount of data and you're compressing it down into a smaller amount of data, a different file format.

And if it's lossy, it means that you can never fully recreate the original work.

>> This is a the MP3 codec or a JPEG. A

JPEG doesn't actually contain all the RGB values from the original photo, but like a human kind of can't tell most of the time and so it's fine, >> right?

>> Explaining a process is a lossy compression of the actual process.

That's true. That's true. You're

actually not giving them everything >> and you're not doing it intentionally.

>> No, it's just impossible.

>> Language is a lossy compression of thought.

>> Yeah, true. That's an interesting observation. Language is an a lossy

observation. Language is an a lossy compression of of thought. But I think if the reverse is also true for some people >> well and and uncompressing information, it's so funny when you and I are communicating. I had a thought. I

communicating. I had a thought. I

compressed it into a very narrow bandwidth thing of speech. I told it to you, you uncompressed it into your brain. It might actually mean a pretty

brain. It might actually mean a pretty different thing to you than it means to me. That insight is at the bottom of my

me. That insight is at the bottom of my creative process. I assume when I write

creative process. I assume when I write a book that what goes into people is something different than came out of me that that they are going to take it and reassemble it in a different way. And so

I have to construct it in a way that there's a hole for the reader to go in and just do what they need to do with it. that the more I just let the story

it. that the more I just let the story re tell itself, the less I I tried to like influence the way he thought about the story, the more the story landed.

And then of course when you do that, you're giving people lots of options uh you know in how they how they see the story, how they understand the story.

>> It's the risk you take. uh and but it is it's what makes it alive and and it's why and it's why you get this huge range of response to a a given story. But you

that you've got to actually just accept that when you're saying something, the other person gets to understand it however they want to understand it. And

if you don't do that, what you get is is something that's dead the next day. It's

like, yeah, yeah, you made your point, but I didn't hear it or I don't want it.

So, this is always one of our like key goals with with every episode is like no matter what you think about the company, >> right?

>> You're going to enjoy this episode and you're going to learn something from it.

And then you may come away thinking like >> it's about understanding >> this company is terrible. You may come away thinking this company is righteous.

Yep.

>> But like >> sometimes we don't nail it. Sometimes

>> we don't always nail, but that's the that's the goal. Yeah.

>> Yeah. No, that's I think it's a that's it's a it's the creatively fun goal.

Yeah. Because that's the challenge rather than just imposing your editorial view on the world. Present it in as elegant way as possible and let the reader make what they make of it. Uh

once you realize that's the thing to do, it's so much more fun than trying to muscle people around. It's it's all of a sudden you're dancing with a reader instead of like hurling them all over

the dance floor. It also requires you to learn something new while you're making the creative work. Like if if you come in with a point of view and you come in, let's say we try to I was so afraid when

we were making Trader Joe's that we were going to remake the Costco episode and I was like this episode's going to suck because we're not going to have the original enthusiast but not as good >> or it's Costco but it's for furniture

and we're like oh this is totally different than Costco. You have to have new insights that delight you as you're researching it so that you can make something great. And I think the reasons

something great. And I think the reasons acquired will eventually fail, I don't think, come from like platform disruption. Like, oh, Tik Tok's going to

disruption. Like, oh, Tik Tok's going to make it so people want short form instead of acquired. Maybe, but the more likely reason that we eventually fail is we stop being delighted by new things we

discover. So, we have nothing new to

discover. So, we have nothing new to deliver to listeners, >> right? I agree with that. If you were

>> right? I agree with that. If you were going to ask me how you were going to fail, that's exactly the kind of thing I would say. You just run out of you'd run

would say. You just run out of you'd run out of gas or run out of material that that that made your socks go up and down.

>> Okay, listeners, now is a great time to thank one of our very favorite partners, Shopify. And David, we recorded this

Shopify. And David, we recorded this episode with Michael the week after Thanksgiving. And while you and I were

Thanksgiving. And while you and I were nice and festive and coming off of some relaxing time with family, the Shopify team had been cranking because Black Friday and Cyber Monday is of course the

biggest sales weekend of the year for merchants around the world. Yeah. At the

very same time as we were recording, Toby was sharing the final stats. So

Shopify merchants did 14.6 6 billion in sales over the weekend, which was up 27% from last year. Over 15,000

entrepreneurs made their first sales and 81 million unique shoppers bought from Shopify merchants. That is absolutely

Shopify merchants. That is absolutely nuts. That 4day sales volume number,

nuts. That 4day sales volume number, that's almost twice as much as Shopify's entire annual volume when they went public in 2015. Of course, as we chronicled on our acquired episode on

Shopify back a few years ago, >> just wild. And part of that growth was that for the first time this year, a few merchants were able to sell on Black

Friday directly inside ChatGpt thanks to Shopify's partnership with OpenAI. So

like no links or redirects. Consumers

could ask ChatGpt about Black Friday deals for products they're interested in. And Shopify loaded actual checkout

in. And Shopify loaded actual checkout flows directly within their Chat GPT conversations. This is super cool.

conversations. This is super cool.

Glossier, Away, Nike Strength, Majouri, Spanx, and Skiims were all live on ChatGpt on Black Friday with Shopify.

This is just one example of why Shopify is so awesome and one of our very favorite companies in the acquired universe. Shopify lets anyone sell in

universe. Shopify lets anyone sell in seconds online, in store, on mobile, on social, on marketplaces, and now with AI agents. And it's not just startups. It's

agents. And it's not just startups. It's

General Motors, it's Estee Lauder, it's Mattel, and on and on and on.

>> So whether you are just starting out or you're operating at global scale, Shopify helps you sell anywhere your customers are. So get started at

customers are. So get started at shopify.com/acquired

shopify.com/acquired and just tell them that Ben and David sent you.

>> All right. How are we going to end this?

This is your show.

>> Carveouts.

>> Carveouts. Yeah, we got to do So >> carveouts. What does this even mean?

>> carveouts. What does this even mean?

>> Okay. So, um, you you'll appreciate this. Uh it was my wife's idea back

this. Uh it was my wife's idea back towards the beginning of the show. She

used to listen to um Slate's uh I think it was a culture gabfest.

>> Yes.

>> And uh they uh they do cocktail chatter at the end of episodes. It's just like hey yep >> something unrelated. And uh she was like you guys should do that. That's fun.

>> Well I understand the idea of it. Why is

it called a car?

>> Well okay. So then we we were like this was in a phase of acquired where we wanted to brand everything like around >> and so we thought okay what could we call this? We're not going to call it

call this? We're not going to call it cocktail chatter. We came up with the

cocktail chatter. We came up with the idea of a carveout. Like in an M&A transaction, a you know, a carveout is like this piece of the purchase price goes to like this set of shareholders for special reasons, their employees or whatever.

>> Okay.

>> So these are the things we're carving out as things that delight us that have nothing to do with the rest of the episode.

>> Yes.

>> But but the name is is just residual.

It's just a residue of your former incarnation.

>> Yeah. We used to brand.

>> We used to have a thing called the LP show because of we live. You know, we had all these little branding.

>> Playbook is sort of a remnant of the older version.

>> Yeah.

>> So, what are we going to do? What are

carve out? What what are the specific things?

>> We have some categories that we're going to throw out and then you got to tell us and we'll tell you things this year that we loved in this category. Typically

pieces of media or products or something like that.

>> All right. We usually start with books.

>> That's kind of funny having you here.

>> Uh I mean so many of your books have been archive over the years. Really?

>> Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

>> So, it's books that books that I've read the that in the last year >> books this year and then Yeah.

>> So, I got to confess I've had a very weak reading year because I've been I've been really deep in two projects where I've been working and when I'm working I'm often all I'm reading is for work.

But I can think of a couple. One at the beginning of the year, one the one I just put down. first one I read because my son was in high school at the time had read it and he was enthusing about

this 800page novel and I and I thought that that just didn't happen very often and it's it's it's been out a long time.

It's called The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothus >> and it's a fantasy trilogy. He never got to the third book and I don't know what's happened to him. He's like

blocked but I've not found situation. I'm hoping he's an acquired

situation. I'm hoping he's an acquired listener and I would tell him I can come help get you unblocked. I know how to unblock writers. I have a secret power

unblock writers. I have a secret power here. And so,

here. And so, >> do you have a secret life as a fiction ghost writer?

>> I I do not.

>> But but you have a secret life as a coach to writers and uh other writers.

And it's this thing was it was so compelling. I couldn't believe how good

compelling. I couldn't believe how good it was. And I couldn't believe how good

it was. And I couldn't believe how good it was that he hasn't he's just gotten stalled. But the name of the wind

stalled. But the name of the wind Patrick Ruffus read at the beginning of the year, very beginning of the year at the end of the thing I just finished.

It's not like it's a great book, but I think it's like it's so short and it's of it's something that is speaking to our moment in our speaks to how I govern ourselves. It's um I always mispronounce

ourselves. It's um I always mispronounce his name. It's Vanavar Bush.

his name. It's Vanavar Bush.

>> Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Who who essentially created the American Science Project. And it's a little it's

Science Project. And it's a little it's a basic I think he started it as a memo to FDR then FDR died and it ended up being a memo to Terry Truman about what America could do if the government in

the right way got behind science. He was

saying look what we did with the Manhattan project we can do with biology we can do we would do with the other hard sciences. He was describing not a

hard sciences. He was describing not a top- down approach not like the government is going to just decide we're going to we're going to fund it and let the scientists figure out what they need to work on was that was the that was the

big insight. So, those are two books.

big insight. So, those are two books.

>> How about you?

>> What books do you >> um similar to you, we've been it's been a research heavy year.

>> Yeah, we have young kids, so fun books are >> right.

>> Uh, one great book I read for research was Last Man Standing to prep for the Jamie Diamond interview.

>> That was really good.

>> Total page turner. Um, made it it was a great It's about Yeah, it's about the ascendy of history.

>> Jamie. Yeah. Uh, and then two is I just love reading Morgan Howell and his new book, The Art of Spending Money, is is really fun. I mean, it's where I get

really fun. I mean, it's where I get most of my like latent ideas of, "Hey, hey, dummy, money is not going to make you any happier."

>> He's a great explainer.

>> Oh, >> great explainer.

>> So good.

>> Uh, my two are um first one is a reach back to December of last year with the Mars episode. Um, Emperors of Chocolate

Mars episode. Um, Emperors of Chocolate by Joel Glenn Brener. You ever read that?

>> You know, so good. I once I had a chocolate related story and I flipped through it and I didn't ever have time to read the whole thing. But yes, I know the book.

>> So it's the dual history of Hershey and Mars together.

>> She it's a it's the I believe the only big book she ever wrote. Uh and um it's just a masterpiece. It's so it's so good. Uh the other one um Morris Chang's

good. Uh the other one um Morris Chang's autobiography >> that we got to read. It is currently only in Chinese. Uh but we got to read an English version of it to prep. Uh

it's it's so I mean you can watch >> How did you do that? Who translated for you?

>> This uh woman Karina Bao did a translation for us >> just for you.

>> Yeah.

>> She was working on it as a as just a pet project uh anyway and uh uh accelerated it for us. Uh okay. Books. Um podcasts

number two.

>> Well, this is this is a layup. It the

only the your podcast is the big addition to my rotation. I started in July and I've listened to I don't know 10 of them or something.

>> Well, thank you. But what in your what is in your rotation besides acquired?

>> I'll listen >> against the rules of course.

>> Well, I don't listen to my own thing. Uh

I listen to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History.

>> Yep.

>> I'll listen to uh the Smartless Guys because I like them.

>> Your interview on that was great, too.

>> It was fun to do it. Um

what else will I listen to The Daily some? Uh every now and then I'll dip

some? Uh every now and then I'll dip into a right-wing thing just to hear it.

just no that that >> any any of your recommendations?

>> No. Uh,

not really. And and then kind of, you know, random stuff like every now and then Bill Simmons will have something I I want to hear. I love Bill Simmons. I

just don't have time. Like it's

prolific.

>> You have eaten my podcast hours. You've

eaten a lot of myies to Bill.

>> No. No. And I can and I can tell you where I was like treadmill in Denmark when I listened to the Indian cricket thing. Isn't that the most fun thing

thing. Isn't that the most fun thing about listening?

>> Yeah, you remember a place.

>> You do remember you do remember a place.

They're very place specific. And uh

>> No, the acquired podcast is the new thing I've >> All right. How about you all?

>> I listened to an episode of Invest Like the Best about a year ago, which was a really, really long interview with Graham Duncan.

>> Oh yeah, that was really good. That was

really good. That was originally Didn't he Patrick do that as like a private podcast and then Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> And then he did a shorter version. I

haven't listened to the shorter version.

And I only listen to the like super long one. But uh one of my biggest takeaways

one. But uh one of my biggest takeaways from that is about having a uh the correct grip >> that you don't want to have too tight of a grip on your work, but you don't want

to have too loose of a grip. You need to play with an appropriate grip for whatever the task is that you're trying to do. And you'll if if you're gripping too tight, you know, you're going to pull it or you're going to it's

going to feel too mechanical, too unnatural. And if it's too loose, like

unnatural. And if it's too loose, like you're not minding the shop enough. you

know, you're you get got to get your head back in the game. And there's an >> Yeah, there's >> I've been amazed my career how just how useful sports analogies are to to writing. Uh I'm sure to everything, but

writing. Uh I'm sure to everything, but these physical memories translate pretty neatly to how the mind with the mind is doing too. And that uh like when I write

doing too. And that uh like when I write a book, I'm on a pitcher's mound.

>> It takes me back to pitching in high school and I know and I'm I'm thinking of of the reader as the hitter. getting

meaning across to a reader is is tricky in the way that fooling a hitter is tricky. And and it's just I can feel

tricky. And and it's just I can feel that connection. And so these physical

that connection. And so these physical analogies are really useful even if there sometimes a stretch.

>> Speaking of sports, mine is uh the glue guys podcast which I think we both went on this year. Yeah.

>> Uh it was actually was the origin of us of us uh meeting. Um

>> those guys are great.

>> They are great.

>> I think we told them on the episode I I tell them all them like you guys got it.

Like you guys got some magic here. You

got to got to keep doing this.

>> You keep telling everybody that they run their their podcast business in the wrong way and you're right. You and you you depress everybody else that you figured out how to do it. Nobody else

has.

>> Well, I thought they just they just they've got magic. Like they just like they are taking it seriously and keeping doing it. But like I think it's a really

doing it. But like I think it's a really really they have the really rare dynamic of like just the three of them together regardless if they have a guest, don't have a guest. Like it's they're they're equally good.

>> They're very different personalities, too. That helps.

too. That helps.

>> Can I just I'm so uh like something inside me feels so crunchy. I don't

think we've figured out a better way to do it. Like I don't think we figured out

do it. Like I don't think we figured out the way to do it and everybody else should just snap to our way. It's like

we have an enormous amount of privilege that we can run a business in this way and most people have constraints that prevent them from doing this.

>> It's not that we're right and everybody else is wrong. It's that we have like set up a particular system that works for us.

>> But it is like you're right and I'm wrong that I that this really is a way of running a business that we could have done with against the rules and it and I'm going to go think about it. Uh but

anyway, so what's our next card?

>> Okay. Okay. Next next category is um >> video movies TV shows.

>> So I just saw a movie two days ago. Two

nights ago. We went to the theater.

Whole family went to the theater.

>> Wow. and Jay Kelly. It's new Noah Bombck's new movie and it is it's George Clooney. I guess you'd say he's playing

Clooney. I guess you'd say he's playing a he's playing George Clooney with a midlife crisis that he that it's it's it's a f he's playing a famous actor who's trying to sort out uh the meaning

of his life. It's just magical. It's a

beautiful movie and and an ambitious really ambitious movie in that I was I've been thinking about it >> kind of since I saw it like what exactly it was getting across and was getting

across I think being famous like a movie star is puts you at a certain distance to the world around you and that distance has a price and it was sort of taking the measure of that price be and

and which which makes that more general is that I think everybody has to make some decisions about the distance that they keep the world at. And uh this was

a this is a way of having that that conversation in entertaining what that distance should be.

>> Got to see it. I have so many, but there's one that's like >> you're like you're a TV guy.

>> I love movies and I love television. The

um like I have no video games to recommend, but I have lots of these. The

one that's just head and shoulders everything else and is the greatest performance art I've ever seen in my entire life is the rehearsal season 2.

All right.

>> Nathan Fielder and Eric Natarn Nicola, who we actually got to work with. Uh,

Eric and A24 Films shot the sort of concert film part of our Radio City show and collaborating with Eric was unbelievable. But

unbelievable. But >> he was so great.

>> Before any of that, I saw the rehearsal season 2 and my jaw is just on the floor with the level >> you were talking about this for months.

>> Ambition. Uh, they're Nathan's a complete psycho and it's the highest commitment to the bed I've ever seen in any form of media. I mean, I don't want to spoil anything, but have have you seen it?

>> I have not seen it. I will now go see it.

>> It is uh uh I was shaking.

>> Okay.

>> All right. I'm I'm a lighter uh video guy. I'm a YouTube guy mostly. Um my my

guy. I'm a YouTube guy mostly. Um my my YouTube uh uh for the year is is one I've recommended before, a past collab.

Uh Doug Demiro is still like killing it.

I just like I think Doug is probably my favorite YouTuber. Like he's just uh

favorite YouTuber. Like he's just uh >> What does he do? Because I don't >> He is uh he's the biggest car reviewer.

Like I'm not really that into cars, but he just first they got everybody interested in cars who weren't interested in cars.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And Doug is like he does these delightful reviews of like I just love, you know, watching like mid-range SUV reviews that I'm never going to buy.

>> I just love them.

>> So listeners will like this. David falls

asleep to this.

>> Yeah. Like you watch Doug in other things too, but like Doug is your >> Yeah. Yeah. like he'll he'll release a

>> Yeah. Yeah. like he'll he'll release a new review and I'll like watch it fall asleep over like 5 minutes.

>> What you watch before you go to bed?

>> Totally.

>> So, how does it affect your dreams?

>> That's a good question.

>> Do you dream? Do you like have Lightning McQueen dreams? What do you have? What

McQueen dreams? What do you have? What

you kind of dream?

>> No, no, no. The beauty of Doug, his his key insight was, you know, all the other car YouTubers are making making videos for car enthusiasts, >> right?

>> He makes videos for like people who need to buy a family SUV. Like, so I mean, he also reviews supercars and like, etc., etc., but like most of his content.

>> Seriously, I thought you would spend half half your dreams on in automobiles.

No, he's not.

>> I want to list like a bunch. I'm not

going to give commentary on them just because a lot of people are watching stuff over the holidays and here's a bunch of things I've loved in the last year. Tires, the TV show, so funny. F1

year. Tires, the TV show, so funny. F1

the movie I thought was very entertaining. I got to watch it.

entertaining. I got to watch it.

>> Beautiful production quality. My

favorite tri uh Expensify paid $40 million for the >> rumored >> rumored $40 million for the sponsorship of the the fake team in the movie.

>> That's right.

>> So great.

>> Uh Andor some of the best thing if not the best thing in the Star Wars modern Star Wars franchise available on Disney Plus. Uh

the show Fallout so good and season 2 is about to come back. I think that's a Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy again artists like I was saying about Nathan Fielder.

Severance was amazing. Silo has a new season coming out that I can't wait.

>> The books are really good. Yes,

>> I like the books.

>> Yeah, those are my TV recommendations.

>> Nice. Uh, next category, which might just be me, is video games.

>> Just you.

>> Just me. Yeah. So, one of the greatest moments in my parenting journey thus far, my older daughter is four, is I got her into video games. We play video games together now every night. It's

just like it's the best. Like, this is what I have been waiting for.

But I need to give a shout out again to Sea of Stars, which is an indie throwback RPG, which I bought just for me on my Steam Deck. And we were on vacation in Santa Barbara, and she was

like, "Dad, what are you doing?" And

that like that was it. Like I like I wasn't trying. It was like she came up

wasn't trying. It was like she came up to me as I'm playing, you know, this like indie RPG and like she started playing it. Like that was like I I never

playing it. Like that was like I I never would have guessed that this was my daughter's entry into video games. Uh,

and then two, Kirby, uh, and the Forgotten Land on the Switch is like perfect. We can play it together. It's

perfect. We can play it together. It's

co-op. Uh, it's great for me, it's great for her. It's awesome.

for her. It's awesome.

>> So, your daughter is at an age where she'll do anything you want to do. No,

>> cuz she wants to be with you.

>> No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't

know my daughter.

>> She is extremely independent.

>> It's anomalous and awesome that she has.

>> This is a rare occurrence. All right.

>> She runs the house. Like, yeah. No, no.

Uh, so this is this is like so much joy for me. Great

for me. Great >> products. What are some products that

>> products. What are some products that you have come to own in the last year that you have just thought are awesome or improve life?

>> I found a new pen. I got it here. Let's

see what it is. And it's just like I needed a pen that had just the right sort of fine fine point and that it that it's kind of generous with ink, but it doesn't explode on an airplane

>> and doesn't smear. I imagine

>> doesn't smear it. I'm looking at it now.

The RS Tekka roller ball pen 7 fine. And

I just ordered a whole case of them because I I it just it's finally got a pen I just love.

>> Listeners, if you want to write like Michael Lewis, we have the answer.

>> This is an example of explaining someone's process.

>> So that so that pen is is a thing.

>> What else? Other products this year.

>> The Fujifilm X100 VI. I previously

specifically did not carve it out and carved out a different camera. I've

started carrying the Fujifilm and and now love it. It's amazing. I've got a 2-year-old and it's just so nice to have more than just smartphone pictures of family. It's awesome.

family. It's awesome.

>> Nice.

>> I'm just looking at what I have on like camera. So,

camera. So, >> ex officio. That's that's

>> No. So, we But we're not going to talk about those. That wasn't this year. That

about those. That wasn't this year. That

wasn't We're only talking about not until they sponsor me. But the uh but anyway, that wasn't this year. But this

year, actually, on my feet, these are these are things >> these socks I ran out of white socks in London. I went over to Is it Unilo?

London. I went over to Is it Unilo?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

>> And they didn't have any. I was just looking for athletic socks, right? And

they have these other things instead.

They've turned out to be so much better than the athletic socks. And they come in different colors. So you can you can like a light gray. You can wear them as dress socks. You can wear them as

dress socks. You can wear them as athletic socks. And they like whenever I

athletic socks. And they like whenever I I don't know about you, whenever I find something I love, what's about to happen is it's about to be discontinued.

>> You need to buy all of them.

>> You need to buy all of them. Yes. Right.

So I I I'm I got I didn't get quite all of them cuz I was flying I got them in London. I was going to have to fly back

London. I was going to have to fly back with them, but I bought I bought basically what was in the store at the moment. And these shoes. So, um,

moment. And these shoes. So, um,

>> those ons.

>> These are ons.

>> And, um, oddly, I spent a couple days with Roger Federer this summer >> and I and I just discovered them. So, I

we had the, uh, the on conversation and made me kind of like acceptable to him.

But it was um, but the on I think these these ons I was a ha guy.

>> Oh, >> also great. Also great. Nike basically

blew it, right? They let these they let they got rid of their stores. They

thought it's all going to be online and on and Hokco roll in. And I'm a little torn, but not that torn. I'm kind of these ones are just like un they're it's uh

>> especially the white ones. I get I I'm getting criticized for it because I started wearing them instead of even dress shoes >> and like on I went on the cold bear with with these and like I got eight calls

saying you can't do that again. Really?

>> Yeah. like it looks >> I keep wearing ons all the time like >> Yeah. They just don't look good on TV or

>> Yeah. They just don't look good on TV or whatever. So, but I've been I've been

whatever. So, but I've been I've been overwearing both the Uniqlo socks and the but that's a sign of enthusiasm.

>> That's right.

>> There you go.

>> And isn't isn't the Federer on deal like one of the best endorsement deals by an athlete ever >> measured by how how much money he gets paid.

>> Didn't he do like an equity deal early with?

>> Yeah, I think that might be right.

>> He only aligns with companies whose products he really likes.

>> Rolex. It's an amazing >> It's amaz how easy it is. Right.

>> Also, he's Roger Feder.

>> He's also Roger Feder, right?

>> It's similar. Well, similar but different. Uh I bought a Ramoa suitcase

different. Uh I bought a Ramoa suitcase this year and I love it. It's just a suitcase but >> like I I love it. I got um I can tell you uh Ramoa uh LVMH bought this uh it's a suitcase. Got German suitcase company

a suitcase. Got German suitcase company couple. They make the the like aluminum

couple. They make the the like aluminum shell in your step every time you show up.

>> Yeah. Well, and I got the um >> It's exciting to find new luggage.

>> Totally. I mean, I don't know what why it is so exciting, but it's hard to find new luggage.

>> Well, my whole life I've just >> middle-aged men sitting around talking about luggage on the podcast.

>> No, you know, you find the new bag.

>> You know, your life is going to be different.

>> I've always been a minimal packing like backpack only like I just maximum efficiency.

>> You assume you're going to be washing your clothes wherever you go.

>> Yeah. Yeah. But but this is the first time I've just been like, you know what, I'm just going to get a nice piece of luggage and like it's not the most efficient way to but like I just like it. It makes me happy.

it. It makes me happy.

>> It's great. Uh the um >> parenting >> uh parenting. Yeah, let's go to parenting. Uh feel free to decline on

parenting. Uh feel free to decline on this. We we for the for the young

this. We we for the for the young >> two and uh four and four and 18 months.

>> Yeah.

>> So the first is discovering guided access on the iPad. It's an

accessibility setting where you can make it so none of the buttons do anything and it doesn't respond to taps.

>> So on an airplane they can't they can't mess with last about six minutes for you and then he's going to be like >> f you dad. make it work. So, these are products for parenting.

>> These are products for parenting. If you

are a parent of uh of kids our kids' age, the last one is the movie Toy Story. We It's the first movie we

Story. We It's the first movie we introduced him to. It was my favorite movie growing up. Um and it's been really fun.

>> He took to it.

>> Uh he took to it. He loves Mr. Potato Head. He calls it Tapo Head. And so, he

Head. He calls it Tapo Head. And so, he always runs into the room and says, "Tapo head TV." And that means I want to watch Toy Story.

>> So, as I alluded to, my older daughter is a um independent woman, shall we say?

Uh we bought this when she was younger and she completely rejected it. The

slumber pod. Uh do you have one of these? Oh yeah.

these? Oh yeah.

>> Yeah. So this is a blackout tent.

>> We have two of these over uh a portable crib. So when you're traveling, you

crib. So when you're traveling, you basically just put you put your baby in like a sensory deprivation.

>> Oh, you set up the noise machine right next to it, too. You really

>> isolate. And for most kids, like I I remember reading hearing about this from people that like it's a miracle. I tried

it with our older daughter and she was just like like absolute nuclear, you know, like no way is this gonna work.

Uh, and so I shied away from it. Uh, and

then we went on a trip recently and I brought it back for my younger daughter cuz I was like, "All right, well, we'll give it a shot." And worked like a charm.

>> Can I just interrupt here for a moment?

>> Yeah.

>> Is it a kind of end zone dance you're doing of your business model that you're just at the end of this offer free endorsements of consumer products without actually nobody having to pay you for anything? You just do it. You do

this with a flick of the wrist because we don't even need the advertising revenues.

>> No, we just started because it was fun.

These are things we like.

>> It's good.

>> Yeah. Yeah,

>> that's good.

>> Uh and then my my last one, this is um fun because it's a tie-in with our Radio City uh show. I brought the whole family to uh New York for Radio City. Uh Bluey,

we got to do a Bluey episode someday. Is

this incredible phenomenon? I don't know if it's crossed your radar.

>> No. What is it? Uh, Blueie is the greatest kid show ever made, bar none.

Uh, it is >> that's a big claim.

>> It's this guy in Australia uh in Brisbane and he made it uh he was I think an animator for Peppa Pig and then made this BL and it's it's like >> but the claim isn't that I love Bluey like it's just so

>> Disney agrees with David.

>> Yeah. Disney has been trying to buy Blueie uh for years. uh for ever escalating amounts of money.

>> And they just did a deal which I think is the first of its kind to use Bluey IP in the Disney universe without owning it.

>> Uh I think I think news just came out today that Blue is coming to Animal Kingdom in Disney World in 2026. Uh it's

it's basically like it's the Pixar who owns Blue. It's think of it as Pixar of

owns Blue. It's think of it as Pixar of this generation.

>> Is Blue owned by his creator?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Who is Joe Brum? This is

Guy.

>> It's like the Muppets.

>> Uh yeah. Yeah, it is. It's like Jim Henson and the Muppets. So, in New York, in New York City, you can buy tickets.

You get like a 45minute window. You can

take your family, you take your kids to Bluey's house, a recreation of Bluey's house inside a building in Union Square.

That's like great. If you got kids into Blueie, go to New York, take them to Blue Camp.

>> My kids would find that a little strange, but okay.

>> It's true. We keep saying kids, kids of eight, they know. Yeah. Eight under. But

yeah right.

>> That's all we got for carvets. That's

all we got too.

>> Michael, anything else? Pleasure.

>> Thank you so much. What a what a joy.

Thank you for giving us your uh your evening.

>> This is the longest I've spoken to anyone in the last four years.

>> Um thank you for doing this with us.

>> My pleasure. Anytime. See you at your 20th.

>> Great. We'll see you in 10 years.

>> All right, listeners. Thank you so much for listening and being on this journey with us. David, very fun way to try to

with us. David, very fun way to try to unpack why Acquired worked there with Michael.

>> Uh, if you had told us 10 years ago when we made the Pixar episode that we'd be sitting down with Michael Lewis to analyze ourselves >> and trade notes. Oh, how my creative

process works.

>> Yeah.

>> Unbelievable.

>> Unbelievable. Thank you, Michael, for doing this with us.

>> So good. Uh, we have another thank you to Shep Films. This is the crew that made this one look so good. You'll

notice that this was not just David and I setting up a few cameras like we've done with Steve Balmer, Morris Chang.

This was actually produced. And so we have a giant thank you to the uh Shep Films, Sh Films Company. Uh they do amazing work. They've made like full

amazing work. They've made like full 2hour movies with Pedro Pascal and you know make sci-fi movies and they do stuff like this. And so we're just delighted to have worked with them.

Thank you to our partners this season.

JP Morgan Payments, trusted, reliable payments infrastructure for your business, no matter the scale. That's JP

Morgan.com/acquired.

To Sentry, the best way to monitor for issues in your software and fix them before users get mad. That's

century.io/acquired.

To work, the best way to make your app enterprise ready, starting with single sign on in just a few lines of code.

Shopify, the best way to sell, whether online offline AI anywhere whether you are a large enterprise or just a founder with a big idea. That's

shopify.com/acquired.

Listeners, if you like this episode, go check out our episodes on TSMC, Hermes, Costco, the NFL, Berkshire, or any other episode that we talked about there with Michael. After this episode, check out

Michael. After this episode, check out ACQ2. We had Andrew Ross Orcin on, and

ACQ2. We had Andrew Ross Orcin on, and it was awesome. Speaking of trading notes on the creative process, very different job that he does, but uh you know, rhymes with acquired in some ways.

So, you can search ACQ2 in any podcast player. Come talk about this with us in

player. Come talk about this with us in the Slack. Or if you don't want the

the Slack. Or if you don't want the Slack, but you do want email, we just did a huge, huge overhaul to our email system. It's no longer just going to

system. It's no longer just going to notify you when a new episode comes out.

There's all sorts of goodies in that notification email like our takeaways from the episodes, some behind the scenes photos, corrections from past episodes. It's the place to be. So, you

episodes. It's the place to be. So, you

can join that at acquired.fm/e.

>> It really is beautiful. And uh we might have some more upgrades to all the >> That's right.

>> What do you call it? Like the chrome around Acquired.

>> Yes.

>> Coming in 2026. So stay tuned.

>> That's a great way to put it. Well, with

that, listeners, we'll see you next time.

>> We'll see you next time. Who got the truth?

Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got

the truth now? Huh?