Acquired

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

218 episodes 38 summaries

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Episodes

Adapting Episode 1: Canlis

The world has changed. Acquired is changing too: we’re taking a pause from our normal episodes. The world doesn’t need stories of M&A and IPOs rig...

Mar 20, 2020 50m

The Top 10 Acquisitions of All-Time

5 years and 100+ episodes into Acquired, there’s been one question we get asked more than any other: what are the best acquisitions of all-time, and w...

Mar 17, 2020 112m

Sequoia Capital Part II (with Doug Leone)

The wait is over. Acquired returns with a very special Part II of the Sequoia Capital story, joined by the very best person in the world to help us te...

Feb 18, 2020 68m

WhatsApp

We kick off Season 6 with a long-awaited Acquired Classic: Facebook’s $22B purchase of WhatsApp in 2014, which still ranks as the largest acquisition...

Jan 29, 2020 113m

The Lean Startup and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (with Eric Ries)

Season 5, Episode 10: The Lean Startup and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (with Eric Ries) Acquired closes out Season 5 and 2019 with a radical look int...

Dec 30, 2019 86m

Convoy (with CEO Dan Lewis)

Coming to you live from the University of Washington, Ben and David are joined by hundreds of awesome Seattle listeners (and a few non-Seattle listene...

Dec 19, 2019 102m

TikTok

We take Acquired to the Old Town Road to cover the amazing story behind the biggest global sensation of 2019 — and the highest valued private startup...

Dec 9, 2019 103m

Disney, Plus

The Flywheel is strong with this one. We dive deep into the origins of one of the boldest business strategy decisions of our time: Disney CEO Bob Iger...

Nov 25, 2019 139m

The WeWork “Acquisition” (with Dan Primack)

It’s an IPO, it’s a bailout, it’s an... acquisition? We’re joined by the one and only Dan Primack from Axios to recount the epic saga of the We Compan...

Oct 25, 2019 101m

Season 5, Episode 5: Atari (with Nolan Bushnell)

We’re joined by the legendary Nolan Bushnell, founder not only of Atari, but also the only person ever to hire Steve Jobs, the recipient of Sequoia Ca...

Oct 15, 2019 102m

Sequoia Capital (Part 1)

Acquired dives into the history behind storied venture firm Sequoia Capital and its legendary founder, Don Valentine. Part 1 tells Don’s story, starti...

Sep 26, 2019 113m

Google Maps

Ben and David cover the series of three 2004 Google acquisitions that formed the core of Google Maps as we know and love it today: Where 2 Technologie...

Aug 26, 2019 102m

The Shopify IPO

Ben and David head north of the border to Ottawa, Canada to cover perhaps one of the greatest IPO success stories of the past 5 years, Shopify. From h...

Aug 6, 2019 92m

Huawei

For our first episode of Season 5, Acquired returns to Shenzhen to cover another Chinese technology giant, this one slightly... different from our pas...

Jul 22, 2019 69m

Superhuman (with CEO Rahul Vohra)

We wrap up Season 4 with a very special (and accidental!) episode, a conversation with the CEO of Superhuman, the red hot email productivity app which...

Jun 27, 2019 83m

The Slack DPO

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an... enterprise software company? We give the full Acquired treatment to newly-public Slack, one of the most extreme...

Jun 25, 2019 120m

The Zoom IPO (with Santi Subotovsky)

Zoom board member (and general partner at Emergence Capital) Santi Subotovsky joins us to tell the true underdog story behind the hottest IPO of 2019....

Jun 19, 2019 83m

The Electronic Arts IPO (with Trip Hawkins)

Acquired looks back at a monumental IPO from a *much* different era: Electronic Arts. We’re joined by EA’s founder Trip Hawkins to tell the incredible...

May 27, 2019 125m

The Uber IPO

Welcome to the big one. On the day of its IPO, we tell the story of Uber. It’s a story whose roots stretch back 130 years, but whose impact reverberat...

May 11, 2019 147m

The Pinterest IPO

In the second episode of our APLUSS(Z!) IPO saga, we dive into the history behind the planet’s largest non-social social network, Pinterest. From The...

Apr 24, 2019 105m

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