Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
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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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
The Lyft IPO
Call it the playoffs. Call it the Olympics. Call it March Madness. No matter which sports analogy you borrow, it falls short of capturing what Lyft's...
Season 4, Episode 3: Instagram Revisited (with Emily White)
We enter the wayback machine and revisit the subject of Acquired’s second ever episode, Facebook’s bombshell 2012 acquisition of Instagram — this time...
Spotify + Gimlet/Anchor Quick Take + Worldwide Meetup Details!
Spotify + Gimlet/Anchor Quick Take!We continue to experiment on Acquired, this time with a quick-take on Spotify’s bombshell dual-acquisition of Ancho...
Season 4, Episode 2: ARM & SoftBank
We dive into the crazy, little-known story of how this small, former PC-maker in Cambridge, England dethroned Intel, saved Apple from bankruptcy, beca...
Season 4, Episode 1: ESPN
Booyah! Acquired, the worldwide leader in acquisitions and IPOs, kicks off Season 4 with a classic: ESPN. How did a failed former TV weatherman end up...
Season 3, Episode 10: Tencent
We close out Season 3 and our China mini-series with a monster episode on Tencent, the Shenzhen-based social networking and entertainment powerhouse....
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