Trailer: What is Acquired?

00:00Hello, and welcome to Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.

00:06I'm Ben Gilbert.

00:07I'm David Rosenthal.

00:08And we are your hosts.

00:10So, Ben and I are obsessed with uncovering the history, strategy, and stories behind what built the greatest companies in the world.

00:19Each month, we choose a company, and we spend the entire month researching what uniquely made it work, where many others failed.

00:25The output of that is a full-day recording session where Ben and I come together and tell the absolute deepest business and technology stories on the internet.

00:34And when we say obsessed, we mean that we spend 100 hours each reading everything that exists about a company and doing primary research and background interviews with the people who lived it firsthand.

00:46These are stories like NVIDIA, Costco, Hermès, Microsoft, Rolex, Amazon.

00:52Those are some of our favorites anyway.

00:54What started 10 years ago as just the study of tech companies has led to a curiosity about our broader world from Berkshire Hathaway to the NFL or even Taylor Swift.

01:05Our goal in creating each episode is to uncover the secrets that are lurking in plain sight and how these world-changing companies went from obscurity to ubiquity.

01:14So if you've ever wondered, how did Starbucks end up on every corner around the globe?

01:19Or what does Visa actually do?

01:22And how did they become the payment rails of the whole globe?

01:25Or why is the NFL so much bigger than other sports leagues?

01:29Then Acquired is for you.

01:31Yep.

01:32We have a unique format that we do on the show.

01:35We call it a conversational audiobook.

01:38Ben and I tell these stories of these companies through a deep conversation.

01:41And typically, it's just the two of us without an interview guest.

01:45Occasionally, we will bring in a protagonist from the story like Howard Schultz from Starbucks or Jensen Huang from NVIDIA or Mark Zuckerberg from Meta.

01:53Usually, though, that's as a follow-up interview to a deep dive that we've already done on their company.

01:57Now, one thing we should say.

01:59Our episodes are typically very long, like three to four hours long, since we go really deep.

02:06But don't be scared.

02:07These are amazing stories that deserve every minute.

02:10And we have a lot of fun along the way.

02:13Our goal is really to deliver a complete understanding of a company by the time you finish the episode.

02:19So we're glad you're here.

02:20Welcome.

02:21And if you ever want to discuss any episodes or give us any feedback, join us in the Acquired community at acquired.fm slash slack.

02:29Welcome.