18 December 2022

Holiday Special 2022

2Frameworks

14Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Finance5 steps

The Tech-Enabled Business Test

If the financial statements don't change, the technology isn't the business.

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Strategy5 steps

The Trade-Off Strategy Framework

Real strategy isn't doing everything better — it's deciding what you'll deliberately not do.

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 1

Myth Buster40:00

Correcting the Record: Enron's Surviving Namesakes

Listener-sourced corrections reveal that pieces of Enron and Arthur Andersen actually survived and still operate today under different names, like EOG Resources and Andersen Tax.

Enron Oil and Gas survived as the now $80 billion publicly traded EOG Resources.
Arthur Andersen's consulting arm became Accenture, while its tax practice was rebranded as Andersen Tax.
The hosts admit they hadn't researched what happened to these spun-off entities before airing the episode.

“there is a company today called Enron oil and gas that's like an 80 billion dollar company publicly traded as EOG”
40:00

“some subset of Arthur Anderson was preserved as a tax organization that is now called Anderson tax”
41:00

#Enron#Arthur Andersen#corrections#corporate history

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take09:30

What Happens When Twitter Disappears

A thought experiment on how people would discover 'what's happening' if Twitter shut down, comparing centralized news, TikTok, and in-person conversation as replacements.

Twitter's value comes from decentralized signal about what's trending, which a centralized outlet like the NYT can't replicate.
TikTok is a possible replacement but is far less information-dense per minute than Twitter.
Losing Twitter would push people back toward in-person conversation to gauge social consensus.

“how would I know if stuff is taking off How will I know what the general consensus is around something”
10:00

“the number of new tidbits of information you can consume per minute and Twitter is high and reasonably low in Tick Tock”
11:00

#Twitter#social media#information discovery#TikTok

Hot Take24:30

ChatGPT's 'Crypto Moment': Powerful but Hard to Predict

The hosts compare the excitement around ChatGPT to early crypto hype, admitting they can sense the technology unlocks something big but can't yet articulate the specific use cases.

ChatGPT is seen as a similar underlying model to GPT-3.5 but transformed by a new conversational, stateful interaction modality.
The hosts compare the moment to being told about a 'decentralized world computer' without a clear application yet.
History shows early reactions to breakthrough platforms, like the App Store, often can't predict the eventual killer use case.

“I think there's a little bit of a like a crypto moment here where it's the first time someone explains to you a decentralized world…”
25:30

“this thing's scary powerful and I don't actually know what to do with it”
30:00

#ChatGPT#AI#emerging technology#hype cycles

Hot Take57:00

Why YouTube's Creator Model Is the Opposite of Acquired's

A reappraisal of YouTube as a platform that lets creators focus purely on content while the algorithm and ad system handle monetization — the exact opposite trade-off Acquired has chosen by handling sponsorships directly.

YouTube enables creators to earn a living without ever engaging in business development.
This is contrasted with Acquired's model of directly building relationships with sponsors and investing alongside them.
Engaging in business themselves, versus reporting from the sidelines, improves the show's content via first-party insight.

“they enable for many many creators people to make their livelihoods with the exact opposite trade off of what we do”
57:30

#YouTube#creator economy#business model contrast

Explainer· 3

Explainer07:00

Taylor Swift and the Economics of Internet-Scale Fame

Discussion of why Taylor Swift's demand dwarfs even the Beatles, driven by disintermediation of labels and the internet's ability to expand both niche and mainstream markets simultaneously.

The internet lets niche artists survive while also giving mainstream stars far larger reach than pre-internet gatekeepers allowed.
Removing label middlemen shifts value directly to the artist and reduces friction to discover and buy tickets.
Social media creates instant, frictionless awareness of on-sale dates compared to radio/print-only eras.

“Taylor is a rock star in the internet she's probably like the first really really big internet Rockstar”
07:00

“the internet enables two things it enables the niches to exist”
07:30

#Taylor Swift#music industry#internet distribution#disintermediation

Explainer17:00

Why Acquired Skips Real-Time News Like FTX and Twitter

Explanation of the show's philosophy of only covering stories where they can add unique value, which is why they avoided real-time Twitter coverage and instead used the FTX collapse as a springboard to cover Enron.

The hosts avoid topics already saturated by expert real-time journalists (Levine, Primack, Thompson, Newton).
Acquired aims to produce evergreen content rather than compete on breaking news.
The FTX collapse led them to cover Enron instead, drawing indirect parallels for listeners to find themselves.

“there's no daylight here for us to talk about it we actually felt the same way about FTX”
17:30

“it felt like the right way to have acquired add to the conversation is go do 100 hours of research on Enron”
18:00

#editorial philosophy#FTX#Enron#evergreen content

Explainer53:30

Building Deep Relationships with Sponsors Instead of Scale

The hosts explain their unusual sponsorship model of six-month, hand-picked sponsorships where they personally negotiate with CEOs, leading to real investments and partnerships rather than transactional ad reads.

Sponsorships run six months long and are chosen very selectively given the high value of the audience.
Ben and David personally handle sales conversations rather than outsourcing to agencies.
The relationships have led to personal investments in five sponsor companies including Vanta.

“we only do six month season-long sponsorships and we are ridiculously choosy about the people that we do that with”
55:00

#sponsorship model#business model#partnerships

Story· 4

Story11:30

Sony: The Underdog Comeback Story of the Year

Reflection on the Sony episode as a surprising standout — a company that overcame the devastation of postwar Japan to build five equally-sized billion-dollar business units, including the origin of PlayStation.

Sony faced arguably the greatest founding adversity of any company covered on the show (postwar Japan).
At the time of recording, Sony had five separate business units each contributing double-digit percentages of revenue and operating income.
The PlayStation story alone, reached two hours into the episode, could be its own series.

“it has the genius founder it has the probably the most adversity that we've ever talked about in any founding story in all acquired”
12:00

“we got well over two hours into the episode before we mentioned PlayStation”
13:00

#Sony#corporate history#diversification#PlayStation

Story22:00

Nvidia's Three Bet-the-Company Moments

A recap of Nvidia's history of repeatedly betting the entire company — shipping an unfinished card in nine months, the programmable shader gamble, and a seven-year investment in CUDA/AI before the market existed.

Nvidia shipped a chip designed entirely in emulation, untested, in nine months instead of two years.
A second bet-the-company moment centered on programmable shaders.
A third, multi-year bet on AI and CUDA developer ecosystem preceded the AI boom by years.

“Jensen bet the company three separate times and truly bet the company like if this initiative fails it will go to zero and it worked…”
22:30

#Nvidia#Jensen Huang#risk taking#semiconductors

Story36:00

The Benchmark Dinner: A New Interview Format

A behind-the-scenes look at how the Benchmark episodes' companion dinner with the partners became possible only because of Acquired's slow, deeply-researched format, contrasted with high-velocity interview shows.

The dinner was planned in advance as a follow-up to the standalone Benchmark research episode.
Guests engage more seriously with Acquired because of the visible research effort put in beforehand.
The format works because Acquired does very few interviews and treats each as a major production.

“that's something that only we can uniquely do”
36:30

“it's like being willing to do the work to prove that you're as serious about caring about this topic as you say you are”
39:30

#Benchmark#interview format#guest relationships#production

Story46:00

The Real Cost of Live Shows: Arena Show & Breakpoint

A candid reflection on how much harder and lower-quality the recorded product becomes for in-person live shows (the arena show, Solana breakpoint) despite being unforgettable experiences for those in the room.

Live shows are far more production work than a standard remote episode.
Guests, audio quality, and audience restlessness all degrade the final listenable product.
The hosts conclude they should do at most one major live show per year going forward.

“at least 10 if not 20 times as much work for a product that I continue to believe was worse for people who listen to…”
51:00

#live events#production#trade-offs#arena show

Tool· 1

Tool2:13:30

Flighty: Real-Time Flight Alerts Before the Airline Tells You

A carve-out recommendation for the Flighty app, which surfaces real-time flight status changes faster than airlines notify passengers, built by an indie developer.

Flighty pulls from every available airline API to surface flight changes before they appear on airport gate displays.
The app is built by a solo indie developer, Ryan Jones, who also made the weather app Weatherline.
The hosts see indie app developers like Ryan as potential future Acquired LP show subjects.

“you get information from flighty before the airline notifies you of it and often before it even displays on Gates when you're in the airport”
2:13:30

#apps#travel#indie developers#product recommendation

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway13:30

The Big Tech Series Dilemma: One Company a Year

The hosts debate how to tackle giant subjects like Microsoft and Apple without alienating listeners who might tune out for months during a multi-part series, settling on pacing one major company per year alongside monthly specials.

A full Microsoft or Apple series would require 3+ long episodes, risking a multi-month audience drop-off.
The hosts commit to averaging one 'season' episode and one 'special' per month rather than releasing series back-to-back.
Losing listeners for three months during a series is seen as a real risk of permanently changing listening behavior.

“three months is certainly long enough for someone to permanently change Behavior I don't think it's good for us if someone decides to take a…”
16:00

#content strategy#podcast planning#big tech#Microsoft#Apple

Takeaway1:17:00

2023 Preview: OpenAI, Nike, Luxury Brands, and More

A rundown of candidate topics and formats for the coming year, including OpenAI, Bernard Arnault and luxury brand power, Epic Healthcare, Nike, and evolving the 'Sessions' interview format.

OpenAI is a top candidate now that the AI moment feels less premature than a year ago.
Bernard Arnault and luxury brand power is floated as a way to explore durable brand equity.
The hosts want to evolve 'Sessions' into conversations with people about topics outside their day job, or as a 'foil' in a conversation.

“it's funny how it feels like we gotta do it we almost did it 12 months ago”
1:17:00

“I think it'd be pretty interesting to go down the path of like really deeply unpacking Brand Power”
1:19:30

#2023 preview#OpenAI#luxury brands#Sessions format