Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedSpeaker unverified: evaluation
1 Oct 2025 Acquired Acquired Live at Radio City Music Hall (Presented by J.P. Morgan)
“Well, everyone, when we started Acquired 10 years ago, if you told us we would be playing Radio City Music Hall, I don't think in our wildest, wildest dreams we could have dreamed this big.”
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- Speaker unverified
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- evaluation
- Recorded
- 1 Oct 2025
- Publisher
- Acquired
Transcript context
…, and whatever. And, yeah, I did that. And this is in '93, right? For everyone who's like, "QVC?" but QVC at the time was about to catch this crazy wave and become like the IT company. It did do that. But what it did for me was—this is '93—it got me to understand some technology and some of this connectivity and the possibilities of that. Two years later, in '95, the Internet started to get used by normal folk. That just put me in this position of knowing stuff before anyone else. And that was invaluable. And so IAC, the company that you would later found, would end up buying, selling, starting, or selling off over 150 companies, including Expedia, TripAdvisor, Angie's List, Vimeo, Ticketmaster, Tinder, Match.com. I mean, yeah, you started in the mailroom at William Morris. Okay. You are like media and tech's Forrest Gump. I think I'm a little dumber than Forrest, but that's okay. We mean it in the best way. Okay, we have one last question for you. Yes, sir. Given that you have been at the top of both of these industries and you write about in the book the state that the media and movie industry is in now, and how it's dominated by tech companies, and I think you... Talk about how they're a much worse business now than they were in your time, and are a lot less creative and a lot less fun. Why is it that the studios were resilient for the better part of a century to technology disruption, but now they're all owned by tech companies and have those characteristics you described? Look, what happened was, for 175 years, anything that came along in the movie business—whether it was tech things like "the voice," VCRs and video cassettes, cable television—everything that came along, they basically bought in themselves. So they remained for a very long time the most important companies in "media." And then along came Netflix, a tech company. And Netflix, truly, if you say one, there's one entity that controls the media entertainment business today, and it is Netflix. They have won. No one is ever going to beat them. And then Amazon comes along with Prime, and then Apple and Amazon. How do you... Amazon's business model, which is to get you to subscribe to Prime and buy a bunch of stuff, they give you some video. Now, if you're in—that's their business model. If you're in the entertainment business, your business model is to create hits. They don't really care if you have a hit or not; they just want more toasters sold, et cetera. And these three companies have at least 100 times the resources of these old movie companies. So the whole hegemony has now shifted to tech. Tech now totally controls media. And the... The net result is that, or if I could simplify this down, it's that movie production (and TV production) is just not that big a business and is being used as a loss leader to offer something to consumers for other tech businesses. Look, no, Netflix is not a loss leader. But with Netflix, you subscribe to the service. No, it's not about the individual piece of content. No one movie is going to mean very much so long as you're satisfied with the service and you subscribe. That's, again, a completely different business model than making hits. Yep. al piece of content. No one movie is going to mean very much so long as you're satisfied with the service and you subscribe. That's, again, a completely different business model than making hits. Yep. All right, with parting words, what is a piece of advice you would give to all the entrepreneurs in the audience today? "Be curious." I don't know. I've got no piece of advice. But I wish everyone the best. Everyone. Thank you so much. Well, that was a great way to end the night. What a night, David. What a night it was. Well, everyone, when we started Acquired 10 years ago, if you told us we would be playing Radio City Music Hall, I don't think in our wildest, wildest dreams we could have dreamed this big. No, it was a tech podcast. Yeah, come on. This has been amazing. So, thank you, thank you so much to all of you for coming tonight and for listening to our podcast over the years. It means so much. Thank you so much to Jamie Dimon, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Meredith Kopit Levien, and Barry Diller. Thanks also to our audience participants: Christina Cacioppo, Ben Clymer, Howard Schultz, and surprisingly, Jamie Dimon. Again, thank you to our host, J.P. Morgan, to Hermès for dressing us. And... Most importantly, thank you to the many, many, many people—the J.P. Morgan team—who gave their days, nights, weekends for this. Thank you to our production crew. There are hundreds of people who put on tonight. For everyone... Come on out! One, two, three, take it to license down. And most, most importantly, thank you, Mike Taylor. Take it on, M. Sam. Dude, we did it! What's your line of the night? Barry Diller saying, "It was all me." Or, Jamie spoiling that Howard was here. We had the same thing planned, and he's like, "I think Howard Schultz is here," and Andrew Ross Sorkin. No surprises. I can't believe. Thanks so much, man. Really appreciate it. Oh, thanks. So great. Thanks. I can't believe we just played Radio City Music Hall. Am. Surreal. The world is a wonderful place. After party, let's do it. So, is Jamie Dimon going to run for president? We'll. …
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