High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
How the evidence works

Public evidence record

Ben Gilbert

Host · Acquired

Claims
500
Episodes
23
Shows
1
Named items
46

Books, apps, and tools

The evidenced stack.

Browse the grouped index →

service / likes

Vanguard

“Ben and David love their index funds. You know, we love Vanguard here. If you had bought the S&P 500 with that same $1,000, instead of $17 million today, you would have $170,000.”

Acquired · 14 Sept 2026

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

other / recommends

Defunctland

“There's a great one on the Florida Project, so I highly recommend Defunctland.”

Acquired · 22 Jun 2026

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

other / recommends

Animagraffs

“I highly recommend the channel, Animagraffs.”

Acquired · 22 Jun 2026

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

hardware / likes

Disneyland

“The sightlines, man. The, the—I, I like going to Disneyland just to walk around.”

Acquired · 22 Jun 2026

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

other / recommends

Tifosi

“I highly recommend Tifosi. They're also pretty cheap. I bought three pairs. They're goofy in different colors and they're fun.”

Acquired · 4 Mar 2026

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

book / uses

Last Man Standing

“One great book I read for research was Last Man Standing to prep for the Jamie Dimon interview.”

Acquired · 15 Dec 2025

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

other / uses

Invest Like the Best

“I listened to an episode of Invest Like the Best about a year ago, which was a really, really long interview with Graham Duncan.”

Acquired · 15 Dec 2025

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

app / uses

Gemini

“I find switching costs to be relatively low. I use Gemini for some stuff, then it’s really easy to switch away.”

Acquired · 6 Oct 2025

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

other / uses

Glass

“I watched the Google IO keynote with Glass and I watched a bunch of Glass content.”

Acquired · 26 Aug 2025

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

paper / uses

Worldly Partners research

“In fact, in particular, for each of these episodes now, I read the Worldly Partners research on the company we’re covering from front of the show, Arvind.”

Acquired · 18 Nov 2024

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

app / uses

Netflix

“Think about how I watch Netflix. I will watch Netflix tonight after we record on my Apple TV upstairs.”

Acquired · 22 Jul 2024

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

other / recommends

Visa

“I highly recommend the Visa one as discussed earlier in the Network of Networks idea, if you haven't heard that”

Acquired · 22 Apr 2024

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

Claim ledger

What Ben said.

221 transcript-backed records

01 / belief

' Like, Disney Animation is so important to where we all came from in the world, and they fly down and they meet with people and they see, 'Oh, there's actually great talent here, they're just not being led well, and we think we can apply our process and institute a brain trust and change the physical construction of the building and bring in the Pixar way and make this great again.

“' Like, Disney Animation is so important to where we all came from in the world, and they fly down and they meet with people and they see, 'Oh, there's actually great talent here, they're just not being led well, and we think we can apply our process and institute a brain trust and change the physical construction of the building and bring in the Pixar way and make this great again.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

06 / belief

I think the most interesting part of this is they then take the storyboards and put them together in a story reel where they're able to watch it like a movie, even though they're still frames, and they either narrate over it or they do temp dialogue on top.

“I think the most interesting part of this is they then take the storyboards and put them together in a story reel where they're able to watch it like a movie, even though they're still frames, and they either narrate over it or they do temp dialogue on top.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

08 / belief

The Disney brand has something to lose. And so if you have a bunch of bombs in a row, I think less of the Disney brand, which again takes away your compounding competitive advantage.

“The Disney brand has something to lose. And so if you have a bunch of bombs in a row, I think less of the Disney brand, which again takes away your compounding competitive advantage.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

30 / belief

Lamborghini actually canceled theirs and has switched it to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle instead. And I think the point I keep kicking around is, much like the quartz crisis in the world of watches, speed is no longer relevant.

“Lamborghini actually canceled theirs and has switched it to a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle instead. And I think the point I keep kicking around is, much like the quartz crisis in the world of watches, speed is no longer relevant.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Ferrari
Publisher
Acquired

34 / belief

The big difference here being that Ferrari is much sort of flashier than Patek is as a brand, and they also have the Tifosi, which adds this whole different element to it. So to directly answer your question, I think branding shows up more in luxury watches than it does in luxury cars for the— almost like the lack of experienceable intrinsic product characteristics, that it's just hard to experience the product in a Porsche, but it's easy to experience the product differences in a car.

“The big difference here being that Ferrari is much sort of flashier than Patek is as a brand, and they also have the Tifosi, which adds this whole different element to it. So to directly answer your question, I think branding shows up more in luxury watches than it does in luxury cars for the— almost like the lack of experienceable intrinsic product characteristics, that it's just hard to experience the product in a Porsche, but it's easy to experience the product differences in a car.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Ferrari
Publisher
Acquired

56 / belief

Their machine really works. I think that's the point. They've earned the right acting this nobly partially got them to where they are, but where they are earns them the right to continue to be noble.

“Their machine really works. I think that's the point. They've earned the right acting this nobly partially got them to where they are, but where they are earns them the right to continue to be noble.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Costco
Publisher
Acquired

57 / belief

I think the dynamics are actually the opposite way with Costco, where Costco gets to hold an auction and say, we have an enormous amount of payment volume with enormously good customers with good credit.

“I think the dynamics are actually the opposite way with Costco, where Costco gets to hold an auction and say, we have an enormous amount of payment volume with enormously good customers with good credit.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Costco
Publisher
Acquired

82 / belief

Now listeners, just like our NBA episode a couple of years ago, this is an episode on the business of football. It's not specifically about things I learned reviewing game film or the merits of the eye formation.

“Now listeners, just like our NBA episode a couple of years ago, this is an episode on the business of football. It's not specifically about things I learned reviewing game film or the merits of the eye formation.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
The NFL
Publisher
Acquired

84 / belief

One, NFL teams are now just always reliably profitable businesses. That's not true in most sports and it wasn't true in the NFL's history, but if you own an NFL team, you are going to get, I believe get a dividend check every year since they're cash generative.

“One, NFL teams are now just always reliably profitable businesses. That's not true in most sports and it wasn't true in the NFL's history, but if you own an NFL team, you are going to get, I believe get a dividend check every year since they're cash generative.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
The NFL
Publisher
Acquired

86 / belief

There's now, I think when we did the episode, we said something about $18 billion a year, the league now does over $23 billion per year] across all teams that's on track to surpass $25 billion.

“There's now, I think when we did the episode, we said something about $18 billion a year, the league now does over $23 billion per year] across all teams that's on track to surpass $25 billion.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
The NFL
Publisher
Acquired

91 / belief

If I had pitched you on Acquired in 2015, there's no way I would've said Acquired helps you understand why the world is arranged the way it is. Now I think that is absolutely the promise that we come through on.

“If I had pitched you on Acquired in 2015, there's no way I would've said Acquired helps you understand why the world is arranged the way it is. Now I think that is absolutely the promise that we come through on.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

92 / belief

I think we did our part two, and then we got a note from NVIDIA saying, Jensen has listened and wants to know who your inside sources are because it's the most correct telling of NVIDIA's story ever.

“I think we did our part two, and then we got a note from NVIDIA saying, Jensen has listened and wants to know who your inside sources are because it's the most correct telling of NVIDIA's story ever.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

99 / belief

I think in the first 10 episodes. The first five episodes, we got feedback saying, you guys need to disagree more, but I don't think we quite realized that we should reveal surprises for each other until five years ago, four years ago.

“I think in the first 10 episodes. The first five episodes, we got feedback saying, you guys need to disagree more, but I don't think we quite realized that we should reveal surprises for each other until five years ago, four years ago.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

102 / belief

I think the reasons Acquired will eventually fail, I don't think come from like platform disruption like, oh, TikTok's going to make it so people want short form instead of Acquired.

“I think the reasons Acquired will eventually fail, I don't think come from like platform disruption like, oh, TikTok's going to make it so people want short form instead of Acquired.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

105 / belief

I think we're trying to store up as much potential energy in Acquired as we can rather than anytime there's a way to make it show up on the financial statements, like letting out the pressure and being like, yup, second show, yup, more ads, yup, dynamic ads from an ad network.

“I think we're trying to store up as much potential energy in Acquired as we can rather than anytime there's a way to make it show up on the financial statements, like letting out the pressure and being like, yup, second show, yup, more ads, yup, dynamic ads from an ad network.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

114 / belief

I’m pretty sure what actually happens is Pemberton lets his formula settle, and it’s this thick syrupy thing, brings it down the street to the first drugstore, and that druggist, that proprietor is the one who actually combines that syrup with the carbonated water and makes the choice, which I think could have gone either way.

“I’m pretty sure what actually happens is Pemberton lets his formula settle, and it’s this thick syrupy thing, brings it down the street to the first drugstore, and that druggist, that proprietor is the one who actually combines that syrup with the carbonated water and makes the choice, which I think could have gone either way.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Coca-Cola
Publisher
Acquired

118 / belief

I think Coca-Cola would be worse off today if they didn’t go through the New Coke moment, which is crazy to say—I guess we don’t have the counterfactual—but if you just look at the data on the resurgence in Coke afterwards, you couldn’t have come up with a better marketing stunt.

“I think Coca-Cola would be worse off today if they didn’t go through the New Coke moment, which is crazy to say—I guess we don’t have the counterfactual—but if you just look at the data on the resurgence in Coke afterwards, you couldn’t have come up with a better marketing stunt.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Coca-Cola
Publisher
Acquired

120 / belief

The noise cancellation is insane. I think a lot of it's physical cancellation. Maybe the algorithms are better, too, and they're more comfortable over a long period of time—like on long runs.

“The noise cancellation is insane. I think a lot of it's physical cancellation. Maybe the algorithms are better, too, and they're more comfortable over a long period of time—like on long runs.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Trader Joe’s
Publisher
Acquired

129 / belief

I wonder if they did talk to AWS at all about it. Because I think—this is a crazy Easter egg; I hesitate to say it out loud—AWS was actually in the very first investment with Elon in OpenAI.

“I wonder if they did talk to AWS at all about it. Because I think—this is a crazy Easter egg; I hesitate to say it out loud—AWS was actually in the very first investment with Elon in OpenAI.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

131 / belief

There’s an independent oversight board that is set up to make sure that the mission and goals of DeepMind are actually being followed. This is an asset that Google owns today that again, I think is worth half a trillion dollars if it’s independent.

“There’s an independent oversight board that is set up to make sure that the mission and goals of DeepMind are actually being followed. This is an asset that Google owns today that again, I think is worth half a trillion dollars if it’s independent.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

133 / belief

There was a billion dollars pledged. That came from famously Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston—who (I think) most people don’t realize was part of that initial tranche—and Peter Thiel.

“There was a billion dollars pledged. That came from famously Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston—who (I think) most people don’t realize was part of that initial tranche—and Peter Thiel.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

136 / belief

I was about to say their infrastructure, but I think that’s actually a scale economy that they’ve built out the infrastructure they have so they can run all their products as cheaply as they can.

“I was about to say their infrastructure, but I think that’s actually a scale economy that they’ve built out the infrastructure they have so they can run all their products as cheaply as they can.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

140 / belief

Still does by the way. Which I think held them back in AI for a while. They know the Google name means something, so they are reticent to throw their name on it until they got shoved off the cliff.

“Still does by the way. Which I think held them back in AI for a while. They know the Google name means something, so they are reticent to throw their name on it until they got shoved off the cliff.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

144 / belief

Here's why I want to pause David, and I’m going to take it in a little bit different direction than I think you’re probably expecting, which is so therefore they went after Facebook.

“Here's why I want to pause David, and I’m going to take it in a little bit different direction than I think you’re probably expecting, which is so therefore they went after Facebook.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

151 / belief

Absolutely. And we’re designing our own file systems with GFS, or I think we’ll talk about a lot of it in the next episode, but very real system-level software that is pioneering.

“Absolutely. And we’re designing our own file systems with GFS, or I think we’ll talk about a lot of it in the next episode, but very real system-level software that is pioneering.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

156 / belief

You’re starting to get these political wins of, hey, everyone wants a good system for electronic medical records. We think in the abstract there’ll be a lot of good that comes from it.

“You’re starting to get these political wins of, hey, everyone wants a good system for electronic medical records. We think in the abstract there’ll be a lot of good that comes from it.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

157 / belief

Small. But I think to get to this point that we’ve been hitting in a bunch of different ways, as long as you can win deals in the short-term early days without sales and marketing spend, and you can just spend all of your costs or as much as possible on R&D, that R&D does compound over time to give you a big competitive advantage later in life that other forms of spend do not.

“Small. But I think to get to this point that we’ve been hitting in a bunch of different ways, as long as you can win deals in the short-term early days without sales and marketing spend, and you can just spend all of your costs or as much as possible on R&D, that R&D does compound over time to give you a big competitive advantage later in life that other forms of spend do not.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

159 / belief

What are things that we just all agree on are good ideas for the country that should happen? And let’s just pass some legislation that rewards the crap out of people with free money for doing the things that we think are a good idea anyway.

“What are things that we just all agree on are good ideas for the country that should happen? And let’s just pass some legislation that rewards the crap out of people with free money for doing the things that we think are a good idea anyway.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

163 / belief

I think at this point in history, 2025, when the customer wants to do something a certain way and Epic wants to do something a certain way, ultimately Epic is customer-focused, so they will do whatever the customer wants, but they’re going to lay out very compelling convincing arguments why their way is the correct way.

“I think at this point in history, 2025, when the customer wants to do something a certain way and Epic wants to do something a certain way, ultimately Epic is customer-focused, so they will do whatever the customer wants, but they’re going to lay out very compelling convincing arguments why their way is the correct way.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

165 / belief

I think what was happening is they had this nascent market in the proto EHR world, where they were able to sell something small enough at enough of a profit to be self-sustaining while they bided their time and built out the bigger suite.

“I think what was happening is they had this nascent market in the proto EHR world, where they were able to sell something small enough at enough of a profit to be self-sustaining while they bided their time and built out the bigger suite.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

170 / belief

The current competitive set is now what we’re dealing with, and we think the current competitive set is good enough that this is shovel-ready enough that we want the best ones to get implemented everywhere.

“The current competitive set is now what we’re dealing with, and we think the current competitive set is good enough that this is shovel-ready enough that we want the best ones to get implemented everywhere.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

173 / belief

I think Disney wanted to also go for the streaming rights, but I think the assumptions you have to make about the growth and monetization potential of streaming are a pretty big leap to say, yeah they’re worth the same as TV now, which has a lot of hungry advertising customers standing there with cash now saying I want to advertise on this product.

“I think Disney wanted to also go for the streaming rights, but I think the assumptions you have to make about the growth and monetization potential of streaming are a pretty big leap to say, yeah they’re worth the same as TV now, which has a lot of hungry advertising customers standing there with cash now saying I want to advertise on this product.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

179 / belief

I think by our calculations—we tried to estimate a P&L for any given team—we’re looking at something today like $66 million coming from a central pool and only $4-ish million coming from tickets.

“I think by our calculations—we tried to estimate a P&L for any given team—we’re looking at something today like $66 million coming from a central pool and only $4-ish million coming from tickets.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

180 / belief

Major League Cricket, for listeners out there, I’d spent a good amount of time with Soma Somasegar, who is the former Microsoft exec now at Madrona, who is a co-owner with Satya Nadella of the Seattle Major League Cricket team. It is very interesting getting his perspective on developing Major League Cricket in the US because I think the whole bet with Major League Cricket is we got to build cricket fandom domestically in a grassroots way with players here, slowly over time.

“Major League Cricket, for listeners out there, I’d spent a good amount of time with Soma Somasegar, who is the former Microsoft exec now at Madrona, who is a co-owner with Satya Nadella of the Seattle Major League Cricket team. It is very interesting getting his perspective on developing Major League Cricket in the US because I think the whole bet with Major League Cricket is we got to build cricket fandom domestically in a grassroots way with players here, slowly over time.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

181 / belief

If you want to know every time an episode drops, check out our email list. It’s the only place where we share a hint at what our next episode will be and share episode corrections, updates, and little tidbits that we learned from previous episodes.

“If you want to know every time an episode drops, check out our email list. It’s the only place where we share a hint at what our next episode will be and share episode corrections, updates, and little tidbits that we learned from previous episodes.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

182 / belief

To apply this to the IPL, the question is who are the IPL’S competitors? And I think because they are so n-of-one at this point, you have to think about it as their potential competitors or potential competitors in the past that they have since vanquished.

“To apply this to the IPL, the question is who are the IPL’S competitors? And I think because they are so n-of-one at this point, you have to think about it as their potential competitors or potential competitors in the past that they have since vanquished.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

186 / belief

I signed up for AAA while I’m just sitting there in the gas station parking lot, and within, I think an hour, hour-and-a-half, they had a mobile tire inflator on a long weekend, like a holiday weekend when other people aren’t working, drive out and fill up the air in my tire so we could be quickly on our way, not ruin the weekend.

“I signed up for AAA while I’m just sitting there in the gas station parking lot, and within, I think an hour, hour-and-a-half, they had a mobile tire inflator on a long weekend, like a holiday weekend when other people aren’t working, drive out and fill up the air in my tire so we could be quickly on our way, not ruin the weekend.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

189 / belief

If you like Acquired and you wish you had something Acquired-like that’s visual, that’s about history, intellectual property, and people trying crazy stuff, some of the most crazy entrepreneurs and executives within companies decided to build theme parks. It is very fun to see the weird old Nickelodeon hotels or action park in (I think) New Jersey, the wildly unsafe park from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

“If you like Acquired and you wish you had something Acquired-like that’s visual, that’s about history, intellectual property, and people trying crazy stuff, some of the most crazy entrepreneurs and executives within companies decided to build theme parks. It is very fun to see the weird old Nickelodeon hotels or action park in (I think) New Jersey, the wildly unsafe park from the 60s, 70s and 80s.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

193 / belief

I think for the biggest businesses in the world, it’s these businesses that operate at high gross margins in very large markets, where you basically can build out a massive fixed cost base and then have great operating leverage.

“I think for the biggest businesses in the world, it’s these businesses that operate at high gross margins in very large markets, where you basically can build out a massive fixed cost base and then have great operating leverage.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

199 / belief

Chocolate is remarkably hard to make. I think that is a huge takeaway. The fact that I’m looking down here at all these bags of M&M’s and the Snickers bar, we just assume, oh, this is an industrial thing that just comes off the line.

“Chocolate is remarkably hard to make. I think that is a huge takeaway. The fact that I’m looking down here at all these bags of M&M’s and the Snickers bar, we just assume, oh, this is an industrial thing that just comes off the line.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

200 / belief

I think part of it was also a spike in strawberry prices, so they just did away with the vanilla, and now it’s just called 3 Musketeers, even though it’s only the chocolate variant.

“I think part of it was also a spike in strawberry prices, so they just did away with the vanilla, and now it’s just called 3 Musketeers, even though it’s only the chocolate variant.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

203 / belief

We picked M&M’s, thinking this’ll be just some nice light hearted fare about the candies and the characters on commercials that remind us all of our childhood. But as we dug into Mars Incorporated, the parent company, we realized that the story is totally thrilling.

“We picked M&M’s, thinking this’ll be just some nice light hearted fare about the candies and the characters on commercials that remind us all of our childhood. But as we dug into Mars Incorporated, the parent company, we realized that the story is totally thrilling.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

207 / belief

Trying to buy materials at a discount, minimal sales staff, no finishes on unseen services, flat-packing, no one has assistance, I think actually the CEO is the only person at the company with an assistant, no one flies first class, they print on both sides of the paper.

“Trying to buy materials at a discount, minimal sales staff, no finishes on unseen services, flat-packing, no one has assistance, I think actually the CEO is the only person at the company with an assistant, no one flies first class, they print on both sides of the paper.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
IKEA
Publisher
Acquired

214 / belief

David, I think where you’re going with this is they really start going down, once IKEA does meaningfully start investing in e-commerce, starting in 2018 is when they really put their foot on the gas.

“David, I think where you’re going with this is they really start going down, once IKEA does meaningfully start investing in e-commerce, starting in 2018 is when they really put their foot on the gas.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
IKEA
Publisher
Acquired

215 / belief

I think there are certainly a lot of question marks around what do they look like in an e-commerce world, a world that’s shifting to urbanization, and a world where they’re now a big company.

“I think there are certainly a lot of question marks around what do they look like in an e-commerce world, a world that’s shifting to urbanization, and a world where they’re now a big company.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
IKEA
Publisher
Acquired

217 / belief

As you looked at not the high level metrics of how many users have ever signed up, because MySpace and Friendster, I think we’re still way ahead at this point, if you looked at how’s this going to play out if it keeps compounding and you looked at the deeper metrics, you thought, oh, I’m running the better company by a lot.

“As you looked at not the high level metrics of how many users have ever signed up, because MySpace and Friendster, I think we’re still way ahead at this point, if you looked at how’s this going to play out if it keeps compounding and you looked at the deeper metrics, you thought, oh, I’m running the better company by a lot.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Episode
Meta
Publisher
Acquired
Search evidence