High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
Method
Browse
How the evidence works
← All source episodes

Acquired / episode intelligence

Holiday Special 2022

19 Dec 2022 82 published claims 2 attributable people
Open original episode ↗ Read the evidence

Speakers in the public record

Ben GilbertDavid Rosenthal

Claim mix

belief 54uncertainty 9commitment 6evaluation 6recommendation 3preference 2observation 1prediction 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

82 published records

05 / belief

Kind of like we were talking about on our most recent episode with Ben Thompson and Stratechery and he's like, the obvious thing that I should do is raise prices to maximize revenue, but then that's pretty quickly going to lead to limiting my reach and impact. I think Taylor cares a lot about her reach and impact.

“Kind of like we were talking about on our most recent episode with Ben Thompson and Stratechery and he's like, the obvious thing that I should do is raise prices to maximize revenue, but then that's pretty quickly going to lead to limiting my reach and impact. I think Taylor cares a lot about her reach and impact.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

11 / belief

When you're at a sporting event, halftime quarters, you go get concessions, you whatever, so it makes the product different and I think worse for the 150,000+ people who are going to listen after the fact.

“When you're at a sporting event, halftime quarters, you go get concessions, you whatever, so it makes the product different and I think worse for the 150,000+ people who are going to listen after the fact.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

14 / belief

Spotify has done a great job of, at least from my perspective, engaging with us as creators, and I think striking a good balance between podcasting is an open ecosystem with all the benefits and trade-offs that we've just been talking about, but you can also do it better than Apple.

“Spotify has done a great job of, at least from my perspective, engaging with us as creators, and I think striking a good balance between podcasting is an open ecosystem with all the benefits and trade-offs that we've just been talking about, but you can also do it better than Apple.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

15 / belief

Maybe I'm forgetting the story in its entirety, but I think there was a bet the company made around programmable shaders, and then a third one around the like seven year investment before the market was there in AI and Cuda and building their own developer ecosystem.

“Maybe I'm forgetting the story in its entirety, but I think there was a bet the company made around programmable shaders, and then a third one around the like seven year investment before the market was there in AI and Cuda and building their own developer ecosystem.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

16 / belief

There's no biometric on it. But I think a feature that it does have is if you put it on, and then you take out your phone before you need to type in the passcode on your watch, and you face ID on your phone, your watch is auto unlocked.

“There's no biometric on it. But I think a feature that it does have is if you put it on, and then you take out your phone before you need to type in the passcode on your watch, and you face ID on your phone, your watch is auto unlocked.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

17 / belief

The Internet enables two things. It enables the niches to exist so there are way more artists that can make a living today, I think, than if you think back to like the 60s or something where the labels would pick the 10 bands of the year and that's it.

“The Internet enables two things. It enables the niches to exist so there are way more artists that can make a living today, I think, than if you think back to like the 60s or something where the labels would pick the 10 bands of the year and that's it.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

21 / belief

Looking back, I went to talk about it, because you actually live again yourself this year, but the farther we get from it, the more in my mind and in my emotions, the space the Arena Show occupies is just like Jenny and my wedding.

“Looking back, I went to talk about it, because you actually live again yourself this year, but the farther we get from it, the more in my mind and in my emotions, the space the Arena Show occupies is just like Jenny and my wedding.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

24 / commitment

With that, this is not investment advice. This is probably the episode of the year where we will come closest to things that might be interpreted as investment advice as we talk about things that we have liked and didn't like, predict the future and all that, so do your own research.

“With that, this is not investment advice. This is probably the episode of the year where we will come closest to things that might be interpreted as investment advice as we talk about things that we have liked and didn't like, predict the future and all that, so do your own research.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

28 / belief

I think, actually, growth happens because we infiltrate a network, particularly a company network, and then we get shared within the company, like in a company Slack, Teams, or just friend networks within a company.

“I think, actually, growth happens because we infiltrate a network, particularly a company network, and then we get shared within the company, like in a company Slack, Teams, or just friend networks within a company.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

29 / commitment

An operational efficiency is we're just going to be better, we're going to be more efficient, we're going to do it for cheaper costs, you and I are going to do more research than anybody else.

“An operational efficiency is we're just going to be better, we're going to be more efficient, we're going to do it for cheaper costs, you and I are going to do more research than anybody else.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

35 / belief

Most people I think are also in the same mode that you and I are of like, oh, I can see how this could rewrite copy dynamically on a website, but that's the to-do list version of what AI can do.

“Most people I think are also in the same mode that you and I are of like, oh, I can see how this could rewrite copy dynamically on a website, but that's the to-do list version of what AI can do.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

41 / belief

If you always lean into this, we have very few guests, we think there are people that you really should hear from—which by the way, this is why the SBF thing burns me up so much just because we tried to be ridiculously selective—then it enables you to create content with people that otherwise are not going to go do the circuit.

“If you always lean into this, we have very few guests, we think there are people that you really should hear from—which by the way, this is why the SBF thing burns me up so much just because we tried to be ridiculously selective—then it enables you to create content with people that otherwise are not going to go do the circuit.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

45 / commitment

You're way deeper in the product side as a fan of the product side of tech than I am, but anytime there's a new Apple device or there are a couple places I will go directly, I will go to MKBHD and all the various properties that he had they have now, and I'll go to The Verge.

“You're way deeper in the product side as a fan of the product side of tech than I am, but anytime there's a new Apple device or there are a couple places I will go directly, I will go to MKBHD and all the various properties that he had they have now, and I'll go to The Verge.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

46 / commitment

We've experienced in the past with the show, there are times where we will engage with a company, a CEO, or a firm, before having done any Acquired content on them, and they don't engage fully right.

“We've experienced in the past with the show, there are times where we will engage with a company, a CEO, or a firm, before having done any Acquired content on them, and they don't engage fully right.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

59 / belief

In fact, I think we should probably be a little bit tighter on them, and shorter on them, and find more ways to make the sponsorship segments even more differentiated, where we're not just giving the high-level pitch on the company, but doing more Vouch Insurance 101–type stuff, where we can find a key insight with the company and story-tell that together.

“In fact, I think we should probably be a little bit tighter on them, and shorter on them, and find more ways to make the sponsorship segments even more differentiated, where we're not just giving the high-level pitch on the company, but doing more Vouch Insurance 101–type stuff, where we can find a key insight with the company and story-tell that together.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

60 / belief

We didn't do an end of year special for Kindergarten like we're doing now for Acquired and discuss our strategy and say, you know, I think we should find an opportunity to do a $10 million SPV this year.

“We didn't do an end of year special for Kindergarten like we're doing now for Acquired and discuss our strategy and say, you know, I think we should find an opportunity to do a $10 million SPV this year.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

62 / belief

In order to understand the role of retail in America today, you first need to understand that everything we think of as a retailer or most things we think of as retailer, are actually discounters.

“In order to understand the role of retail in America today, you first need to understand that everything we think of as a retailer or most things we think of as retailer, are actually discounters.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

73 / preference

I think I always think in terms of what products I can fully conceptualize and see in my head, understand all the hard stuff involved in it, draw a nice neat box around it, and just work towards shipping that thing that I can fully imagine.

“I think I always think in terms of what products I can fully conceptualize and see in my head, understand all the hard stuff involved in it, draw a nice neat box around it, and just work towards shipping that thing that I can fully imagine.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

76 / evaluation

Everybody who believed that AI was going to be this complete step change in the way that we use computers, and decided that buying NVIDIA at a very high price was the way to endorse that belief.

“Everybody who believed that AI was going to be this complete step change in the way that we use computers, and decided that buying NVIDIA at a very high price was the way to endorse that belief.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

77 / evaluation

It's in the neutral zone. But because of our business model and everything we were talking about, the deepening of the engagement with the right people and the right sponsors, that's what drives our excitement about the business and the business itself in a way that for Ben, it's different, because he actually does need to grow his business to keep growing the number of consumers, because some percentage of them will convert to paying.

“It's in the neutral zone. But because of our business model and everything we were talking about, the deepening of the engagement with the right people and the right sponsors, that's what drives our excitement about the business and the business itself in a way that for Ben, it's different, because he actually does need to grow his business to keep growing the number of consumers, because some percentage of them will convert to paying.”
Speaker
David Rosenthal
Publisher
Acquired

79 / preference

Maybe once a year is even too often, because God, it's a lift. But then feel free to do a bunch of in-person stuff with our partners, with our sponsors, with people that we like, work with on the show anyway and want to just continue to build deeper relationships with, but those aren't necessarily episodes.

“Maybe once a year is even too often, because God, it's a lift. But then feel free to do a bunch of in-person stuff with our partners, with our sponsors, with people that we like, work with on the show anyway and want to just continue to build deeper relationships with, but those aren't necessarily episodes.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired

80 / prediction

Maybe I'm too focused on the downside and maybe it will turn out that while we may alienate some people, it's the largest thing in Acquired history because I was shocked that—we will keep going here on big episodes—the Amazon episode was by far the biggest in Acquired history.

“Maybe I'm too focused on the downside and maybe it will turn out that while we may alienate some people, it's the largest thing in Acquired history because I was shocked that—we will keep going here on big episodes—the Amazon episode was by far the biggest in Acquired history.”
Speaker
Ben Gilbert
Publisher
Acquired
Search evidence