Episode 43: The Square IPO

In a world ravaged by late fees and lack of rewinding, one man two men from a sleepy California beach town make a stand against tyranny, daringly dethrone an evil empire and… oh who are we kidding, they just copied Amazon’s business plan for books and applied it to movie rentals. But as always there is much more to the story than that! We dive into the fascinating, true, and oft-untold history of Netflix in our first two-part special on Acquired. Part 1 covers Netflix’s original DVD rental business from founding to 2009, and next time on Part 2 we’ll cover the (rocky) transition to streaming from 2010 to present. Buckle up for a wild ride!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLinks: Netflix’s original logoCarve Outs:Ben: The Good Place on… Netflix!David:  The Broken Earth Series by N. K. Jemisin

12 Nov 20181h 31min

Ben & David are joined by special guest and Venmo cofounder Andrew Kortina for our first-ever SF live show! In front of a packed house we chronicle the journey of how two freshman-year roommates from Penn turned a healthy obsession with Craigslist and a fake podcast into an app that facilitated $17B of payments last quarter alone, producing not one but two landmark acquisitions along the way!Note: the audio quality is a little rough due to some A/V issues at the live show. We apologize!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCCarve Outs:Kortina: The Myth Of Sisyphus by Albert CamusDavid:  Startup by Jerry KaplanBen:  Halide on the new iPhone XS camera and computational photography

29 Okt 20181h 14min

Ben and David are joined by Adobe’s Chief Product Officer, Behance founder, Benchmark partner, author, and product luminary, Scott Belsky, to tell the story of Adobe Systems’ 2012 acquisition of Behance. We dive into the role it played in of one of the greatest (and least well-known) pivots of all time: Adobe’s transition from packaged software to services, which over the past 6 years has generated an astounding $100B+ in market cap and nearly 10x growth in Adobe’s share price!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLinks:Scott’s great new book,  The Messy Middle, out today!

2 Okt 20181h 16min

We continue our China Tech series with perhaps the most incredible entrepreneurial journey in history: Alibaba and its indefatigable founder, Jack Ma. How did an unknown 30 year-old English teacher from a second tier Chinese city build the world’s 7th largest company by market cap (and the largest in China) in just 20 short years? This is one story you don’t want to miss.Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLinks: Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma BuiltJack Ma’s famous speech in the Hangzhou apartmentJack Ma on not competing with AmazonCarve Outs:Ben: Mike Maples on the Origins podcastDavid:  Romance of the Three Kingdoms

24 Sep 20181h 38min

In this special episode Ben & David head to Recode’s SF office and sit down in the red chair with the one & only Kara Swisher! Kara tells the story of Recode, from the beginnings of her partnership with Walt Mossberg in the late 90’s at WSJ to the launch of the D Conference and the All Things D blog, to starting Recode and ultimately being acquired by Vox Media in 2015. Kara is someone we’ve long looked up to at Acquired, and it was really special to have her join us on the show. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLinks: Kara interviewing Stewart Butterfield, CEO of… Glitch?

11 Sep 20181h 27min

Ben and David are (almost) live on the scene covering the plucky Southern California “camera company”… uh wait, wrong episode… we mean *speaker* company’s IPO! Continuing the long Acquired tradition of analyzing companies at the intersection of music, tech and business, we discuss the past, present and future of Sonos in world where speakers actually now… speak!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCLinks:Sonos own corporate historyCarve Outs:Ben: Andy Rachleff on the Invest like the Best podcastDavid:  Brotopia by Emily Chang

20 Aug 20181h 39min

Acquired kicks off our China tech mini-series by teaming up with the best in the business: Hans and Zara from GGV’s 996 Podcast! Together we cover the largest technology IPO in the world since fellow China tech giant Alibaba in 2014: Xiaomi, where Hans has been an investor and board member from the very beginning. This episode is chock full of history and insight on both Xiaomi and what’s happening in China tech more broadly, and why we all should be paying attention. No matter where you live, this is definitely not one to miss!Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

6 Aug 20181h 18min

Acquired kicks off Season 3 with a gangbuster two-hour extravaganza on America’s most successful automotive startup since The Ford Motor Company: Tesla. We cover everything, from founding to its 2010 IPO to all that’s happened since, including the question on the minds of superhero fans everywhere: who came first, Elon Musk or Tony Stark? (Spoiler: Elon)Sponsors:WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentryServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsnMore Acquired!:Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodesJoin the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Merch Store!© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLCCarve Outs:Ben: The Dissect podcastDavid: Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast

17 Jul 20182h 4min