Podcast recommendation: "Acquired"

Got a few hours to learn everything you wanted to know about Costco?

The only thing more amazing — to use a word the hosts are fond of — about the “Acquired” podcast than its content is that it took me so long to discover it. The show launched in October 2015 and is now in its fourteenth season¹ , producing episodes about once a month, each one focusing on a single company. (Tagline: “Every company has a story.”) According to a recent Wall Street Journal article (gift link), more than 500,000 people listen to each “Acquired” episode; 40 percent of them are C-suite or VP-level executives.

Here’s one more amazing thing: For years, each of those episodes has been at least two hours long. Some of them surpass four hours. And when hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal really want to dig into a topic, they’ll devote multiple episodes to it. So far, they’ve released four episodes about the AI computing company Nvidia. Total listening time: almost nine hours.

But although I subscribe to a lot of podcasts, I’d never heard of “Acquired” until a couple of weeks ago, when my brother David recommended the Costco episode to my brother Michael, who mentioned it to me. The recommendation came with a caveat: The episode was three hours long. I’d never heard of a podcast episode that exceeded an hour, but as it happened I had plenty of time on my hands: I was about to make the six-and-a-half-hour drive from L.A. to Oakland, and the audiobook I’d borrowed was disappointing. I decided to give “Acquired” a try.

Pretty much at random, I cued up the Nike episode, from July 2023. (Four hours, two minutes, 55 seconds.) And I was hooked. (Fun fact from that episode: The Nike Cortez model, introduced to coincide with the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City and still in production, would have been called the Aztec if rival Adidas hadn’t just released its Azteca Gold shoe. Nike defiantly chose the name of the Spanish conquistador “who kicked the you-know-what out of the Aztecs.” Ouch.)

From there, because love of Costco is a Friedman family trait, I moved on to Costco (August 2023).² Also terrific! (Astonishing fact: Costco’s store brand, Kirkland Signature, “does more revenue alone, not including anything else in the store, than all of Nike.”) Then I skipped around: Porsche. Hermès. Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant that makes injectable insulin and the new semaglutide “miracle drugs” Ozempic and Wegovy. I’m now 36 minutes into the Microsoft episode — 3 hours and 46 minutes to go!

Hosts Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, who met a decade ago at a mutual friend’s Passover seder, do hundreds of hours of research for each episode and edit with “ruthless” precision, according to the WSJ article. (The Microsoft episode was trimmed down from nine hours.) The Acquired.fm website includes bonus links, shorter “ACQ2” mini-episodes, a Slack channel, and full transcripts, although I prefer to hear the hosts’ voices: They’re excellent storytellers, and they keep the bro-banter to a minimum.³ Even their ads — companies like J.P. Morgan and ServiceNow pay big bucks to sponsor the show — are educational.

In the podcast’s early years, episodes focused exclusively on successful tech acquisitions. (Hence the “Acquired” name.) The scope is broader now, but regardless of the industry, Gilbert and Rosenthal turn each episode into a compelling saga, with abundant anecdotes, quotes, and fascinating facts. For example, although the only Hermès product I’ve ever bought is a small bottle of cologne, and although I have zero interest in, or budget for, a handcrafted $25,000 handbag — I’m perfectly happy with my $29.99 nylon shoulder bag from Uniqlo, thank you — I was utterly riveted by the Hermès story. Here are just a few of the highlights:

• The company was founded in 1837, during the reign of Napoleon III, as a maker of harnesses and later saddles. It is now run by the sixth generation of family members.

• Before taking a leadership role in the company, every family member spends two years as an apprentice in one of the company’s ateliers, or workshops.

• Hermès refuses to hire consultants.

• In 1988, silk goods — mostly the famous scarves, each one a frameable work of art — accounted for 55 percent of the business; leather goods made up just 9 percent. Today silk and “textiles” (neckties, mostly) are only 7 percent of the business and leather goods — mostly the famous Kelly and Birkin bags, which are never displayed (!) in the retail stores and which retail for five or six figures apiece — are 43 percent.

• The brand’s signature orange color is the result of shortages. Before World War II the company had used cream-colored boxes, which were unavailable during wartime. The only available boxes were the orange ones that had been used by bakeries whose production was now limited by rationing. Hermès now has six or seven proprietary shades of orange, from Classic to Feu to Moutarde.

  

  Orange Hermès boxes, via eBay

• Each Hermès leather article is made by a single artisan from start to finish.

• Hermès employs 7,000 of those artisans, and 76 percent of production is in France.

• No single production site employs more than 300 people. When the headcount surpasses 300, the current executives say, it’s no longer an atelier, it’s a factory.

• To keep growing, the company has opened trade schools. The schools have a 100 percent graduation rate.

• Yes, Gilbert and Rosenthal talk about Veblen goods.

And that’s just a tiny sampling from just one episode.

Many thanks to my brothers for the tip! And here’s my own tip: You don’t have to be a C-level exec or a VP to appreciate “Acquired.” All you need is a love of history, some curiosity about how business works, and maybe several nice long drives, flights, or train trips.

1. I’m not sure how the “season” count works.

2. Costco today is the result of a 1993 merger with its Southern California competitor Price Club, which was founded by — are you ready? — Sol Price. Talk about nominative determinism! By the way, Sol Price got his start in the business by founding FedMart, which was modeled on Fedco, the membership warehouse store my parents belonged to. (And where I first ate an empanada, which is still boggling to me. It was years before I encountered empanadas anywhere else.) As their names suggest, Fedco and FedMart were open only to government employees; both of my parents worked for the city of Los Angeles.

3. They’re not perfect. They use the Intrusive Of — e.g., “not too high of hurdles” — that Sets! My Teeth!! On Edge!!! I wish Ben Gilbert wouldn’t say “from David and I.” (Would you say “from I”? You would not.) And on the Hermès episode, David Rosenthal repeatedly mispronounces “equestrian” — a key word in the company’s history! — as “e-kes-trian.” There’s a quest in there.