Ben and David
Ben and David
About
ACQUIRED
10 years. 220 episodes. Over a million listeners.
learn more
Photograph Courtesy Rockefeller Center
Acquired Soundtrack Vinyl
Acquired tells the stories and strategies of the world's greatest companies.
Each episode is a four-hour deep dive into a single company’s history from its founding until today.
Ben and David personally handcraft each episode over 200 hours of research and production – diving into primary sources, financial documents, and countless interviews with the people who lived each company’s journey to piece together a complete story. The format is best described as a “conversational audiobook.”
The question at the center of every episode is always the same: why did this company work spectacularly, while so many others failed?
Occasionally the protagonists who built those companies join us to help us answer that question, such as Jensen Huang, Charlie Munger, Howard Schultz, Mark Zuckerberg, Daniel Ek, Morris Chang, and Jamie Dimon.
This approach has created something unique: an obsessively produced strategy deep-dive embedded within a gripping radio drama that CEOs recommend to their teams, institutional investors rely on for diligence, and talented individuals turn to when evaluating career moves.
Acquired episodes are always evergreen — focused on the history and fundamental strategies that created these companies and not on the news of the day. Our goal is to make each episode just as valuable five, ten, or even twenty years from now as it is today.
2025 Radio City
may 2025
Ben & David at NVIDIA GTC
We hope you enjoy the show as much as we love making it. It is our passion, and our mark on the world.
Ben Gilbert
David Rosenthal
meet the hosts
Ben Gilbert, Acquired Host
Ben
Gilbert
Ben is the co-founder and co-host of Acquired. He used to be a software engineer and venture capitalist before realizing he had way more fun making Acquired. He worked at Microsoft on Office for iPad, built a bunch of apps in the early days of the iPhone, and worked at Madrona and Pioneer Square Labs, building and investing in startups. He’s also an Eagle Scout and loves running, cycling, and computers. Go Buckeyes.
David Rosenthal, Acquired Host
David
Rosenthal
David is the co-founder and co-host of Acquired. He too used to be a venture capitalist before realizing he had way more fun making Acquired. He holds an undergraduate degree in French Literature from Princeton and an MBA from Stanford, both of which ended up way more useful for Acquired than he ever anticipated. (Something about only connecting the dots looking backward…) He lives in San Francisco with his wife, two young daughters and goldendoodle/research assistant.
from our listeners
The
AUDIENCE
Acquired is the #1 technology podcast on Apple and Spotify. Each episode reaches over 1 million listeners.
76%
TECH, FINANCE & INVESTING
The decision-makers in high-growth industries.
71%
FOUNDERS & ASPIRING FOUNDERS
20% current founders, 11% former founders, and 40% aspiring founders.
35%
C-level or VP-level executives
Including 14% active CEOs today.
Primarily English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada, Australia/NZ)
Asia
72
%
11
%
10
%
7
%
Rest of Europe
Rest of World
US, UK, Canada, Australia/NZ
72
%
Rest of Europe
11
%
Asia
10
%
Rest of World
7
%
CEO / President
CEO / President
14
%
Engineering
Engineering
14
%
Product
Product
9
%
Investor
Investor
9
%
Sales / Business Development
Sales / Business Development
8
%
Finance / Accounting
Finance / Accounting
7
%
Strategy /
Corp Dev
Strategy /
Corp Dev
6
%
Operations
Operations
6
%
Consulting
Consulting
6
%
Student
Student
5
%
Marketing
Market-
ing
4
%
Other
Other
12
%
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