Today we bring you two absolutely incredible stories. The first is Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works division — the elite team of aviation geniuses who produced some of the greatest airplanes in history: the U-2, the Stealth Fighter, and the incomparable SR-71 Blackbird. The second story is arguably even more important, but not widely known! It's the secret and true origins of Silicon Valley — and Lockheed’s primary role in it. We take you from WWII to the Cold War, all the way to today to unpack and analyze the industry dynamics of defense contractors in the modern era. Tune in and prepare to be blown away by what you’ll learn about the history of our industry!ACQ2 Show + LP Program: Subscribe to the shiny new ACQ2! Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and more. Sponsors:Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get: Pilot: 20% off your company’s first six months of service Vanta: A free trial + $1,000 off any compliance audit product …in touch with Tiny! (just tell them Ben & David sent you) Links: Ben Rich’s Skunk Works Kelly’s 14 Rules of Skunk Works LMSC’s “Seven Tenets” Steve Blank’s Secret History of Silicon Valley Episode sources Carve Outs: Nier: Automata The Blackbird speed check story EGO Lawn Tools (just in time for Fathers’ Day!) ‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

We sit down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek live in Stockholm at Spotify’s amazing HQ studio (check out the video version of this episode — which plays natively on Spotify!). This was an incredibly special and timely conversation: for those who haven’t been paying attention over the past few years, after revolutionizing music Spotify has now ALSO completely transformed our own industry in podcasting. Starting from way behind with ~zero market share in 2018, Spotify has now aggregated the listener market and amazingly surpassed Apple as the world’s largest podcast platform — including close to home with the Acquired audience, where it has 60%+ market share among you all!We discuss the origins of this “second act” strategy with Daniel, the vision to move from a music company to an audio company, and what’s coming next with Spotify’s entry into Audiobooks. And of course we relive some key moments from the Acquired canon that Daniel was involved in, including his pivotal conversations with Taylor Swift and her team convincing her to come back to streaming following the release of 1984. Tune in!ACQ2 Show + LP Program: Subscribe to our interview show, ACQ2! Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and more. Sponsors:Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get: All of your product growth powered by Statsig Up to 10% off your first year of business insurance with Vouch A free trial of PitchBook + links to research reports! LinksFollow Daniel on TwitterNote: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

We sit down Benchmark’s legendary gaming investors Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins (now also of the excellent Gamecraft podcast fame) to discuss the history and future of gaming business models. This episode is the perfect bookend to our Nintendo/Sega gaming series this season on Acquired — no one is more qualified than Mitch and Blake to breakdown how the business side of the industry has evolved so radically from the Periscope quarter-drop days to the forever games and platform based publishers of today.Regardless if you’re a gamer, understanding the incredible innovation that’s taken place over the past two decades in gaming and what it portends for other industries is critical for any founder and investor to understand. Tune in!ACQ2 Show + LP Program: Subscribe to our interview show, ACQ2! Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and more. Sponsors:Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get: All of your product growth powered by Statsig Up to 10% off your first year of business insurance with Vouch A free trial of PitchBook + links to research reports! Links The Gamecraft Podcast Mitch and Blake on Twitter The Genius of the System Mitch’s old “Investing in Content” blog post That Game Company and Sky Riot and the League of Legends dota-allstars.com growth hack Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Sega and the Genesis was THE underdog story of the early 90’s. In a single console generation, Sega went from ~zero to 50% US market share and dethroned Nintendo’s seemingly invincible global monopoly. But — somehow — it all then died. Two console generations later Sega was out of the hardware game entirely, and the company was sold off for pieces to a pachinko manufacturer. How on earth did this happen??Today we’re launching Acquired Shorts in order to tell this story and others like it: side tales from the “Acquired Cinematic Universe” that are too brief for a full episode, but too good to leave in the vault. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the format (and this episode). Please send us your feedback in Slack, email or Twitter!ACQ2 Show + LP Program: Subscribe to our interview show, ACQ2! Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and more. Sponsors:Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get: Up to 10% on your first year of business insurance with Vouch A free trial of PitchBook + links to research reports! Links: The shortest and most famous speech in video game industry history Episode sources Carve Outs: Daryl Morey on Invest Like the Best Succession Starship 6 Days to Air Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

In the 1980’s Nintendo was on top of the world, with the NES achieving over 90% market share of home video games globally. So how did they fall ALL the way down to ~10% in just a few short console generations? And how did they then build themselves back up (and down and up again) to the top of the world again? Spoiler: it all hinged on one very small, yet very large and durable platform… the Game Boy. Fire up your favorite portable entertainment device and tune in for the epic story of Nintendo’s fall from grace and journey back to the top — capped off by our robust discussion of where they go from here, and whether this 130+ year old company may still (!) be misunderstood and mis-valued.ACQ2 Show + LP Program: Subscribe to the shiny new ACQ2! Become an LP and support the show. Help us pick episodes, Zoom calls and more. Sponsors:Thanks to our fantastic partners, any member of the Acquired community can now get: Pilot: 20% off your company’s first six months of service Vanta: $1,000 off any compliance audit product …in touch with Tiny! (just tell them Ben & David sent you) Links: Our EA episode with Trip Hawkins Matthew Ball on why “Nintendo as Disney” is a flawed analogy Crossroads Capital’s investor letters outlining their Nintendo thesis Episode sources Carve Outs: Kara Swisher in Vanity Fair (and our old episode with her!) Hardcore History (finally!) The Tetris movie Daryl Morey on Invest Like the Best ‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.