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Acquired

Acquired

By: Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
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Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.Copyright 2025 ACQ, LLC Economics Personal Finance
Episodes
  • Vanguard

    Vanguard
    May 18 2026
    Vanguard is the most effective vehicle ever created for participating in the fruits of American capitalism. Today it’s the single largest equity owner of the majority of corporations in the S&P 500, on behalf of 50 million clients (including, likely, many of you). And yet Vanguard itself is essentially a communist organization — it has no shareholders, makes no profits, and operates more like REI than Fidelity. If you own a Vanguard fund, you own a piece of the firm itself. Any excess margin instead gets returned to clients in the form of lower fees, which since 1975 have added up to roughly five hundred billion dollars transferred out of Wall Street managers’ pockets and into retail investors’ savings accounts. And oh yeah, it all started as a cockamamie revenge plot by a guy who’d just been fired by his partners. Today we tell the story of communist capitalism at its finest — Vanguard.Sponsors:Many thanks to our fantastic Spring '26 Season partners:J.P. MorganWeAreDevelopers eventServiceNowVercelStatsigLinks:Sign up for email updates, get our takeaways and research photos from each episode, and vote on future topics!Our Vanguard "episode preview" in WSJStay the Course: The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution by John C. BogleThe Bogle Effect by Eric BalchunasWorldly Partners' Multi-Decade Vanguard StudyWorldly Partners' Article Generational Investing: The Discipline Behind 100+x OutcomesAll episode sourcesCarve Outs:Our WSJ pieces on Ferrari and VanguardMacBook Pro M5 MaxMichael MacKelvie on YouTubeThe Super Mario Galaxy MovieBrooks Vanguard sneakersMore Acquired:Get email updates and vote on future episodes!Join the SlackCheck out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!00:00:00 Start00:00:41 Intro00:05:30 Jack Bogle's Early Life & Family Ruin (1929)00:12:34 Princeton Thesis & Mutual Funds Emerge (1949-1951)00:27:20 Joining Wellington Management (1951)00:30:38 The Go-Go Years & Fidelity's Ascent (1958-1965)00:40:36 Jack Takes the Reins & The Ivest Merger (1965)00:46:04 The Go-Go Bust & Jack's Crisis of Conscience (1970-1973)00:53:28 Jack is Fired: The Genesis of Vanguard (1974)01:13:03 The Journal Article That Inspired It All (1974-1976)01:35:02 Building the Fund & Early Struggles (1976-1981)01:44:32 The Rise of Indexing & Vanguard's Growth (1988-1992)01:49:06 Jack's Health & The CEO Transition (1995-1996)02:00:06 The ETF Debate & Jack's Second Firing (1999)02:24:18 The 2008 Financial Crisis: Vanguard's Moment02:30:46 The Warren Buffet Bet (2008-2019)02:41:28 Fidelity & BlackRock's Resurgence (Post-2008)02:52:04 Salim Ramji: Vanguard's First Outside CEO03:04:43 Wellington's Comeback & Mutual Ownership03:08:23 Analysis03:30:58 Quintessence03:39:35 Carve-Outs + Outro‍Note: 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.
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    3 hrs and 48 mins
  • Ferrari

    Ferrari
    Apr 13 2026
    Ferrari is the pinnacle of luxury scarcity — across its entire 79-year history, the company has sold just 330,000 cars at an average price today of $500,000. For context, Hermès sells that many Birkins and Kellys roughly every 2 years, and Rolex moves that many watches every 3 months. And yet this ultimate luxury product also lives under the same roof with a widely beloved professional sports team… one with 400 million rabid fans from all walks of life who live and die by the Scuderia’s performance every F1 race weekend! How is it possible that these two seemingly contradictory customer bases can coexist within the same company? And far from destroying each other’s value, only reinforce it? The answer, it turns out, is a beautiful, bloody, tragic and romantic opera that spans two families and three generations — and just might be one of the best tales we’ve ever told on Acquired. Buckle up for the story of Ferrari. Sponsors:Many thanks to our fantastic Spring '26 Season partners:J.P. Morgan PaymentsVercelServiceNowStatsigLinks:Sign up for email updates, get out takeaways and research photos from each episode, and vote on future topics!Our Ferrari "episode preview" in WSJEnzo Ferrari by Luca Dal MonteSeeing Red on IMDbGo Like Hell by A.J. BaimeStephen Wilmot's great WSJ piece on FerrariFerrari factory tourWorldly Partners' Multi-Decade Ferrari StudyAll episode sourcesCarve Outs:Ford v FerrariMaison Wheat sweatersCraighill scissorsAmazon grocery serviceTravelpro Altitude backpackMore Acquired:Get email updates and vote on future episodes!Join the SlackCheck out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!00:00:00 Start00:01:08 Intro00:06:11 Enzo Ferrari's Early Life & Tragedies (1898-1919)00:12:39 Scuderia Ferrari: Enzo's Racing Dream (1920-1933)00:25:08 The Prancing Horse & Ferrari's Branding00:35:41 First Ferrari Road Cars & Le Mans Victory (1947-1949)00:51:31 F1 & The Tragedies of Enzo's Life (1950s)01:14:03 Ford vs. Ferrari: The Le Mans Rivalry (1963-1966)01:21:24 Enzo Sells 50% to Fiat (1969)01:29:10 Luca di Montezemolo's Return to F1 Glory (1971-1976)01:52:40 Ferrari's "Pepsi Challenge" and how Luca rescued the company (1991)02:27:41 Post-IPO Ferrari: New Models & Growth (2015-Present)02:48:24 The FUV Purosangue & Model Range03:07:16 Ferrari Luce: The EV Future with Jony Ive03:12:37 Ferrari Today by the Numbers03:29:39 Analysis03:50:04 Carve-Outs + Thank Yous‍Note: 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.
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    3 hrs and 59 mins
  • Formula 1

    Formula 1
    Mar 2 2026
    Formula 1 is three competitions in one: a 200mph battle of the world's best race car drivers, the world cup of engineering where thousand-person teams spend hundreds of millions designing cars from scratch, and — as one of our listeners perfectly put it — the “Real Housewives of the Garage”, a soap opera of billionaire egos, team politics, and paddock drama that makes for incredible reality television. It's also the world's most popular annual sporting series with over 827 million fans globally — a fact that would shock most Americans, who until a recent viral Netflix series had barely heard of it.Today we tell the story of how a chaotic, deadly, and gloriously dysfunctional European racing series became one of the greatest business stories in sports. For decades, brilliant engineers and daredevil drivers dedicated their lives (and too often lost them) to a league controlled for 45 years by a single man: a former London car dealer named Bernie Ecclestone, who centralized power and extracted billions, while also undeniably single-handedly making the sport successful. Then, in a move no one saw coming, the American company Liberty Media bought the whole thing in 2017, installed a team of Fox Sports and ESPN veterans, and did what Bernie never would — professionalized it. All of a sudden famously money-losing F1 teams turned into real businesses, with the average team valuation today clocking in at an astounding $3.6 billion. Buckle up for one of our most-requested episodes: the wild story of Formula 1.Sponsors:Many thanks to our fantastic Spring '26 Season partners:J.P. Morgan PaymentsServiceNowVercelStatsigLinks:Sign up for email updates and vote on future episodes!The Formula by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan CleggDrive to Survive on NetflixF1 The Movie on Apple TVAdrian Newey, How to Build a CarSenna documentaryWorldly Partners' Multi-Decade Formula One StudyAll episode sourcesCarve Outs:Cirque du Soleil EchoSuper Bowl LX Mic'd UpTonalPrincess Peach: Showtime! on Nintendo SwitchDaloopa for historical financial dataMore Acquired:Get email updates and vote on future episodes!Join the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!00:00:00 Start00:00:37 Intro00:05:52 Origins of F1: Britain, Italy, and Monaco00:30:43 Bernie's Entrance00:37:42 Bernie Consolidates Power00:50:33 F1 as a Global TV Sport (Except America)01:08:08 F1's Incredible Engineering Achievements01:19:34 Senna's Crash and a New Era for Safety01:33:18 The Many Owners of F1, and Bernie's Liquidity Drama01:57:48 FOTA: The attempted breakaway series02:05:07 RedBull, Mercedes, and Reinventing the Sport02:42:33 Liberty Media buys F1 and Brings it to the Modern Era03:05:03 Drive to Survive03:26:45 Apple, TV Rights, and Success in America03:41:52 F1: The Business Today03:56:23 Analysis: Why Did F1 Work… and Was Bernie Necessary?04:05:40 7 Powers04:08:23 Bear vs. Bull Cases04:16:32 Quintessence04:20:08 Carve-Outs + Outro‍Note: 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.
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    4 hrs and 30 mins
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wonderful podcast series, the format just works. topics are interesting and relevant, you can tell that the guys have fun researching and telling the stories. recommended

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