Ben Gilbert

Ooh, save it, David.

Save it.

Welcome to the fall 2025 season of Acquired, the podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them.

I'm Ben Gilbert.

I'm David Rosenthal.

And we are your hosts.

Charlie Munger has a famous thought experiment.

It's the 1880s.

You want to build a company from scratch that eventually becomes worth $2 trillion, starting with just $2 million.

So you're looking for a $1 million X return, or as Charlie puts it, a Lollapalooza outcome.

Very Charlie.

The constraint is it must be a non-alcoholic beverage business.

Okay.

And another constraint, it must throw off many billions of dollars in dividends along the way to your shareholders.

Okay.

This sounds almost impossible, but what ideas could you possibly dream up to give it your best shot?

That certainly helps.

So to build this giant, valuable company, the first thing you need to know is you're not going to get there with something generic.

So you have to build a brand that grows into a strong, protected trademark.

And to reach that scale, it must be global.