Ben Gilbert

Well, listeners, today we're going to do something very different than our holiday specials of years past.

We've received a bunch of requests over the years to do an Acquired episode on Acquired itself and to unpack why Acquired worked when 99% of podcasts do not.

But it's always felt a little bit strange to me, and we've always shied away from analyzing our own company.

And so we thought, well, if we're going to do something, we should bring someone in to do it with us.

And we'd want someone who is great at dissecting the mechanics behind teams or companies, someone who distills complexity into simplicity, someone who himself knows how to tell a great story.

And there was really only one choice.

Yes.

And then, of course, there's the venue.

We thought it'd be a fitting way to cap off the year of our three-part Google series to record in the literal garage where that nearly $4 trillion company got started.

And that email list just got a whole lot better with our first overhaul in five years.

So you'll now get episode summaries, our big takeaways and exclusive photos from our research process.

That's acquired.fm slash email.

Chat about this episode with us and the whole Acquired community in Slack, acquired.fm slash slack.

And if you want more Acquired, check out our interview show, ACQ2.

Our last episode was with Andrew Ross Sorkin, founder of the New York Times Dealbook, host of CNBC's Squawk Box, and author of 1929.

That's ACQ2 in any podcast player.

And before we dive in, we want to briefly thank our presenting partner, JPMorgan Payments.

So with that, this show is not investment advice.

David and I may have investments in the companies we discuss, and this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only.

but that is exactly how it feels but that is the process we go through yeah and climbing for finals the night before there's a lot of like academic feelings that happen as we get close to recording day