How to Live in Everyone Else's Future (with Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke)
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tobi is one of the most thoughtful people in the technology industry. He's also one of the very few ...
How is AI Different Than Other Technology Waves? (With Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor)
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Is AI just better software? Or something completely different that requires a new paradigm to unders...
Building the Savannah Bananas (with Jesse Cole, Founder and Owner)
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Savannah Bananas have created a whole new sport. It’s baseball, but it’s not. It’s fast-pa...
Undoing a $5 Billion Acquisition and Building a Durable Standalone Plaid (with Plaid CEO Zach Perret)
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Zach Perret, CEO of Plaid, to discuss the remarkable journey of Plaid and the broad...
The Art of Selling Enterprise Software (with ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott)
10 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott for a masterclass in the art of enterprise sales — ...
Building Web Apps with Just English and AI (with Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch)
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vercel has become the infrastructure platform powering modern web development over the past several ...
How ARM Became The World’s Default Chip Architecture (with ARM CEO Rene Haas)
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
ARM is an incredibly unlikely story. They were founded in Cambridge, England in 1990 to design a new...
Why Duolingo Worked (with Luis von Ahn, CEO)
11 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Duolingo has fundamentally changed the landscape of self-guided education, starting with language le...
Building the Open Source AI Revolution (with Hugging Face CEO, Clem Delangue)
14 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue to understand the current state of the open source A...
Joe Montana Interview Live from Modern Treasury Transfer
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with legendary quarterback Joe Montana to discuss his transition from one of the greates...
Building a Disruptive Payments Company (with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski)
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The tenacity required to build Klarna over the last 19 years is astonishing. Despite several headwin...
The Space Industry in 2024, and How to Build a Satellite Company
24 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The space industry is one of the most fascinating areas of technology in 2024. The reduction in laun...
The Software Behind Silicon (with Synopsys Founder Aart de Geus and CEO Sassine Ghazi)
06 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been waiting for us to venture back to the land of semiconductors, you’re in luck! On ...
The Scientific Journey Behind Ozempic (with Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, Novo Nordisk's Chief Scientific Advisor)
06 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On our Novo Nordisk episode, we covered the business of Ozempic, the GLP-1 taking the world by storm...
Visa Follow-Up and Today’s Payments Ecosystem (with Gaurav Ahuja)
03 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We’re joined by Imprint cofounder and Thrive General Partner Gaurav Ahuja to dive deeper into the ...
Morgan Housel
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Morgan Housel, who is one of our very favorite authors and has also become a good f...
Doug Demuro on Analyzing the Car Industry, Creator-Led Businesses, and Porsche Episode Follow Up
18 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While preparing for our Porsche episode with Doug DeMuro, we had a lot more than Porsche to discuss…...
Generative AI in Video and the Future of Storytelling (with Runway CEO Cristobal Valenzuela)
30 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with RunwayML’s CEO Cristobal Valenzuela to discuss the incredible tools they’re bri...
Saving the Planet with Better AI Data Centers (with Crusoe CEO Chase Lochmiller)
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Crusoe Energy CEO Chase Lochmiller to talk about the two “hard to imagine” task...
Comparing the Dotcom Crash to Today (with Tom Cowan from TDM)
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every now and then, we come across super interesting and under-the-radar (at least to us!) public ma...
Generative AI Moats in B2B with Emergence Capital’s Jake Saper
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build defensible business value in an era when, as AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli said on our ...
AngelList CEO Avlok Kohli on the Transforming the Company — and Venture Itself
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since joining AngelList as CEO in 2019, Avlok Kohli has presided over perhaps the most unexpected an...
Retool CEO David Hsu on Finding Product-Market Fit via Sales
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Hsu has one of the most interesting founders journeys in tech today. After growing up in Silic...
Ben and David on My First Million
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ben and David joined Sam and Shaan of "My First Million" to talk about scaling to a large podcast, t...
The Future of Cloud Data Collaboration (with Samooha Co-Founder Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan)
20 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On our AWS episode, we talked briefly about the next chapter of cloud: data warehouses. But what mak...
Democratizing the Tools of Big Tech with Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji
10 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Statsig CEO and former Facebook VP Vijaye Raji joins us to discuss democratizing the tools of big te...
Capital Formation and the LP / GP Relationship (with Altimeter’s Meghan Reynolds)
09 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Altimeter Capital’s head of Capital Formation Meghan Reynolds (who previously was...
Crypto Self-Custody 101 (with Austin Federa)
03 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Acquired community's own Austin Federa joins us for a 101 primer on how to self-custody your cry...
Netflix's Journey, Building TCV, and Investing Through Downturns (with TCV co-founder Jay Hoag)
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We had the rare opportunity to interview Jay Hoag, cofounder of the first tech crossover investing f...
Consumer Investing in 2022 (with Brian O'Malley of Forerunner Ventures)
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Brian O’Malley of Forerunner Ventures to talk about where in the cycle we are rig...
The Profitable B2B Growth Playbook and Mutiny’s Story
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The CEO of Mutiny, Jaleh Rezaei, joins us to talk about the playbook to profitably grow a B2B compan...
Kindergarten Ventures’ Vanta investment, and building a new Strategy for Venture (with Thomas McGannon)
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kindergarten Ventures LP (and fellow podcast host over at Unlimited Partners) Thomas McGannon interv...
Reinsurance, Climate + Kindergarten Ventures (with Nat Manning)
09 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Kettle cofounder — and David’s Kindergarten Ventures partner — Nat Manning to...
The 2022 State of Crypto + Web3 with Solana's Austin Federa
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with long (long!) time-acquired community member Austin Federa to discuss the current ...
Dissecting ProfitWell's Acquisition (with Patrick Campbell)
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does a $200 million+ acquisition look like up close? How much time, focus, and communication ha...
David Interviewed on "Unlimited Partners"
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
David is the first guest on a new podcast, Unlimited Partners! This is a wide-ranging interview wher...
Travel for the Creator Economy
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with TrovaTrip co-founders Nick Poggi and Lauren Schneider to talk about travel for the ...
Reverse Interview: Ben and David at Vanta
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We dropped by Vanta's all-hands in SF a few weeks ago for Christina to interview us for a change! We...
Composer (with CEO Benjamin Rollert)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Composer CEO Benjamin Rollert to talk about bringing serious financial firepower to...
TradFi vs. Crypto, Explaining BNPL, and What's Next in Fintech (with Bain Capital Ventures' Christina Melas-Kyriazi)
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Bain Capital Ventures' newest fintech Partner Christina Melas-Kyriazi to talk about...
Ben and David on "Capital Allocators"
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In late 2021, Ben and David were guests on Ted Seides' podcast, "Capital Allocators". The episode ki...
10-K Diver: Building a Top Fintwit Account and Teaching Finance Principles to Everyone (Pseudonymously!)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Get a cup of coffee. We sit down with the voice of one of our favorite Twitter accounts, 10-K Diver,...
NZS Capital Part II: What’s Going on in Today’s Markets? (Plus more Semiconductors!)
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Back by popular “Acquired demand” (plus we really wanted to have this conversation for our own e...
Race Capital, Crypto Investing, and FTX + Solana’s Early Days
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It has been dubbed "one of the best venture investments of all time" by Packy McCormick, generating ...
Italic & a New Era of Online Retail
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Jeremy Cai, the CEO of new retail pioneer Italic, for a fascinating discussion of h...
2021 Recap: Acquired x Not Boring x The Generalist
02 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Originally broadcast live on New Years Eve: we raise a glass (of coffee haha) and recap 2021 with ou...
Mission-Driven Founders, Global Investing, and Canva (with Wesley Chan)
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, Ben sat down with Wesley Chan at Web Summit for a quick, 18-minute interview. The conver...
Blue Origin and the 2021 Space Landscape (with Rob Meyerson)
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today we're excited to have a longtime friend of the Acquired family on ACQ2, Rob Meyerson. Rob was ...
Ben and David on "This Week in Startups" Holiday Special
02 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ben and David go on "This Week in Startups" with Jason Calacanis for a holiday special! Discussion ...
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: A Fireside Chat
15 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are very excited to bring you a special ACQ2 interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Aside from Joe'...
Update on Dad Life, MacBook Pros, and Acquired Video
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The title says it all. This feels weird to release by Acquired standards -- an hour of audio with ze...
Web3 Marketplaces (with Braintrust CEO Adam Jackson)
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Adam Jackson, the cofounder and CEO of Freelance Labs, which builds the incredible ...
Audius (with CEO Roneil Rumberg)
11 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Roneil Rumberg, the co-founder and CEO of Audius — the decentralized music platfo...
Special drop: David on Levels' Podcast!
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this week David went on Levels' podcast, A Whole New Level, hosted by Acquired "Super LP" an...
Explaining Macroeconomics, The Fed, Interest Rates and Valuations (with Matt McBrady)
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Confused about everything going on with The Fed, inflation and how it affects tech and startup valua...
Kim-Mai Cutler -- From Journalist to VC
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We sit down with Initialized Capital's Kim-Mai Cutler to talk about her opposite journey from us at ...
Managing a Crypto Fund (with Kyle Samani from Multicoin Capital)
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How on earth do you professionally manage a crypto investment firm? That was the question we wanted ...
Owning Your Own Media Stream (from Collison Conf with Garry Tan)
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ben interviewed Initialized Capital founder and friend of the show, Garry Tan at Collision Conf last...
Making your customers your secret weapon (with Highspot's Oliver Sharp)
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by Oliver Sharp of Highspot, Seattle's most recent unicorn company (at least at the tim...
LP "Expert Call" with Josh Clemente from Levels
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We got *awesome* feedback on the recent special episode we did with Levels founder Josh Clemente -- ...
The Meituan Bear Case (with Lillian Li)
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When the internet’s top China tech analyst Lillian Li posted a great Twitter take (linked below) o...
Modern Treasury interviews Ben & David (and vice versa!)
18 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The very cool (and also very hot! You can read about their recent funding rounds from Benchmark and ...
State-of-SaaS and Deep Collaboration (with Jake Saper from Emergence Capital)
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Emergence Capital's Jake Saper returns to the LP Show to talk 2021 "state-of-SaaS" and Emergence's D...
The Idea Dinner #1 (with Mario Gabriele and Packy McCormick)
26 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We team up with Mario from the Generalist and Packy from Not Boring for something new: The Idea Dinn...
Roblox IPO Preview (with Mario Gabriele from The Generalist)
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's a kids game, it's a social network, it's... potentially the hottest IPO of 2021? We team up wit...
What Remote Work Looks Like in 2021 (and Beyond) with Doist CEO Amir Salihefendić
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With 2020 and (hopefully soon) the global pandemic coming to a close, both existing and new companie...
VC Fundamentals Part 4: Portfolio Construction & Management (with Jaclyn Hester & Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group)
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We continue our VC Fundamentals series with Portfolio Construction & Management — how do you b...
Masterclass: Superhuman's Fundraising Playbook (with CEO Rahul Vohra)
12 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra joins us for an absolute masterclass on startup fundraising that shatters...
Book Club Discussion: Brotopia with Emily Chang
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hello ACQ2! Posting the audio recording of our Book Club Zoom session with Emily Chang in digestible...
How YC Rewrote the Seed Playbook with Garry Tan
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by Posterous co-founder, former YC partner and current Managing Partner of Initialized ...
VC Fundamentals Part 3: Company Building
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We continue our VC Fundamentals series with Company Building — everything that happens after you w...
The Outsiders Book Club Discussion with author Will Thorndike
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hello ACQ2! Posting the audio recording of our Book Club Zoom session with Will Thorndike from The O...
Primer on SPACs with Kevin Hartz and Troy Steckenrider of A* and AONE
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We dive into everything you need to know about SPACs — what they are, why they're a compelling alt...
Recording -- 7 Powers Book Club Discussion with Hamilton Helmer
19 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Hello ACQ2! We heard from several of you that Book Club recordings were hard to digest as Zoom recor...
VC Fundamentals Part 2: Investment Decision Making
06 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite many advances in industry transparency over the past ~10 years, much about the actual "jobs ...
Arming the Restaurant Rebels with Tock CEO Nick Kokonas
27 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We’re joined by Tock CEO Nick Kokonas to discuss how they’re “arming the restaurateur rebels”...
VC Fundamentals: Consumer Investing Master Class with Sarah Tavel, General Partner at Benchmark
07 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Benchmark General Partner Sarah Tavel joins us for a master class on consumer investing. We start wi...
VC Fundamentals Part 1: Sourcing
10 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite many advances in industry transparency over the past ~10 years, much about the actual "jobs ...
Pricing: everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask, with ProfitWell CEO Patrick Campbell
21 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by Patrick Campbell, founder & CEO of the world's leading SaaS profit-optimization ...
High-performance Hiring & Interviewing with former Amazon Worldwide GM of Prime Membership, Anna Collins
05 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by former Amazon, Microsoft and Bulletproof executive Anna Collins to discuss how high-...
The Jason Calacanis Special (cont.)
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In Part 2 of our conversation, Jason reveals his "secret master plan" behind the Calacanis empire, a...
Adapting: Mystery - How to Grow When Your Original Business Goes to Zero (with cofounders Shane Kovalsky & Vince Coppola)
07 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined for an Adapeting episode by the cofounders of Mystery, a Seattle seed-stage startup tha...
Everything you need to know about Pre-Seed (with Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures)
24 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures joins us to illuminate everything Pre-Seed -- not just what it ...
Remote Work, No-Code, and Products that Sell Themselves (w/ Zapier CEO Wade Foster)
24 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by Wade Foster, co-founder & CEO of Zapier, a company that basically hasn’t raise...
Reverse Interview: Acquired Strategy, with Nathan Baschez of Divinations (& former Gimlet Media + Substack)
21 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
“There’s no real secret to making the stuff we make. It’s not something where you have to be c...
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (with Chetan Puttagunta, General Partner at Benchmark)
10 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Let's face it, Acquired borders on Star Wars fan podcast anyway. So we dipped our toe in the water o...
Cameo CEO Steven Galanis on building the first non-advertising driven social media company (at least in the US!)
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Galanis, cofounder and CEO of the red-hot Chicago startup Cameo, joins us to discuss how they...
Building Webflow, and the No-Code Movement (with Vlad Magdalin, Co-Founder and CEO)
12 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by Webflow's Co-Founder and CEO, Vlad Magdalin, talking about how he started the compan...
Early Stage and Enterprise Investing (with Chetan Puttagunta, General Partner at Benchmark)
11 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We are joined by Chetan Puttagunta, General Partner on Benchmark, talking his investment philosophie...
Chewse CEO Tracy Lawrence on growing both as a company and a founder
21 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
"You can call it paranoia, or you can call it innovation. The language doesn’t matter if the feeli...
Marketplaces Deep Dive with Ramesh Johari
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We're joined by Stanford professor and senior advisor to Airbnb, Uber, Stitch Fix, and Wave Capital,...
How a Startup Studio Works
15 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ben and David discuss the newest development in the venture ecosystem, startup studios, through the ...
The Random Episode: Twitter Commentary and 2019 Survey Feedback
03 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ben and David couldn’t agree on a topic for this LP episode with the clock winding down to our rec...
Product recruiting and executive search (with Andrew Abramson from Riviera Partners)
17 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We dive into one of the most critical components of company building, recruiting product leaders (an...
Times they are a’changin: Series A is not what it used to be
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“If you look at the firms that were traditionally the early-stage ventures firms, the Series-A fir...
Due Diligence
07 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Could I see myself or my wife working for/with this CEO? Would I quit my job and go work for this pe...
Building tech and product for marketplaces (with Rover cofounder Phil Kimmey)
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“There’s often a desire to keep adding features because ‘Oh wouldn’t it be cool if we could ...
Reflections on the APLUSS IPOs so far, Uber+Lyft+regulators+autonomy, and listener Q&A
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
“Uber, pre-IPO, had raised more money than Lyft’s current market cap. And now, because they rais...
Building Product & Ops at Uber (with Brian Tolkin)
05 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
[on Uber’s Early Organizational Structure] “Uber always thought about it as a twin-turbine plane...
VC Term Sheets
09 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ben & David take their turn at the "power ballad" of VC blogging/podcasting, explaining how vent...