Full Episode
Listeners, you should know David and I were texting before this debating, do we change this thing around? Do we play with this? Should we reorganize this section? And he texted me, let's just do it. So in the honor of Bad Jokes by David Rosenthal, here we go.
Who got the truth? Is it you? Is it you? Is it you? Who got the truth now?
Welcome to Season 13, Episode 1 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert. I'm David Rosenthal. And we are your hosts. There's an age-old question in business. What is more important, a great product or great marketing? Well, today we have literally the perfect case study in that very question in Nike.
Does breakthrough innovation drive that business? Or is their core competency really around their profound advertisements and their sponsorship deals with athletes and teams or their probably best in the world brand positioning? To understand it, we have to examine Nike's entire 60-year history, of course, because this is acquired. And because Shoe Dog is so good. That's amazing.
You got to start at the beginning. So really, the question is, what makes this company the single largest apparel business in the world today, outside of luxury, of course? And how is it possible to be a shoe company that does over $50 billion in revenue when they technically don't make a single shoe?
So you may think you know Nike from the movie Air or Shoe Dog, but what hasn't been told is how those old stories tie to the gigantic shift in strategy that Nike is really in the middle of right now. Well, LPs, we got to thank you for voting for this episode. David and I have had it sort of in our episodes.
And we'll be dropping little Easter eggs and hints in those emails to tease about what the next episode is going to be. So that's acquired.fm slash email. Don't miss a new episode. And lastly, make sure you check out ACQ2, our second show where we interview people who are building their companies today, available in any podcast player.
And without further ado, listeners, as always, 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. David Rosenthal, what is that stack of books on your desk?
Oh, my God. I think Amazon owes a thank you note to Acquired LPs because I bought every Nike book out there. I mean, my six foot long desk is covered in Nike books. So fun to read all of them.
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