Acquired

Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe's breaks every rule of modern retail. They don't do e-commerce. They don't do delivery. No sales, coupons, or loyalty programs. They only stock 4,000 SKUs versus 50,000+ at normal supermarkets. Their parking lots are famously terrible and they're constantly out of your favorite items. Shoppers brave long lines and cramped aisles while overly-friendly employees in Hawaiian shirts try to chat them up. Everything about the Trader Joe's experience seems designed to drive modern consumers away. And yet they generate $2,000+ per square foot in sales — double their nearest competitor in Whole Foods and nearly 4x the industry average — and Americans are obsessed with them. How on earth did a company that so steadfastly refuses to participate in the 21st century build the most beloved grocery chain in America? Today we tell the full story: how “Trader” Joe Coulombe started out cloning 7-Elevens in 1960s Los Angeles, pivoted to slinging hard liquor, discovered the enormous market opportunities for California wine and health food before anyone else, and ultimately built perhaps the most counter-positioned business we’ve ever studied on Acquired by doing almost everything differently than the supermarket-CPG industrial complex. Tune in for a wild voyage on the high seas of grocery retail! Sponsors: Many thanks to our fantastic Fall ‘25 Season partners: * J.P. Morgan Payments [https://bit.ly/JPMPtjspod] (And come see us at AWS re:Invent [https://reinvent.awsevents.com]! Discount code: "ACQUIRED") * Sentry [https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry] * WorkOS [https://bit.ly/workos25] * Shopify [https://bit.ly/ShopifyACQ25] Links: * Sign up for email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on future episodes! * Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Trader Joe’s Study [https://worldlypartners.com/businesshistory] * Becoming Trader Joe [https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Trader-Joe-Business-Still/dp/1400225434] * The Secret Life of Groceries [https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Groceries-American-Supermarket-ebook/dp/B083RZFYZC] * Build a Brand Like Trader Joe's [https://www.amazon.com/Build-Brand-Like-Trader-Joes/dp/0979167337] * All episode sources [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xLFiMQqETX1FdJB2_J3I1s_vlELj4HFQAwLZrDO1xjk/edit?usp=sharing] Carve Outs: * AirPods Pro 3 [https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro/?afid=p240%7Cgo~cmp-21671577994~adg-184062515686~ad-774428579930_kwd-832987031934~dev-c~ext-~prd-~mca-~nt-search&cid=aos-us-kwgo-airpods-marcom-handover-101725-] * Mario Kart 8 [https://mariokart8.nintendo.com] More Acquired: * Get email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on future episodes! * Join the Slack [http://acquired.fm/slack] * Subscribe to ACQ2 [https://pod.link/acquiredlp] * Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store [https://www.acquired.fm/store]! ‍Note: 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.

Google: The AI Company

Google faces the greatest innovator's dilemma in history. They invented the Transformer — the breakthrough technology powering every modern AI system from ChatGPT to Claude (and, of course, Gemini). They employed nearly all the top AI talent: Ilya Sutskever, Geoff Hinton, Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei — more or less everyone who leads modern AI worked at Google circa 2014. They built the best dedicated AI infrastructure (TPUs!) and deployed AI at massive scale years before anyone else. And yet... the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 caught them completely flat-footed. How on earth did the greatest business in history wind up playing catch-up to a nonprofit-turned-startup? Today we tell the complete story of Google's 20+ year AI journey: from their first tiny language model in 2001 through the creation Google Brain, the birth of the transformer, the talent exodus to OpenAI (sparked by Elon Musk's fury over Google’s DeepMind acquisition), and their current all-hands-on-deck response with Gemini. And oh yeah — a little business called Waymo that went from crazy moonshot idea to doing more rides than Lyft in San Francisco, potentially building another Google-sized business within Google. This is the story of how the world's greatest business faces its greatest test: can they disrupt themselves without losing their $140B annual profit-generating machine in Search? Sponsors: Many thanks to our fantastic Fall ‘25 Season partners: * J.P. Morgan Payments [https://bit.ly/JPMPgoogle3pod] * Sentry [https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry] * WorkOS [https://bit.ly/workos25] * Shopify [https://bit.ly/ShopifyACQ25] Acquired’s 10th Anniversary Celebration! * When: October 20th, 4:00 PM PT * Who: All of you! * Where: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84061500817?pwd=opmlJrbtOAen4YOTGmPlNbrOMLI8oo.1 [https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84061500817?pwd=opmlJrbtOAen4YOTGmPlNbrOMLI8oo.1] Links: * Sign up for email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on future episodes! * Geoff Hinton’s 2007 Tech Talk at Google [https://youtu.be/AyzOUbkUf3M?si=sLQJsEwq-JEOQmIN] * Our recent ACQ2 episode with Tobi Lutke [https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/how-to-live-in-everyone-elses-future-with-shopify-ceo-tobi-lutke] * Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Alphabet Study [https://worldlypartners.com/businesshistory] * In the Plex [https://www.amazon.com/Plex-Google-Thinks-Works-Shapes/dp/1416596585] * Supremecy [https://www.amazon.com/Supremacy-ChatGPT-Race-Change-World/dp/1250337747] * Genius Makers [https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Makers-Mavericks-Brought-Facebook/dp/1524742678] * All episode sources [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B7MSmQDqaTtcxWskoVwN0V5N292So_9lKiArzRUgTFU/edit?usp=sharing] Carve Outs: * We’re hosting the Super Bowl Innovation Summit! [https://bit.ly/SBISFall25] * F1: The Movie [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16311594/] * Travelpro suitcases [https://travelpro.com] * Glue Guys Podcast [https://open.spotify.com/show/18n6FcVMR5J0hSeboeETPc?si=b876358f752a474d] * Sea of Stars [https://seaofstarsgame.co] * Stepchange Podcast [https://open.spotify.com/show/3RHJ129caYkxh2FliqtaBP?si=2bef3a854e084a39] More Acquired: * Get email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on future episodes! * Join the Slack [http://acquired.fm/slack] * Subscribe to ACQ2 [https://pod.link/acquiredlp] * Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store [https://www.acquired.fm/store]! ‍Note: 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.

Acquired Live at Radio City Music Hall (Presented by J.P. Morgan)

It’s finally here! Today we are releasing Acquired’s first “concert film” — the full video recording of our Radio City live show from this summer with Jamie Dimon, Andrew Ross Sorkin, New York Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, Barry Diller, and cameos from around the Acquired Cinematic Universe including Christina Cacioppo, Ben Clymer, and Howard Schultz. To watch the full production on any device, please head over to Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/episode/77Kl3BsiEQLpli2Q2ozZuf?si=4f4609e343504fd0] where you’ll find it available for free in the Acquired feed right alongside all our other episodes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/77Kl3BsiEQLpli2Q2ozZuf?si=4f4609e343504fd0 [https://open.spotify.com/episode/77Kl3BsiEQLpli2Q2ozZuf?si=4f4609e343504fd0] Sponsors: * Live Show Presented By: J.P. Morgan [https://bit.ly/acquiredJPMPs14] * Shopify [https://bit.ly/ShopifyACQ25] * ServiceNow [https://bit.ly/acquiredsn] More Acquired: * Get email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on future episodes! * Join the Slack [http://acquired.fm/slack] * Subscribe to ACQ2 [https://pod.link/acquiredlp] * Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store [https://www.acquired.fm/store]! ‍Note: 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.

Alphabet Inc.

In its first six years from 1998 to 2004, Google built one of the greatest products of all time (and certainly the greatest business of all time) with Search. Then in its next six years from 2005 to 2011, Google built seven (!) more billion+ user products: Gmail, Maps, Drive and Docs, YouTube, Chrome, Android, and Photos — all either started from scratch internally or acquired as startups that were still in their infancy. This six-year period of wild innovation STILL stands unmatched in technology history… no other tech company counts more than four billion+ user products in its portfolio total. And of course, this “Google 2.0” era culminated in the transformation of the very company itself into Alphabet. So the question we answer today is… how did they do it?? And why? What was the strategy that led a once “pure play” search company into such far flung fields as email, mapping, funny cat videos and operating systems? We unpack the brilliant (and sometimes accidental) strategies behind each product, the simultaneous three-front war Google fought against Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, and the spectacular failure of Google Plus that nearly destroyed the company's culture — before ultimately setting the stage for both Alphabet and the AI revolution to come. Sponsors: Many thanks to our fantastic Summer ‘25 Season partners: * J.P. Morgan Payments [https://bit.ly/acquiredJPMPgoogle2pod] * Anthropic [https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25] * Statsig [https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig25] * Vercel [https://bit.ly/acquiredvercel25] Links: * Sign up for email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on Fall Season episodes! * Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat New Yorker article [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge] * Eric Schmidt on stage at the iPhone keynote (!) [https://youtu.be/OxUDiS3AR0M?si=bMtVK57n1bFlBj9D] * Bill Gurley’s classic “Less than Free” Android post [https://abovethecrowd.com/2009/10/29/google-redefines-disruption-the-less-than-free-business-model/] * Our recent ACQ2 episode with Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor [https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/how-is-ai-different-than-other-technology-waves-with-bret-taylor-and-clay-bavor] * Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Alphabet Study [https://worldlypartners.com/businesshistory] * Episode sources [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mHHr41B8gZJODrcwJlgLX1zFUF63Afb-5AKsjT_hY0s/edit?usp=sharing] Carve Outs: * Bluey x Camp in NYC [https://camp.com/bluey-x-camp-nyc] * Steam Deck [https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck/] vs Switch 2 [https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2] (Part 2) * Claude [https://bit.ly/claudecarveout] * Sony RX100 VII [https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Premium-Compact-1-0-type-DSCRX100M7/dp/B07VPQV7BY?th=1] * Carissimi clothing [https://bit.ly/acqcarissimi] More Acquired: * Get email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] and vote on Fall Season episodes! * Join the Slack [http://acquired.fm/slack] * Subscribe to ACQ2 [https://pod.link/acquiredlp] * Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store [https://www.acquired.fm/store]! ‍Note: 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.

The Jamie Dimon Interview

We sit down with Jamie Dimon for a live conversation at Radio City Music Hall, covering the incredible journey from his 1998 firing at Citgroup (where he was widely expected to become CEO) to building the most powerful bank in the world. Today JPMorgan Chase is a juggernaut — the most systemically important non-governmental financial institution in the world, with over twice the market capitalization of its nearest competitor. But it certainly wasn’t always this way! Jamie takes us from his career restart at the struggling Chicago-based Bank One through how he transformed that platform into the foundation for the modern JPMorgan Chase. We dive into the “fortress balance sheet” strategy that has defined his tenure, and cover blow-by-blow Jamie’s approach to the Great Financial Crisis, Bear Stearns, WaMu, First Republic and more. Tune in for an incredible conversation, live from New York City’s most iconic venue! Sponsors: Many thanks to our fantastic Summer ‘25 Season partners: * J.P. Morgan Payments [https://bit.ly/acquiredJPMPjamiepod] * Vercel [https://bit.ly/acquiredvercel25] * Anthropic [https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25] * Statsig [https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig25] Episode image photo credit: Rockefeller Center More Acquired: * Get email updates [https://www.acquired.fm/email] with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes * Join the Slack [http://acquired.fm/slack] * Subscribe to ACQ2 [https://pod.link/acquiredlp] * Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store [https://www.acquired.fm/store]! ‍Note: 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.