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Totally surreal to wake up and see your 9-year passion project on the front of the @WSJ.
Thanks @bzcohen, for really capturing the essence of @AcquiredFM.
wsj.com/business/media/acqui…
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It is absolutely astonishing that the fastest plane ever built (still!) was designed and flown before the invention of the calculator.
Community note
The SR-71 Blackbird first flight was in 1964, whereas the first 'electronic' calculator was created in 1961.
The first 'solid state pocket calculator' was created in the early 1970s, after the first flight of the Blackbird.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculato…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_
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Shazam is something where if you saw it for the first time today, you'd be like "wow that's some crazy AI magic."
Nuts that it was invented >20 years ago.
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I love this litmus test for if a company has a strong brand or not.
From Seth Godin:
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Busy people have two windows they can talk:
A) 1-3 weeks out, with intense scheduling
B) "Actually, free now in case that works to give me a ring"
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As usual, @benthompson has the best take I've seen on Figma.
I didn't realize how much "close to the metal" code they wrote to achieve the breakthrough UX they have.
stratechery.com/2022/adobe-a…
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There was once a PM at Slack who decided Cmd+K should not be the keyboard shortcut for hyperlinks.
I would like to know this person's name and phone number.
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I am literally speechless. NVIDIA just grew data center sales 141% in a quarter.
That's not compared against this quarter last year. That's literally growth in three months.
$4.3B -> $10.3B
That's... with the constraint of needing to ship physical hardware to customers. Nuts.
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Uber and Airbnb: "Heh, let's hit 'em with crazy fees at checkout and see if they notice."
My Amazon Fresh cart: "Hold my beer."
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"Every market valuation is a number from today multiplied by a story about tomorrow.
And the stories change much faster than the numbers." -@morganhousel
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An old co-worker once told me, "if someone is attractive, I discount everything they say by 50% since they've been given the benefit of the doubt their whole life."
I think about that a lot.
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Thanks @Hermes_Paris for the excuse to get out of our recording studios and into our finest :)
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The Sony RX100VII is great. I use it all the time. Rumors are an update is coming but those have been going for 2 years. Biggest sign it's from 2019 is that it doesn't have USB-C yet. And that the app is terrible :) But importing from the SD card with a little USB-C adapter isn't bad.
It isn't better than the iPhone in all cases (i.e. low light) but takes much richer photos that hold up when you zoom in with fewer compression/computational artifacts. I also find the color better. And having the 72mm optical zoom is great. You really notice the difference from an iPhone when using it outdoors fully zoomed in.
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A little piece of history:
Early @sama AI tweet from 2014 (1.5 years before OpenAI)
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Coming up on 10 years of @AcquiredFM.
What a journey, @djrosent — and thanks to all of you for being on the ride with us!
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It's totally insane that humans have figured out physics and chemistry to the point where you can do a bunch of math, then launch a giant hunk of metal and fuel to space, then have it come back and land (...get caught!) exactly where your math said it would.
That, plus the hardware / software / real-time algorithm systems to perfectly nestle up to the tower, autonomously.
Just an astonishing level of precision. Incredible work, @SpaceX.
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I have read countless @HarvardHBS studies for Acquired research.
It is insanely cool to have one written on @AcquiredFM *itself*. @djrosent
hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.a…
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“@Solana will be integrated into @brave. And Solana will be the default for multi-chain DApps.” (!!)
-@BrendanEich
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Big @AcquiredFM news: I'm going full-time with @djrosent!
A zillion thank yous to everyone who has listened, helped with research, taught me new ideas, been a guest, or sponsored to make this possible. acquired.fm/episodes/holiday…
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Four years after founding, Google generated $185 million in pretax income.
When was the last time you saw a startup like that? Has any other company even been in the ballpark?
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The technicalities:
A-12 prototype flew in April 1962.
First desktop transistor-based calculator was Friden EC-130 in June 1963.
To your point, there were some tube-based and calculators outside the US before then.
But my broader point is that the development of this plane was done almost entirely without calculators.
(Happy to be corrected though if you've got a source!)
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It’s pretty crazy that Ben Affleck basically made up all the important parts of the story for "AIR".
- Sonny didn’t visit MJ’s parents in NC
- Sonny didn’t negotiate with MJ’s mom
- Nike didn’t bet the whole budget on MJ
- Nike never considered ending the basketball program
- Jordan never even flew to Germany to meet with Adidas!
linkedin.com/posts/scott-r-1…
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Nike has a new CEO, and his resume is fantastic.
"Intern, Apparel Sales Representative"
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Amazing company. Couple things:
- 17% is too high. Markup on goods has a 14% is ceiling, 15% for Kirkland Signature. Since this is markup on COGS, margin on final price is slightly lower.
- Chickens are not loss leaders as far as I am aware
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I asked @paultoo how they came up with the idea for Gmail to use an invite-only waitlist. (Which was essentially the first software ever to do that!)
His response:
(Posted with permission)
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New Acquired on Monday.
It's an episode I can't believe we've never done, but we needed the past 9 years of learning to make sure we did it right.
Can't wait.
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Thank you for everything you're doing. @internetarchive is an important piece of infrastructure (and history) in our world!
We are all lucky to have it.
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Absolutely wild: over one million unique listeners have heard an @AcquiredFM episode in the past month.
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Today I learned that Texas Instruments is worth more than Intel, Qualcomm, or AMD. 🤯
Everyone sleeps on analog.
h/t @jbathgate
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Fun behind-the-scenes from our Jensen interview: it wasn't actually Nvidia's lobby!
It was 3 LED walls designed to look like it — similar to "The Volume" used to film The Mandalorian.
Unbelievable that LED screens are now good enough to use in-camera vs. a green screen.
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It’s a media company with more subscribers than most newspapers.
...plus a VC firm bigger than @sequoia’s first fund.
And it’s only one person.
An absolute pleasure to tell the @notboringclub story with @packyM.
acquired.fm/episodes/not-bor…
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So pumped for the first @AcquiredFM episode of the year dropping tomorrow.
Recorded 8 hours in studio. Condensed it down to the best 4. Most effort ever spent in the edit but I think it'll be worth it.
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Nice shirt, @tim_cook!
Thanks for speaking remotely to the @OhioState graduating class today.
Livestream link: livestream.com/wosu/osusprin…
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Wow. The court recognized the advantage Google has in paying browsers for distribution, but held off on banning it because of the new AI disruption threat they face.
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I just re-listened to the LVMH @AcquiredFM episode. Had to refresh my memory on a few things.
It is indeed our best work. acquired.fm/episodes/lvmh
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Name a more useless stat than "McKinsey says the metaverse could reach $5 trillion by 2030."
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I've been waiting forever to do this episode. Feels like Christmas to finally release it.
@Rolex makes the most universally-recognized luxury product on the planet... while managing to sell over a *million* units a year.
This company is one gigantic paradox.
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"You build a great company by doing things that other people can’t do.
You don’t build a great company by fighting other people to do things that everybody can do."
-Jensen Huang
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Huge thank you to all the government employees and liaisons from private sector.
There must've been hundreds of people at the FDIC/FRB working tirelessly to evaluate options, understand trade-offs, communicate, and cut through red tape/politics to make this happen in 55 hours.
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For anyone listening to our @Visa episode this week, here's a good visual of each of the 5 parties involved in every transaction.
Amazing it all happens in a matter of milliseconds, reliably, with nearly zero downtime.
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Teams: You're corporate
Meet: You're cheap
Zoom: Neutral
WebEx: You either work for the government or Apple
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My first thought too. No way. I'm sure they just couldn't bear the thought of showing any other monitor in their hero shots.
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Costco is structurally my favorite business we've ever studied.
Every tradeoff they make intentionally feeds into the next one to create a differentiated, durable company.
Strategy at its finest.
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One day you say to your friend, "hey we should start a podcast" and then 5.5 years later...
🙌❤️ to everyone who has listened, shared, and given us feedback over the years to make Acquired what it is.
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A-12 prototype flew in April 1962.
First desktop transistor-based calculator was Friden EC-130 in June 1963.
To your point, there were some tube-based and calculators outside the US before then.
But my broader point is that the development of this plane was done almost entirely without calculators.
(Happy to be corrected though if you've got a source!)
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Man, this is why this website is awesome. Thanks for the knowledge and taking the time to write it up, Sheel.
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Mystery solved! Nice work, @zacharykimball.
Oof. Looks like other flavors are (correctly) coded in milliliters, while Black Cherry erroneously entered as liters (1000mL).
WA liquor tax of $3.7708/liter:
- for 4x355mL = $5.35 (correct)
- for 4x355L = $5,354.54 (not correct!)
[Amazon actually seems to round to $3.771/L]
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The executives don't look terribly competent but the marketing team is knocking it out of the park.
Update:
HBO IS A PREMIUM CABLE NETWORK. MAX IS A STREAMING SERVICE THAT HOUSES CONTENT FROM MANY BRANDS INCLUDING HBO. ALL HBO SERIES STREAM ON MAX BUT MAX SERIES DO NOT AIR LIVE ON HBO. BOTH ARE OWNED BY WARNER BROS. DISCOVERY WHICH PLANS TO REBRAND MAX BACK TO HBO MAX.
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Felt right to pop in today.
My only complaint is that they don't have spinach feta wraps in Paris!
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Impressive last year for sure. But I always wish charts like this included the billions in losses as a private company to get there too!
@chartrdaily can we get an update on this chart? When will Uber's lifetime income eclipse total lifetime losses? sherwood.news/business/ubers…
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It feels like Microsoft has *always* been big and dominant. I never really appreciated that they were once a scrappy startup in an unproven industry (...and I even worked there!)
I now finally have an appreciation. acquired.fm/episodes/microso…
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1. A guy starts 3 candy companies in the 1910s. All of them fail.
2. The 4th finally succeeds by making Milky Way (and becomes Mars Inc).
3. His son gets in a fight with him and leaves the family business.
4. The son allies instead with the president of Hershey (!) to start a new candy company together.
5. New company creates M&Ms. Becomes the best-selling candy ever.
6. Son is still lusting after Dad's original company. And his new business generates *so* much cash that that he can use it to go buy up all the shares of his Dad's company -- essentially a hostile takeover. Son ends up owning it entirely, personally.
7. Today, the combined company makes everything from M&Ms to Snickers to Ben's Rice and a huge amount of dog and cat food. It's owned entirely by the son's descendants and does $50 billion (!) a year in revenue.
If you thought you had family drama... 🙃
Enjoy our last @AcquiredFM episode of the year before the holidays! Ho ho ho. 🎅🏻🍫
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Thanks so much to everyone who reached out today. Announcement days are always fun :)
@djrosent and I can't wait to celebrate this crazy run that Acquired has had with you all. It's been a wild year and September 10 is going to be a blast. 🥂
Announcement: We're doing an arena show... in San Francisco!
September 10th. Chase Center. With Mark Zuckerberg.
Huge thank you to our friends at @jpmorgan for finding a venue big enough to hold all of you. We can't wait to see you there :)
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Hahaha holy crap, tomorrow's @AcquiredFM episode is 4.5 hours long.
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I found the location on Google Maps where Google created fake roads to train Waymo!
It's in the Central Valley of CA at an old B-52 Air Force base. Now it has fake railroads, traffic circles, and driveways with no houses :)
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After months of trying Apple Intelligence notification summaries, I've now disabled them on all my devices :(
My gripe: there are ~0 scenarios where I'm willing to act on a summary alone. Which means if I had N notifications, I now have to read N+1.
Time-wasting, not saving.
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Recent Seattle Unicorns: Auth0, Convoy, Outreach, Rover.
And lots more (announced) significant fundings in the last few months incl.: Algorithmia, AppSheet, Boundless, Dolly, Flexe, Igneous, Karat, Pro, Wyze, Zenoti, ZipWhip.
It's a great time to be doing startups in Seattle.
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I was blown away that Starbucks could actually see a lift in store traffic after the Costco in that area started selling their coffee beans.
1. Costco's power is... immense.
2. Starbucks' strategy of "sell products outside the coffee shop to build brand" was so genius.
The co-founder of Costco invested in the 1987 round @HowardSchultz raised to buy Starbucks.
Amazing moment of shared history (among many!) for the two companies.
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If you care about crafting high-quality products, this episode is for you. acquired.fm/episodes/hermes
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