2021 Recap: Acquired x Not Boring x The Generalist

David Rosenthal (0:01)

So, we thought we'd do a little... It's been a big year for all of us. Thought it'd be fun to get together, do a little celebration, a little recap.

Packy McCormick (0:11)

We've...

David Rosenthal (0:12)

How many collabs have we done? This is... If we count this as an idea dinner, six or seven of those.

We've done a bunch of episodes.

Ben Gilbert (0:20)

Idea dinner. Have we done three idea dinners plus this?

Mario Gabriele (0:23)

I think that's right.

Packy McCormick (0:24)

I think this is a fourth. Yeah.

Ben Gilbert (0:26)

Okay. And then we did the Ethereum piece with Packy.

The Not Boring Story with Packy. The SBF interview with Mario. Was Slack 2020 or 2021? It was 2020

David Rosenthal (0:40)

We did the Roblox DPO preview with Mario.

Ben Gilbert (0:43)

With Mario. So that's eight just with Acquired. And then Packy and Mario, you guys have done three together?

Mario Gabriele (0:50)

Two this year?

Packy McCormick (0:51)

Yeah. All right. That's some cool guys.

Ben Gilbert (0:53)

That's an even ten.

Packy McCormick (0:54)

That was an honor.

Mario Gabriele (0:59)

And we're also fun. We, Ben texted all of us before and asked if we wanted to have a drink on this. And all of us said no in our own way.

Packy McCormick (1:08)

In our own way.

Ben Gilbert (1:10)

David blamed the baby in sleep. Yeah, I know, right?

Packy McCormick (1:14)

No, it's pathetic. It's just who I am.

Ben Gilbert (1:17)

Drinking a latte.

And one of these, if you guys ever bought one of these mountain valley gigantic things of bubbly water? Yes.

I've been buying them. It's like a funny guilty pleasure. The first time I went to Benchmark's San Francisco office, they were like, do you want a water? And I was like, sure. And they brought out this gigantic glass. I mean, this thing is a quart. It's 33.8 fluid ounces in this beautiful green bottle. And so now whenever I'm buying one of the Whole Foods and I'm feeling fancy, pick it up.

Mario Gabriele (1:47)

That's why Bill Gurley is a hell of a humble brand.

Ben Gilbert (1:51)

Oh, that I once had a meeting at Ben's office.

David Rosenthal (1:56)

Well, the last time I was there, though. Yeah.

Mario Gabriele (2:02)

She's getting comments in from YouTube, LinkedIn, all of that on the side here. I can't believe there's actually people on LinkedIn listening to this.

Ben Gilbert (2:11)

That's true.

Packy McCormick (2:11)

Also, the person on LinkedIn being yo was good boys was very much not what I expected.

David Rosenthal (2:21)

LinkedIn is where everything's moving these days.

Ben Gilbert (2:26)

I was browsing.

Amazon has kind of a social network.

You can view people's profile pages on Amazon, and you can see all their reviews. It even has a profile picture and a banner picture, and no one has set them. David, you have one. I was looking, because you're the number one review on Seven Powers. Your picture is like 10, 12 years old. You have short hair. You're missing a banner picture. It's very incomplete, but they clearly didn't intend for you to find people other than through reviews, so we all have a profile page, but no real social graph.

Mario Gabriele (3:01)

Wait, David, you're the number one reviewer on Seven Powers?

David Rosenthal (3:04)

That's my number one claim to fame. I should change my Twitter.

Packy McCormick (3:08)

Can we get the fake photo of David with short hair sometime, by the way?

Ben Gilbert (3:12)

Yeah, I'll throw a link in the chat.

David Rosenthal (3:13)

Oh, yeah.

Packy McCormick (3:14)

Pre-flow.

Ben Gilbert (3:16)

Pre-flow.

Mario Gabriele (3:18)

When did you get the flow, David?

David Rosenthal (3:20)

I got the flow in 2012

When I started a business school. I kind of always wanted long hair, but I was like, oh, I need to be buttoned up for the workplace. And I was like, oh, I'm going back to school. Like, why not just let it go? And I think it's a better look. Well, people can see the photo in the chat and then they can decide if I'm better.

Ben Gilbert (3:41)

It's a pretty low res photo. It's like, we'll have to see how this goes.

Packy McCormick (3:49)

The flow is iconic now.

David Rosenthal (3:53)

So let's let's recap 2021 We thought we could go through Acquired, Not Boring and The Generalist talk about talk about this big year for all of us.

Packy McCormick (4:05)

I'm already self-conscious because you guys have just had like like the most bananas years of all time. I'm going to be like, oh, I grew like this much. We're like, oh, yeah, I grew that much in February. That was fun. So I'm already I'm already worried.