Holiday Special 2023

**Ben Gilbert** (0:00)
I am loving that you also busted out the holiday sweater. Feels very appropriate.

**David Rosenthal** (0:06)
Yes, I purchased this holiday sweater at the Seattle Nordstrom for our 2019 live show at the University of Washington.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:15)
It's like two months before the pandemic hit.

**David Rosenthal** (0:17)
That's right. And I think I wore it last year too.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:21)
I feel like you did. Yeah, we were right behind me. I wish we were doing it again this year, but it seems prudent to not have a father of a toddler hop on an airplane and then sit in a confined space with me for five hours right now.

**David Rosenthal** (0:36)
A lot of germs in my life right now.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:38)
Thank you for your precautions.

**David Rosenthal** (0:43)
Is it you, is it you, is it you? Is it you, is it you, is it you?

**Ben Gilbert** (0:56)
Welcome to season 13, episode five. The season finale and holiday special of Acquired. The podcast about great companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

**David Rosenthal** (1:07)
I'm David Rosenthal.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:09)
And we are your hosts. You see what I did there, David?

**David Rosenthal** (1:11)
I did, I did. No technology.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:15)
No technology. Yes, I motion to the whole board of directors here that we drop technology from our intro since I crunched the numbers and four of the 14 episodes we did this year were technology companies.

**David Rosenthal** (1:29)
All right. Well, it's a good thing that there are no other board members acquired besides you and me because I'm in full agreement.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:35)
Unanimous.

**David Rosenthal** (1:36)
And otherwise we would have had a deadlocked vote there one to one.

**Ben Gilbert** (1:39)
That's true. And I don't think our charter really actually ever accounts for what to do in that circumstance. So yes, listeners, if you count Lockheed Martin, it's five. If you count Visa, it's six. But the minority of the episodes that we did in 2023 were tech companies, which is a very fascinating evolution to me based on where Acquired started analyzing technology acquisitions that actually went well. But of course, we will keep doing deep episodes on tech companies since we are nerds, and that's where we've spent our whole careers so far. So if you liked the programming and assembly language on air from NVIDIA or assembly language pseudocode or our Qualcomm episode where we tried to describe how the CDMA protocol works, we're still here for you. We're just going to do a lot of LVMH, NFL, Costco, Nike, and mixed in there. So what are we doing here today? Well, David and I are going to bring you good tidings, good cheer hopefully, and keep you company.

**David Rosenthal** (2:36)
Yes. Happy holidays. Cheers.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:38)
Cheers.

**David Rosenthal** (2:39)
I've got my cinnamon infused hot chocolate here. It's delicious.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:45)
You're feeling very festive. Yes, we are here to keep you company on your long drives or flights or workouts or house cleaning or whatever over the holidays. On our agenda today is a recap of Acquired this year, both the state of the franchise from the board of directors themselves. We will also be giving you some new tidbits on our favorite episodes behind each one of them, why we picked them, how they came to be, what listeners helped us select, that sort of thing. We're going to talk about how we see Acquired fitting into the broader media landscape, how our views about the show and the stuff that we cover have changed over time, what's in store for Acquired in 2024, new carve-outs, and answering listener questions from the Slack. Then at the end of the episode, we're going to share a little bit about David and my investing lives and how those will be changing in 2024 As David, you and I are going to get to do much more of our investing together.

**David Rosenthal** (3:40)
I know. It's going to come full circle. We started both at Madrona investing together. Well, we'll just have to talk about this later in the episode.

**Ben Gilbert** (3:49)
We will. But first listeners, I mentioned in one quick line on the Charlie interview, and have not said anything on any social media or anything like that since, but I am a parent. I'm joining David on the parenting journey with approximately a one-month-old here at the Gilbert household.

**David Rosenthal** (4:07)
Ben, Jenny and I are so happy for you guys. Parenting, as you know now, is the most joyous, difficult, wonderful, biggest thing you will ever do in your life, and there is no way to understand or describe it until you become one. So welcome to the club.