Porsche (with Doug DeMuro)

**Ben Gilbert** (0:00)
It's definitely Porsche.

**Doug DeMuro** (0:01)
Porsche.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:02)
Porsche.

**Doug DeMuro** (0:03)
Yeah, definitely don't say Porsche.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:05)
Definitely don't say Porsche.

**Doug DeMuro** (0:05)
The family says it more like, like, because I met one of them at one point, they say it more like, not like Porsche, but more like Porsche. Like, but it's hard, I think it's a German thing, and I think it's difficult to, so we all say Porsche, Porsche.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:17)
If you say Porsche with a German accent, it comes out like Porsche.

**Doug DeMuro** (0:21)
Yeah.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:22)
So I think it's almost like.

**David Rosenthal** (0:23)
Yeah. Yeah, we will.

**Doug DeMuro** (0:25)
Yeah, that's probably exactly what it is.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:44)
Welcome to season 12, episode 6 of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert.

**David Rosenthal** (0:52)
I'm David Rosenthal.

**Ben Gilbert** (0:53)
And we are your hosts. Today we tell the story of Porsche. If you liked our LVMH episode, you are going to love this one. And not just because it's a European luxury brand. There is possibly even more family drama, creeping takeovers and complex corporate structures at play. But why is Porsche, the brand and the product so special? The company has struck an incredible balance of both building some of the world's finest supercars while also being a great daily driver, unlike say a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Of course, these are expensive daily drivers with the average Porsche costing $110,000. But they have managed to nail being a prestige brand with pricing power and make a ton of cars at 350,000 per year. Today, we'll study how they cultivated such a vibrant community, which conveniently for them is comprised of extremely wealthy people. But it has not always been this way, and it certainly didn't start this way. Today's story has Nazis, tanks, the first electric vehicles, and like most luxury brands, some misadventures in the 1980s.

**David Rosenthal** (2:03)
Oh, yes.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:05)
If you like quirks and features, you're going to be pumped about our partner in crime to help us tell this story, Doug DeMuro. Doug is one of David and my favorite YouTubers and content entrepreneurs. He operates the largest independent YouTube channel focused on car reviews with millions of subscribers. He also used to work at Porsche corporate and is about as big of an enthusiast of the brand as you'll find anywhere. In fact, we are filming this episode now sitting in his garage in front of a very special Porsche, Doug's Carrera GT. Welcome to Acquired, Doug.

**Doug DeMuro** (2:37)
Thank you for having me.

**Ben Gilbert** (2:38)
It's wonderful to have you here. Well, listeners, if you want to know every time an episode drops, sign up for email updates at Acquired.fm. Join the Slack. We'll be talking about it after this episode, Acquired.fm slash Slack. Without further ado, David, take us in. Listeners, this is not investment advice. David and I and Doug may have investments in the companies we discuss, and this show is for informational and entertainment purposes only.

**David Rosenthal** (3:03)
To set the stage a little bit, I think that even though it's a marketing phrase, the German engineering thing, it's worth sharing a little bit of history because it is more than just a marketing phrase. So there's a pretty long and incredible history of science and engineering in Germany and Austria. It goes all the way back to the scientific revolution and Johannes Kepler. Actually, before World War II, Germany had produced more Nobel laureates in scientific fields than any other nation in the world. Folks like Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Kurt Gödel, and Albert Einstein. These are all German and Austrian scientists. This tradition extends also, of course, to the auto industry. So it is very likely that the first gas-powered transportation vehicle, this looked more like a tricycle than a car, but predecessor of a car, was created by a German inventor in 1864 named Siegfried Marcus. I say probably because nobody really knows because Marcus was Jewish and the Nazis destroyed all records related to him during the war. We're going to talk a lot about the Nazis here in a minute. Either way, though, Germany definitely did create the first successful production consumer automobile. It was a vehicle called the Benz Patent Motorwagen.
That was made in 1885 by Karl Benz.

**Ben Gilbert** (4:37)
I recognize that name, Benz.

**David Rosenthal** (4:39)
Indeed, you probably do as do most listeners. Now, around the same time, another German inventor named Gottlieb Daimler sets up his own motor company. Then in the early 1900s, they have a model that they're producing, goes on to be quite popular, is named after the daughter of one of their biggest dealers in their dealer network. Of course, we are talking about Mercedes. I had no idea. That's where the Mercedes name came from.