Cold Call If and How to Scale the Acquired Podcast
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Feb 3, 2026 
David Rosenthal, co-founder known for deep historical research, and Ben Gilbert, co-founder and long-form storytelling specialist, join Harvard Business School professor Shane Greenstein, who studies internet markets. They discuss Acquired’s slow-growth, high-quality approach, trade-offs of scaling, selective sponsorships, audio’s passive power, AI’s production role, and when to preserve craft versus expand.
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From 40 Minutes To Multi-Hour Company Histories
- Acquired started as a 40-minute show focused on grading acquisitions and gradually evolved into multi-hour company histories.
- That evolution came from noticing listeners wanted deep storytelling, not transaction-focused episodes.
Validate Topics With Two Hours Of Research
- Test initial interest with two hours of high-level research before committing to a full episode.
- Only pursue topics that reveal surprising, durable insights you can't easily find online.
Understanding Drives Editorial Choices
- Their principal job is to understand why a company moved from obscurity to ubiquity and present that context neutrally.
- They aim to make episodes enjoyable and informative regardless of listeners' prior views of the company.