Good morning, everyone.
I have two tabs open in my browser with essays I’m determined to read before the end of the day: this account of an affair with an economist in The New Yorker, and Rachel Karten’s latest newsletter about the digital strategies that helped the DNC win the For You Page.
Today’s newsletter includes: The Brown grad who is making ice luges for everyone from Infatuation to HBO, Oprah’s biggest career regret, Substack’s big plans for beauty writers, “no party reporting” might be the new “no phones” at weddings, Acquired’s Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal on advertising regrets and staying out of politics, Advent calendars are getting out of hand, and the medspa that is comparing itself to In-N-Out.
For our next Guest Lecture, paid readers can ask Derek C. Blasberg anything about parties, New York’s art world, or how fashion media has changed over the last decade.
This interview is part of a Feed Me feature called Guest Lecture. In this series, I introduce you all to an expert who I’m curious about, and give paid readers an opportunity to ask them anything they want. Past guests have included Substack CEO Chris Best, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, and The Sunset Tower’s Jeff Klein.
Today, we’re talking to Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, hosts of the Acquired podcast, a show about great companies and the stories behind them. Below, Ben and David answer reader questions about the possibility of a Guinness episode, their favorite “recurring” characters in the Acquired Universe, and regrets from building what they call “the best business model in media, period.”
“Oh, I just love Acquired!! What are the first few things you do when you begin researching a company? Is your process the same for every project?” - AG
Ben: We make a one-page pitch of why the episode will be good. What is the unique thing about this company that listeners can walk away with? And if we can’t find the cool thing that we’ve never explored on Acquired before, then we are uninterested in doing the episode because nobody wants to hear about Costco again. They already got that insight once. We need to go find a company where we can learn a new mental model. The last thing we do on each episode is the quintessence, and I want to have a plausible quintessence candidate before we even commit to doing our six weeks of research to prepare.
“Do you make a bibliography for every episode beforehand - books, annual reports, documents, people to interview?”
David: Yes. We coordinate on who’s doing what between Ben and me. 90% of our research is independent. 10% is shared, and that 10% is almost always primary source interviews where it makes sense for both of us to be talking to the person. We do a lot of primary source interviews these days. Two-thirds of primary source interviews we’re doing solo separately and one-third we’re doing together. If we’re going to talk to the current CEO of the company, we usually do it together.
Ben: It’s less a bibliography doc and more an always going iMessage thread between David and me where we’re dividing up all the new sources we discover along the way, without revealing too much if we found a real gem we don’t think the other will find.
“Who’s the company or founder you most want to cover but haven’t gotten yet?” - Teddy
Ben: Someday we will do a giant series on Apple and we don’t feel the time is right yet.
David: It’s our white whale.
“Do you have plans for a Guinness episode?”- Laura
David: Probably not in the near future. I would love to do it though. Guinness is my favorite beer, and it’s a really cool company. Not near future, but on the list.
Ben: Though there is a little bit of Guinness in the LVMH origin story.