Cross-Episode Threads
Some episodes only make sense as the next chapter of a previous one. Each thread is an arc the Acquired hosts keep returning to.
Alphabetical · 6 threads
Amazon as recurring case
→Amazon shows up across decades — the original IPO, AWS as its own company, the Brad Stone book — each time as a different example of the same idea.
4 episodes2016–20222 conceptsBerkshire as the long-form study
→A three-part close read on Berkshire as the canonical reference for capital allocation, patience, and the value of saying no.
3 episodes20212 conceptsScarcity goods
→Ferrari, Hermès, and Rolex are the same business with different objects — supply held below demand on purpose, for decades.
3 episodes2024–20263 conceptsSemiconductor supply
→Each of these episodes is part of the same story about who can make leading-edge silicon and what the rest of the world owes them for it.
7 episodes2021–20253 conceptsThe Google saga
→Treated as a four-part company across the catalogue: search origins, the Alphabet reorganisation, the AI pivot, and Maps as its own infrastructure.
4 episodes2019–20252 conceptsThe Microsoft years
→Ballmer-era Microsoft is the recurring reference for what happens when a system can see a strategic miss happening and is too large to move on it.
3 episodes2024–20252 concepts