We had to do it. After 12 years and 3,000,000x appreciation, we kick off Season 8 with the best investment of all-time and our biggest episode ever: Bitcoin. From the first bitcoin transaction of 10k for two Papa John’s pizzas (worth about $350m today!!) to $40k+ BTC and maybe the moon beyond, we cover the whole crazy, improbable journey of how a single 8-page PDF document changed the world of money — and perhaps the world itself — forever.
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The Bitcoin Playbook is available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/bitcoin
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Sergei Krikalev, cosmonaut and flight engineer of Expedition 1, the first long-duration mission to the International Space Station, recounts the 20th anniversary of this mission and a career of fostering international collaboration. HWHAP Episode 178.
Paul Niles, planetary geologist and analytical geochemist, describes the Mars environment, terrain, weather, atmosphere, and more that humans will face while living on the Red Planet on this ninth episode of our Mars Monthly series. HWHAP Episode 177.
Dr. Siobhan Malany, president of Micro-gRx and associate professor at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, brings her expertise to discuss tissue chips containing human muscle cells that recently made their way to the International Space Station for investigation. HWHAP Episode 176.
As regular listeners know, we typically cover some of the biggest companies who often receive the most media attention (see Airbnb and DoorDash). But today’s episode is a little different. In our conversation with Courtland Allen of Indie Hackers, the largest community of startup founders, we dive into the stories of underdogs. What happens when there are millions of people doing small business entrepreneurship? How does anyone having access to the globally addressable market of 3 billion internet users open the door for the niche-est of products? We tell the story of Courtland’s own “Indie Hacker” journey, how he came to found Indie Hackers itself, and the lessons learned along the way.
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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-acquired-x-indie-hackers
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Team science experts Noshir Contractor, Suzanne Bell, and Leslie DeChurch discuss team composition research at NASA and the role teams play in human spaceflight and space exploration. HWHAP Episode 175.
Over 13 years after its founding, one of the defining startup companies of the past decade finally makes its public debut — and boy was it a big one. But for all the hype (and all the legitimately great things Airbnb has accomplished), this is a company that looks very different today than in the past. Even before COVID, Airbnb’s once-exponential bookings growth had declined to linear levels while the company’s costs continued to balloon at accelerating rates. What’s going on here? Are public investors smart to bet on a permanent shift in travel behavior coming out of the pandemic? Or is this a case of unrealistic expectations? As always, we dive in.
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© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC
Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/airbnb
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Live from the scene of its blockbuster IPO, we recount the crazy, roller coaster journey of this “Palo Alto delivery company”. From Sand Hill darling during their Series A and B fundraises to all but left-for-dead during the great unicorn massacre of 2015/16, DoorDash has clawed their way back from the brink and emerged as America’s dominant meal delivery service, and its only unit-economic positive standalone logistics player. Is this the dawn of the next great Amazon-like story, or is the company simply benefiting from temporary tailwinds due to the pandemic? As always, we dive DEEP to find out.
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Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/doordash
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David:
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Alicia Dwyer-Cianciolo and Doug Trent, entry, descent, and landing experts at NASA, unfold the intricacies of accomplishing a successful landing for humans visiting the Red Planet on this eighth episode of our Mars Monthly series. HWHAP Episode 174.
Acquired is live on the scene covering Salesforce’s blockbuster $27.7B acquisition of Slack, with the help of the internet’s #1 Slack bull (and top internet analyst in his own right), Packy McCormick of Not Boring. We dissect the deal itself, Slack’s relatively short life as a public company, the impact of Microsoft and Teams, and most importantly what this means for enterprise SaaS startups broadly. And oh yeah — we have a ton of fun too. 🙂
Note: you can find our full June 2019 episode on Slack’s history and their DPO here: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/the-slack-dpo
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© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC
Playbook Themes from this episode are available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/slack-salesforce-emergency-pod-with-packy-mccormick-of-not-boring
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