Best Mitch Lasky Blake Robbins Podcasts (2024)

1
Acquired LIVE from Chase Center (with Daniel Ek, Emily Chang, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg) 2:26:04

9d ago2:26:04

2:26:04

Here it is: the complete video of the most unbelievable night of Acquired’s nine-year life… our sold out live show at the Chase Center in San Francisco. We joked during the months (months!) of preparation leading up to this event that it was like planning a wedding for 6,000 Acquired fans, and the guest list included Jamie Dimon, Daniel Ek, Emily C…

1
The Mark Zuckerberg Interview 1:27:05

21d ago1:27:05

1:27:05

Mark is the iconic founder CEO of our time. At Chase Center on September 10, 2024, he did an unprecedented thing: a live conversation in front of 6,000 people on Meta’s company strategy, sharing stories from early Facebook history, and his thoughts on the future of AI, VR, and AR. Mark was remarkably candid in our discussion, and gave us a window i…

1
Chase Center + Summer Update 21:53

2M ago21:53

21:53

Summer greetings from Acquired! Two items for this “mini-episode”: Tickets are now available for our live show at Chase Center in San Francisco, with special guests including Mark Zuckerberg (!). The show is Tuesday, September 10th, with doors opening at 5 PM for an hour of mingling with other listeners before the show starts at 6 PM. Huge thank yo…

1
Microsoft Volume II 4:51:31

3M ago4:51:31

4:51:31

In 1999, Microsoft became the most valuable company in the world. And in 2019, Microsoft became the most valuable company in the world, again. But… what happened in the twenty years in between? The answer, as we discovered in our research, is probably not what you think. In this episode we explore and analyze the browser wars and the DOJ case, Wind…

1
Starbucks (with Howard Schultz) 3:15:14

4M ago3:15:14

3:15:14

Starbucks. You’d be hard pressed to name any brand that’s more ubiquitous in the world today. With nearly half a billion global customer purchases per week across its stores and 3rd party retail channels, a significant portion of the human population gets their daily fix in the green and white paper cup. (Including our own Ben Gilbert who famously …

1
Microsoft Volume I 4:23:10

6M ago4:23:10

4:23:10

Microsoft. After nearly a decade of Acquired episodes, we are finally ready to tackle the most valuable company ever created. The company that put a computer on every desk and in every home. The company that invented the software business model. The company that so thoroughly and completely dominated every conceivable competitor that the United Sta…

1
Renaissance Technologies 3:05:46

7M ago3:05:46

3:05:46

Renaissance Technologies is the best performing investment firm of all time. And yet no one at RenTec would consider themselves an “investor”, at least in any traditional sense of the word. It’d rather be more accurate to call them scientists — scientists who’ve discovered a system of math, computers and artificial intelligence that has evolved int…

1
Artificial Intelligence (Ep. 16) 1:13:29

7M ago1:13:29

1:13:29

In their final episode of Season 2, Mitch and Blake take on the complex and highly speculative topic of the impact of recent improvements in artificial intelligence on the games business. Your hosts acknowledge that the sector is moving so quickly that this episode could be obsolete by the time it airs, and warn that it's difficult at this early mo…

1
Intellectual Property (Ep. 15) 1:10:54

8M ago1:10:54

1:10:54

Mitch and Blake look at the ins and outs of intellectual property licensing in games. After discussing the checkered history of the practice, they look at the creative and business reasons why licensed IP continues to be valuable to game creators. After a quick look at how IP licenses actually function and what to expect from licensors, Mitch and B…

1
Distribution (Ep. 14) 1:10:23

8M ago1:10:23

1:10:23

In perhaps their most important episode of the series, Mitch and Blake explain what they mean when they use the term "distribution" and why it is so important to their understanding of how the video games business functions. Like they did with the term "publishing" last season, they try to recontextualize distribution as a much larger and more impo…

1
Going Global (Ep. 13) 1:07:26

8M ago1:07:26

1:07:26

Mitch and Blake discuss the massive expansion of gaming in emerging markets around the world. The begin with a discussion of the big-picture factors driving this expansion -- primarily mobile technology, but also new business models, payment systems, and demographics. They then take a closer look at the Middle East and North Africa, and how the dif…

1
Hermès 4:06:25

8M ago4:06:25

4:06:25

In luxury, there’s Hermès… and there’s everyone else. Stewarded by one French family over six generations, Hermès sells the absolute pinnacle of the French luxury dream. Loyal clients will wait years simply for the opportunity to buy one of the company’s flagship Birkin or Kelly bags. Unlike every other luxury brand, Hermès: Doesn’t increase supply…

1
Independent Intervention (Ep. 12) 1:03:59

8M ago1:03:59

1:03:59

Mitch and Blake explore the idea of independent game development. They attempt to define "indie" in the video game context -- something that proves more difficult that it might seem on the surface. They discuss the early successful indie developers in the 90s, and examine how the technology and business innovations that revolutionized the industry …

1
A Changing of the Guard (Ep. 11) 1:19:32

8M ago1:19:32

1:19:32

Mitch and Blake expand on last season's discussion of platform-based publishers by introducing a new kind of company: the game-enabling software platform. The five companies they discuss (Epic, Unity, AppLovin, Discord, and Roblox) are all pursuing customer aggregation strategies similar to the platform-based publishers, but -- with the exception o…

1
Choose Your (ad)Venture (Ep. 10) 1:11:00

9M ago1:11:00

1:11:00

Mitch and Blake discuss the nuances of game financing. They begin by explaining how the publishing model of advances against royalties functions, and what the expected costs and benefits are for both the developer and publisher. After a brief discussion of bootstrapping, they do a deep dive on venture capital financing for games. They reveal how ve…

1
The State of Play: 2024 (Ep. 9) 1:18:55

9M ago1:18:55

1:18:55

They're back! Season 2 of the GameCraft podcast kicks off with Mitch and Blake introducing the new 8-episode season, followed by an analysis of the current health of the games business. Mitch and Blake discuss the paradoxical state of the business, where a "golden age" of content is facing some increasing financial headwinds. They compare the games…

1
Novo Nordisk (Ozempic) 3:41:20

9M ago3:41:20

3:41:20

Last year Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, overtook LVMH to become Europe’s most valuable company. And the pull for Acquired to finally tackle healthcare (18% of US GDP!) became too strong for us to resist. While we didn’t know much about Novo Nordisk before diving in, our first thought was, “wow, seems lik…

1
Holiday Special 2023 2:15:31

10M ago2:15:31

2:15:31

Ben has some big news. Actually, double big news! On what has become a holiday tradition here at Acquired, we cozy up to the fire to do our annual review of the show “in public”. We reflect on what can only be described as an absolutely mind-blowing 2023 (LVMH! Jensen! Costco! Charlie! Half a million plus listeners!) and look ahead to some big thin…

1
Visa 3:41:58

11M ago3:41:58

3:41:58

To paraphrase Visa founder Dee Hock, how many of you know Visa? Great, all of you. Now, how many of you know how it started? Or, for that matter, who started it? Who runs and governs it? Where is it headquartered? What’s its business model? For the 11th largest market cap company in the world, Visa’s history and strategy is almost shockingly unknow…

1
Charlie Munger 1:06:46

12M ago1:06:46

1:06:46

We sit down with the legendary Charlie Munger in the only dedicated longform podcast interview that he has done in his 99 years on Earth. We’ve gotten to have some special conversations on Acquired over the years, but this one truly takes the cake. Over dinner at his Los Angeles home, Charlie reflected with us on his own career and his nearly 50-ye…

1
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang 1:29:02

12M ago1:29:02

1:29:02

We finally sit down with the man himself: Nvidia Cofounder & CEO Jensen Huang. After three parts and seven+ hours of covering the company, we thought we knew everything but — unsurprisingly — Jensen knows more. A couple teasers: we learned that the company’s initial motivation to enter the datacenter business came from perhaps not where you’d think…

1
Nvidia Part III: The Dawn of the AI Era (2022-2023) 2:52:48

1y ago2:52:48

2:52:48

It’s a(nother) new era for Nvidia. We thought we’d closed the Acquired book on Nvidia back in April 2022. The story was all wrapped up: Jensen & crew had set out on an amazing journey to accelerate the world’s computing workloads. Along the way they’d discovered a wondrous opportunity (machine learning powered social media feed recommendations). Th…

1
Costco 2:58:48

1y ago2:58:48

2:58:48

Costco is not only Charlie Munger’s favorite company of all time (plus he’s on the board, natch), it’s an absolutely fascinating study in how seemingly opposite characteristics can combine to create incredible company value. For instance: Costco has the cheapest prices of any major retailer in America — and also the wealthiest customer base. They p…

1
Nike 3:59:37

1y ago3:59:37

3:59:37

Nike — it’s perhaps the most iconic and most prolific brand of the modern era. On any given day, swooshes adorn the feet of more people on earth than any other footwear company — by a long shot. If you read Shoe Dog or watched Air, you may think you know its history. But Shoe Dog ends in 1980, and Air… well let’s just say it’s an enjoyable piece of…

1
Porsche (with Doug DeMuro) 3:20:54

1+ y ago3:20:54

3:20:54

Nobody’s perfect — including Porsche. Despite that phrase appearing in their famous 1983 magazine advertisement, they managed to get damn-close to the perfect luxury business (even Bernard Arnault would be jealous!). Porsche is both quality AND quantity, owning the most prestigious brand in its market, while at the same time churning out almost hal…

1
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi 1:35:45

1+ y ago1:35:45

1:35:45

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi dropped by the Acquired studio for an Eats delivery, so we broke out the cameras and asked him to hang out for a wide-ranging conversation. :) We talk about his 20 years working with Barry Diller, starting his career at Allen & Company, how the Uber CEO search process ACTUALLY went down… and oh yeah, the massive transform…

1
Lockheed Martin 3:36:21

1+ y ago3:36:21

3:36:21

Today we bring you two absolutely incredible stories. The first is Lockheed’s legendary Skunk Works division — the elite team of aviation geniuses who produced some of the greatest airplanes in history: the U-2, the Stealth Fighter, and the incomparable SR-71 Blackbird. The second story is arguably even more important, but not widely known! It's th…

1
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek 1:36:49

1+ y ago1:36:49

1:36:49

We sit down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek live in Stockholm at Spotify’s amazing HQ studio (check out the video version of this episode — which plays natively on Spotify!). This was an incredibly special and timely conversation: for those who haven’t been paying attention over the past few years, after revolutionizing music Spotify has now ALSO comple…

1
Benchmark’s Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins on The Art of Business in Gaming 2:14:30

1+ y ago2:14:30

2:14:30

We sit down Benchmark’s legendary gaming investors Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins (now also of the excellent Gamecraft podcast fame) to discuss the history and future of gaming business models. This episode is the perfect bookend to our Nintendo/Sega gaming series this season on Acquired — no one is more qualified than Mitch and Blake to breakdown h…

1
Short: The Death of Sega 1:06:56

1+ y ago1:06:56

1:06:56

Sega and the Genesis was THE underdog story of the early 90’s. In a single console generation, Sega went from ~zero to 50% US market share and dethroned Nintendo’s seemingly invincible global monopoly. But — somehow — it all then died. Two console generations later Sega was out of the hardware game entirely, and the company was sold off for pieces …

1
Nintendo: The Console Wars 3:16:23

1+ y ago3:16:23

3:16:23

In the 1980’s Nintendo was on top of the world, with the NES achieving over 90% market share of home video games globally. So how did they fall ALL the way down to ~10% in just a few short console generations? And how did they then build themselves back up (and down and up again) to the top of the world again? Spoiler: it all hinged on one very sma…

1
Interview: Hamilton Helmer & Chenyi Shi on How to Build an AWS-Like Second Business 1:28:37

1+ y ago1:28:37

1:28:37

7 Powers author Hamilton Helmer and his Strategy Capital colleague Chenyi Shi join us again to discuss their latest research on a topic that’s highly relevant to the recent Acquired canon: how to build a second business line. This incredibly important “transforming” question faces every great company who has achieved initial product success (as wel…

1
Sessions: David Senra (Founders Podcast) 3:17:59

1+ y ago3:17:59

3:17:59

ACQ Sessions returns with David Senra of the Founders Podcast. David is one of our very favorite people in the world — it’s impossible to spend an hour (or 3!) with him and not come away inspired to go take over the world. This conversation is an “extended, IRL version” of monthly calls that we do together where we share stories, swap life and podc…

1
Nintendo's Origins 3:24:36

1+ y ago3:24:36

3:24:36

You may think you know the Nintendo story: a plumber named Mario, a princess named Zelda… and didn’t they buy the Seattle Mariners at some point? We thought we knew it too. And then we started researching and were blown away. The lovable Disney-like Nintendo that we know today is a 130 year-old a playing card company (i.e. gambling), forged in the …

1
The New Gold Rush (Ep. 8) 1:02:31

1+ y ago1:02:31

1:02:31

Mitch and Blake take on the complex topic of in-game economies. They discuss how the endemic problems of trust and arbitrage were present in the earliest in-game economies of the late 1980 and how they have persisted to the present web3 economies. They look at the concept of mudlfation, a unique economic problem of massively multiplayer online game…

1
LVMH 3:30:37

1+ y ago3:30:37

3:30:37

We tell the full history of LVMH, and how Bernard Arnault turned a $15m investment in a bankrupt French textile company into the world’s largest individual fortune. It’s a story that’s equal parts Berkshire Hathaway, Steve Jobs and Barbarians at the Gate… and wholly under-appreciated for the genius business model innovations that enabled it. Whatev…

1
The Failures and Futures of Virtual Reality (Ep. 7) 53:29

1+ y ago53:29

53:29

Mitch and Blake discuss the recurring industry obsession with the idea of virtual reality, beginning in the mid-1980s. Mitch recounts a story about his encounter with VPL and the weird world of digital artists and promoters in the early days of personal computing. They look at the second failed wave of VR investment in the 1990s and the importance …

1
Console Castles (Ep. 6) 1:01:21

1+ y ago1:01:21

1:01:21

Mitch and Blake debate the continuing relevance of dedicated gaming consoles to the video game business. They begin with a discussion of the economics of the console business, and how console manufacturers built defensible moats that have remained relevant for over 40 years. Mitch compares the current state of the console business to the theatrical…

1
The Playground and the Stage (Ep. 5) 1:11:11

1+ y ago1:11:11

1:11:11

Mitch and Blake propose a framework for understanding user-generated content in games based on two central metaphors -- the playground and the stage -- representing the two ways users "create" content in games through play and performance. They discuss the rise of sandbox games, The Sims, GTA3, Runescape, Second Life, EVE Online, and Minecraft. Mit…

1
The NFL 3:46:13

1+ y ago3:46:13

3:46:13

The NFL — it’s almost synonymous with America today. And its history is a fascinating lens to explore the nation’s development over the last 100 years, from WWII to TV and suburbs to the Internet and social media. What began as a quasi-illicit league in small midwestern towns is now the single largest media property in the world today by revenue. A…

1
The Forever Games (Ep. 4) 1:21:29

1+ y ago1:21:29

1:21:29

Mitch and Blake discuss how the rise of games-as-services has privileged durable, long-duration play-patterns -- leading to the modern idea of the "Forever Game" which can persist for decades. Mitch outlines his five attributes of long-term engagement and provides examples of each from games like Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, an…

1
The Calculus of Fun (Ep. 3) 1:10:33

1+ y ago1:10:33

1:10:33

Mitch and Blake discuss perhaps the most important developments in the video games business since the 1990s: the explosion of casual and mobile gaming. Mitch explains how the casual business was catalyzed by the most unlikely of heroes. He talks about his time as the CEO of the first public mobile game company in the US (JAMDAT) leading up to the l…

1
The Fall and Rise of Publishing (Ep. 2) 1:03:11

2y ago1:03:11

1:03:11

Mitch and Blake take a deep dive into the game industry’s migration from physical goods at retail to electronic distribution over the internet. They explore the rise of platform-based publishing — a new concept that marries the internet’s remarkable utility in aggregating customers on digital platforms with the traditional publishing roles of edito…

1
Steal This Game (Ep. 1) 1:09:31

2y ago1:09:31

1:09:31

Hosts Mitch Lasky and Blake Robbins discuss the rise of free-to-play as a dominant business model for video game marketing and distribution. They look at the roots of free-to-play in the shareware business, where companies like id Software and Apogee used it to build independent game businesses. Mitch shares some stories about his time as id's publ…

1
Introducing Gamecraft 11:38

2y ago11:38

11:38

Gamecraft is a limited series podcast about the modern history of the video game business hosted by industry veteran Mitch Lasky and investor Blake Robbins. In this introductory episode, Mitch and Blake discuss the series as a whole, breaking down the eight episodes and why the themes explored in the episodes are so relevant to understanding the mo…

1
Holiday Special 2022 2:18:47

2y ago2:18:47

2:18:47

Cozy up to the fire and join Acquired as we do our annual strategic review of the show and our business “in public”. We recap our perspectives on Acquired’s big moments from the past year, a bit of commentary on the current state of the tech ecosystem, and what lies ahead for us in 2023. Plus as always at the holidays, we do an extended carve out s…

1
Stratechery (with Ben Thompson) 1:53:35

2y ago1:53:35

1:53:35

Ben Thompson joins Acquired to discuss the business of Stratechery itself and celebrate 10 years (!) of the internet’s best strategy analysis destination. Even beyond Stratechery’s enormous impact itself on business and tech over the years, Ben’s work inspired a whole generation of business content creators — this show very much included — and it w…

1
Enron 3:31:09

2y ago3:31:09

3:31:09

The FTX fraud has dominated headlines now for weeks, during which we’ve debated if and how Acquired could uniquely add to the conversation. Then we realized there was an angle so perfect that we had to drop everything and enter Acquired research overdrive: Enron. Travel back with us to the granddaddy fraud of them all, 2001’s then-largest bankruptc…

1
Qualcomm 2:25:58

2y ago2:25:58

2:25:58

Qualcomm, or “Quality Communications” — despite being one of the largest technology companies in the world, few people know the absolutely amazing technological and business history behind it. Seriously, this story is on par with Nvidia, TSMC and all the great semiconductor giants. Without this single fabless company based in San Diego, there’s alm…

1
Benchmark Part II: The Dinner 1:58:36

2y ago1:58:36

1:58:36

We sit down with all five current Benchmark GPs for one of their legendary weekly dinners, during which we ask all of the unresolved burning questions from Part 1. How do THEY think about Benchmark v3? What are their day-to-day emotions trying to keep the equal partnership “bending toward greatness? Why is there no growth fund? What does it take to…

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