Acquired

The Walt Disney Company is the most successful enterprise ever created for monetizing human nostalgia. Today it’s the king of global entertainment, holding the intellectual property rights to the childhood memories of billions of people (including, likely, all of you) and is a reliable, predictable profitable business. But it didn’t start that way.
During Walt’s era, Disney operated like an unhinged moonshot factory, blowing its finances on one seemingly crazy project after another, like the very first feature-length animated film or a theme park inspired by Walt's fascination with model trains (spoiler: Disneyland). Walt’s relentless ambition to bet the company over and over again not only created some of the most monumental artistic achievements of the 20th century (Snow White, Fantasia, Disney Imagineering), but also resulted in the accidental invention of the modern “flywheel” business model. In this episode, we tell the story of the ultimate marriage of art, commerce, and engineering — The Walt Disney Company: Walt's Era.
Sponsors:
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The Acquired Disney Companion PDF
Our Disney column in WSJ
The original 1958 WSJ “Flywheel” article"
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler
The Animated Man by Michael Barrier
Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas
Building a Company: Roy O. Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empires by Bob Thomas
The Disney Version: The Reedy Creek Improvement District in the Contemporary Florida Story by Richard Schickel
PBS American Experience: Walt Disney
Disneyland Handcrafted
Walt's 1966 EPCOT pitch video
Worldly Partners' Multi-Decade Disney Study
The Walt Disney Family Museum
All episode sources
Carve Outs:
Brooks Vanguard sneakers
Defunctland YouTube Channel
Animagraffs YouTube Channel
Volvo EX30
The San Francisco Symphony
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00:00 Start
01:09 Intro
06:03 Walt's Early Life & Artistic Calling (1901-1919)
12:37 From Commercial Art to Laugh-o-grams (1919-1923)
23:04 Hollywood, The Alice Comedies & Oswald's Loss (1923-1928)
43:31 Mickey Mouse & The Synchronized Sound Breakthrough (1928)
01:01:53 The IP Flywheel & Mickey Merch Explosion (1929-1933)
01:09:57 Analysis: The Disney IP Flywheel Unpacked
01:59:02 Snow White & The Folly That Defined Animation (1937)
01:41:08 The Burbank Studio & Pre-War Struggles (1937-1941)
02:04:20 The Animators' Strike & Walt's Disillusionment (1941)
02:15:44 World War II & The Accidental Disney Vault (1941-1945)
02:24:27 Post-War Slump to Cinderella's Comeback (1945-1950)
02:33:46 Walt's Obsession: Model Trains to Disneyland (1950-1952)
02:38:44 Financing Disneyland: ABC, SRI & Davy Crockett (1953-1955)
03:17:00 Disneyland's Grand Opening & The Evolving Flywheel (1955-1958)
03:39:04 The Florida Project: Walt's Vision for EPCOT City (1958-1966)
03:54:20 Walt's Untimely Death & Roy's Legacy (1966-1971)
04:00:06 A Parks Company & Creative Decline (1971-1984)
04:09:44 Analysis: Why No Other Disney Flywheels?
04:17:15 The Seven Powers of Disney
04:20:30 Quintessence: Art, Commerce & Timeless IP
04:23:47 Carve-Outs + Outro
‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Vanguard is the most effective vehicle ever created for participating in the fruits of American capitalism. Today it’s the single largest equity owner of the majority of corporations in the S&P 500, on behalf of 50 million clients (including, likely, many of you). And yet Vanguard itself is essentially a communist organization — it has no shareholders, makes no profits, and operates more like REI than Fidelity. If you own a Vanguard fund, you own a piece of the firm itself. Any excess margin instead gets returned to clients in the form of lower fees, which since 1975 have added up to roughly five hundred billion dollars transferred out of Wall Street managers’ pockets and into retail investors’ savings accounts. And oh yeah, it all started as a cockamamie revenge plot by a guy who’d just been fired by his partners. Today we tell the story of communist capitalism at its finest — Vanguard.
Sponsors:
Many thanks to our fantastic Spring '26 Season partners:
J.P. MorganWeAreDevelopers event

ServiceNow
Vercel
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Links:
Sign up for email updates, get our takeaways and research photos from each episode, and vote on future topics!
Our Vanguard "episode preview" in WSJ
Stay the Course: The Story of Vanguard and the Index Revolution by John C. Bogle
The Bogle Effect by Eric Balchunas
Worldly Partners' Multi-Decade Vanguard Study
Worldly Partners' Article Generational Investing: The Discipline Behind 100+x Outcomes
All episode sources
Carve Outs:
Our WSJ pieces on Ferrari and Vanguard
MacBook Pro M5 Max
Michael MacKelvie on YouTube
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
Brooks Vanguard sneakers
More Acquired:
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00:00:00 Start
00:00:41 Intro
00:05:30 Jack Bogle's Early Life & Family Ruin (1929)
00:12:34 Princeton Thesis & Mutual Funds Emerge (1949-1951)
00:27:20 Joining Wellington Management (1951)
00:30:38 The Go-Go Years & Fidelity's Ascent (1958-1965)
00:40:36 Jack Takes the Reins & The Ivest Merger (1965)
00:46:04 The Go-Go Bust & Jack's Crisis of Conscience (1970-1973)
00:53:28 Jack is Fired: The Genesis of Vanguard (1974)
01:13:03 The Journal Article That Inspired It All (1974-1976)
01:35:02 Building the Fund & Early Struggles (1976-1981)
01:44:32 The Rise of Indexing & Vanguard's Growth (1988-1992)
01:49:06 Jack's Health & The CEO Transition (1995-1996)
02:00:06 The ETF Debate & Jack's Second Firing (1999)
02:24:18 The 2008 Financial Crisis: Vanguard's Moment
02:30:46 The Warren Buffett Bet (2008-2019)
02:41:28 Fidelity & BlackRock's Resurgence (Post-2008)
02:52:04 Salim Ramji: Vanguard's First Outside CEO
03:04:43 Wellington's Comeback & Mutual Ownership
03:08:23 Analysis
03:30:58 Quintessence
03:39:35 Carve-Outs + Outro
‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Ferrari is the pinnacle of luxury scarcity — across its entire 79-year history, the company has sold just 330,000 cars at an average price today of $500,000. For context, Hermès sells that many Birkins and Kellys roughly every 2 years, and Rolex moves that many watches every 3 months. And yet this ultimate luxury product also lives under the same roof with a widely beloved professional sports team… one with 400 million rabid fans from all walks of life who live and die by the Scuderia’s performance every F1 race weekend! How is it possible that these two seemingly contradictory customer bases can coexist within the same company? And far from destroying each other’s value, only reinforce it? The answer, it turns out, is a beautiful, bloody, tragic and romantic opera that spans two families and three generations — and just might be one of the best tales we’ve ever told on Acquired. Buckle up for the story of Ferrari.
Sponsors:
Many thanks to our fantastic Spring '26 Season partners:
J.P. Morgan Payments
Vercel
ServiceNow
Statsig
Links:
Sign up for email updates, get out takeaways and research photos from each episode, and vote on future topics!
Our Ferrari "episode preview" in WSJ
Enzo Ferrari by Luca Dal Monte
Seeing Red on IMDb
Go Like Hell by A.J. Baime
Stephen Wilmot's great WSJ piece on Ferrari
Ferrari factory tour
Worldly Partners' Multi-Decade Ferrari Study
All episode sources
Carve Outs:
Ford v Ferrari
Maison Wheat sweaters
Craighill scissors
Amazon grocery service
Travelpro Altitude backpack
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00:00:00 Start
00:01:08 Intro
00:06:11 Enzo Ferrari's Early Life & Tragedies (1898-1919)
00:12:39 Scuderia Ferrari: Enzo's Racing Dream (1920-1933)
00:25:08 The Prancing Horse & Ferrari's Branding
00:35:41 First Ferrari Road Cars & Le Mans Victory (1947-1949)
00:51:31 F1 & The Tragedies of Enzo's Life (1950s)
01:14:03 Ford vs. Ferrari: The Le Mans Rivalry (1963-1966)
01:21:24 Enzo Sells 50% to Fiat (1969)
01:29:10 Luca di Montezemolo's Return to F1 Glory (1971-1976)
01:52:40 Ferrari's "Pepsi Challenge" and how Luca rescued the company (1991)
02:27:41 Post-IPO Ferrari: New Models & Growth (2015-Present)
02:48:24 The FUV Purosangue & Model Range
03:07:16 Ferrari Luce: The EV Future with Jony Ive
03:12:37 Ferrari Today by the Numbers
03:29:39 Analysis
03:50:04 Carve-Outs + Thank Yous
‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Formula 1 is three competitions in one: a 200mph battle of the world's best race car drivers, the world cup of engineering where thousand-person teams spend hundreds of millions designing cars from scratch, and — as one of our listeners perfectly put it — the “Real Housewives of the Garage”, a soap opera of billionaire egos, team politics, and paddock drama that makes for incredible reality television. It's also the world's most popular annual sporting series with over 827 million fans globally — a fact that would shock most Americans, who until a recent viral Netflix series had barely heard of it.
Today we tell the story of how a chaotic, deadly, and gloriously dysfunctional European racing series became one of the greatest business stories in sports. For decades, brilliant engineers and daredevil drivers dedicated their lives (and too often lost them) to a league controlled for 45 years by a single man: a former London car dealer named Bernie Ecclestone, who centralized power and extracted billions, while also undeniably single-handedly making the sport successful. Then, in a move no one saw coming, the American company Liberty Media bought the whole thing in 2017, installed a team of Fox Sports and ESPN veterans, and did what Bernie never would — professionalized it. All of a sudden famously money-losing F1 teams turned into real businesses, with the average team valuation today clocking in at an astounding $3.6 billion. Buckle up for one of our most-requested episodes: the wild story of Formula 1.
Sponsors:
Many thanks to our fantastic Spring '26 Season partners:
J.P. Morgan Payments
ServiceNow
Vercel
Statsig
Links:
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The Formula by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg
Drive to Survive on Netflix
F1 The Movie on Apple TV
Adrian Newey, How to Build a Car
Senna documentary
Worldly Partners' Multi-Decade Formula One Study
All episode sources
Carve Outs:
Cirque du Soleil Echo
Super Bowl LX Mic'd Up
Tonal
Princess Peach: Showtime! on Nintendo Switch
Daloopa for historical financial data
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00:00:00 Start
00:00:37 Intro
00:05:52 Origins of F1: Britain, Italy, and Monaco
00:30:43 Bernie's Entrance
00:37:42 Bernie Consolidates Power
00:50:33 F1 as a Global TV Sport (Except America)
01:08:08 F1's Incredible Engineering Achievements
01:19:34 Senna's Crash and a New Era for Safety
01:33:18 The Many Owners of F1, and Bernie's Liquidity Drama
01:57:48 FOTA: The attempted breakaway series
02:05:07 RedBull, Mercedes, and Reinventing the Sport
02:42:33 Liberty Media buys F1 and Brings it to the Modern Era
03:05:03 Drive to Survive
03:26:45 Apple, TV Rights, and Success in America
03:41:52 F1: The Business Today
03:56:23 Analysis: Why Did F1 Work… and Was Bernie Necessary?
04:05:40 7 Powers
04:08:23 Bear vs. Bull Cases
04:16:32 Quintessence
04:20:08 Carve-Outs + Outro
‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

The NFL is nearly synonymous with America today. Practically nothing is more quintessentially and universally American than tuning in every Sunday (and Monday, and Thursday… and sometimes Saturdays and holidays too) to watch the world’s most beautiful ballet of violence. It generates the most revenue of any sports league globally and sets new records for team valuations each year. But it wasn’t always this way.
The history of the NFL mirrors America’s own development: scrappy small-town teams rode the successive growth waves of the automobile, TV, the Internet and social media to grow larger than the even the founders’ wildest dreams. Whether you watch football or not, the NFL is one incredible business story, and one that we’ve taken more lessons from over the years for Acquired itself than perhaps any other episode we’ve made.
Note: This is a remastered release of our original January 2023 episode, updated to today's Acquired production standards. It also features a full hour+ followup section at the end covering the seismic shifts in the NFL’s business since the original episode’s release. Much has happened in those three years: Taylor Swift entered the league (via merger 🙂), streaming went mainstream (and took over Thanksgiving and Christmas), sports gambling exploded from 46 million to 76 million bettors, and — in perhaps the most surprising development — private equity finally stormed the gates of the NFL. Oh, and average franchise valuations grew by 60% from $4.5 billion to over $7 billion. Communist capitalism is alive and well!
We're also releasing this episode in advance of Super Bowl LX here in San Francisco, where Acquired is hosting the NFL’s inaugural Super Bowl Innovation Summit!
Sponsors:
Many thanks to our partners:
Vanta
Sierra
Crusoe
Sentry (+ join the list for Sentry & Vercel’s Super Bowl Fan Zone party)
Links:
Innovation Summit details and all Super Bowl LX Week events in San Francisco (note content from the Innovation Summit will be posted publicly the week after the Super Bowl — we’ll update this page with links when available)
America’s Game
Sports Illustrated’s oral history of the famous Joe Namath “pool photo”
All episode sources
Carve Outs:
The Menu
Peyton’s Places
More Acquired:
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00:00:00 Start
00:00:37 Intro - Welcome to the Remastered NFL Episode
00:06:05 Origins of Football & the Forward Pass (1869-1905)
00:14:34 The Founding of the NFL (1920)
00:41:52 Bert Bell's "Any Given Sunday" Philosophy (1946)
01:03:28 Pete Rozelle Transforms the League (1960)
01:56:34 The Creation of the Super Bowl (1966)
02:09:47 Monday Night Football Invents Modern Sports TV (1970)
02:37:19 The NFL's Business Model Explained
02:39:28 CTE & the Kaepernick Controversy (2016)
02:48:36 Analysis: Playbook & 7 Powers Analysis
03:21:04 2026 UPDATE: Netflix, Youtube, Amazon Streaming, T-Swift, Gambling & New TV Deals
03:57:11 Private Equity Enters the NFL (2024)
04:14:08 Conclusion & Thank Yous
‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.