ACQ2 by Acquired

We sit down with Bain Capital Ventures' newest fintech Partner Christina Melas-Kyriazi to talk about everything happening right now in fintech, and the experience of helping build Affirm and the BNPL space from crazy idea to massive consumer finance category. Anyone interested in the history and future of fintech will love this one. Tune in! 

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Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

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.

In late 2021, Ben and David were guests on Ted Seides' podcast, "Capital Allocators". The episode kicked off Ted's "Venture is Eating the Investment World" mini-series. From Ted:

David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert are venture capitalists and hosts of the Acquired podcast. Acquired is one of my favorite shows. In it, David and Ben tell stories of great companies in technology with thorough research and a fun, engaging style.

Our conversation kicks off the mini-series with their respective backgrounds in venture, the creation of Acquired, and their research process for show. We then dive into the origins of the cottage venture capital industry, inflection point after the tech bubble, rise of an abundance of capital, firms investing across stages, the competitive response of others, the mass introduction of angel investors, businesses staying private for longer, and the potential for crypto to change the game once more.

You can see more about the show here: https://capitalallocators.com/podcast/acquiring-an-industry/

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

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.

Get a cup of coffee. We sit down with the voice of one of our favorite Twitter accounts, 10-K Diver, to talk about his journey building one of the most widely followed (and respected!) fintwit accounts out there. We had a blast and — of course — learned a ton from one of the greats!!

You can get this episode in your favorite podcast player here!

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Back by popular “Acquired demand” (plus we really wanted to have this conversation for our own edification!!), friends of the pod NZS Capital return to talk about what’s going with the current market gyrations, and for a much-needed refresher on how to invest when — surprise — knowing the future is still an impossible task. As always we left this conversation with renewed appreciation for the NZS approach and the utility of their resiliency + optionality mental model. This is not one to miss! 

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

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It has been dubbed "one of the best venture investments of all time" by Packy McCormick, generating over a 4000X return in 3-and-a-half years. Today, we are talking with Chris McCann and Edith Yeung, the earliest investors in Solana, and partners at Race Capital. They also unbelievably were the earliest investors in FTX and started Race Capital in the midst of crypto winter!

On this episode, we talk with Edith and Chris about the stories behind both of those investments and their views on what's next in crypto from their vantage point in the center of the ecosystem.

Links:

- The Generalist's FTX piece with Race Capital's Public Investment Memo

-  Picture: Chris and Edith with Jihan Wu, Founder of Bitmain

-  Picture: Edith with Anatoly (Solana founder) and Min Kim (ICON co-founder)

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

We sit down with Jeremy Cai, the CEO of new retail pioneer Italic, for a fascinating discussion of how they're upending the traditional manufacturer-brand-retailer model by taking the opposite approach of earlier DTC startups. Rather than elevating brand and cutting out retail, Italic cuts out the brand and lets the actual manufacturers (who you've never heard of but who make most of the actual products that J. Crew, Everlane, etc sell) market and sell direct to customers. 

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Originally broadcast live on New Years Eve: we raise a glass (of coffee haha) and recap 2021 with our besties Mario Gabriele from the Generalist and Packy McCormick from Not Boring. Thank you for making 2021 an incredible year for all of us at ACQ, NB + TG, and may 2022 be filled with great things and grand adventures for us all!

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Last month, Ben sat down with Wesley Chan at Web Summit for a quick, 18-minute interview. The conversation was supposed to be about global investing in 2021 as an early-stage VC, but the conversation turned mostly into the origin story of Wesley's (unbelievably good) seed investment in Canva.

Wesley's firm Felicis Ventures invested pre-revenue, leading the seed round, and Canva is valued at $40 billion today. Wesley dives into the details (and why he invested in the first place!) in this interview.

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Today we're excited to have a longtime friend of the Acquired family on ACQ2, Rob Meyerson. Rob was the President of Blue Origin for 15 years, and today is an investor and advisor to space industry startups. Ben recorded this interview live at the fantastic aerospace industry conference, ASCEND, where Rob is the Executive Producer. In this interview, we cover:

• How Blue Origin started, and what it was like in the early days (spoiler: they weren't yet building rockets!)
• Rob’s experience working directly for Jeff Bezos
• What’s changed about SpaceX since May of 2020, when we did our Acquired episode on the company
• Rob’s theses about what sectors of commercial space are poised for growth in the next few years

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Ben and David go on "This Week in Startups" with Jason Calacanis for a holiday special! 

Discussion includes:

- Talking TWIST and All-In this year with everything from politics to weight loss to private jets

- Acquired's year and some of Ben and David's biggest insights from episodes

- VC, valuations, and crypto investing mechanics

- Use cases for crypto, and trying to get Jason (a skeptic) excited

- Carveouts: our favorite books, podcasts, and TV shows from this year

Sponsors:

• Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra