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David Rosenthal

28 statements across 15 episodes · 8 bullish · 4 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Oct 19, 2021 by David Rosenthal · across every show →

On the record as a speaker too: David Rosenthal's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.

Everything said about David Rosenthal, oldest first

Oct 19, 2021
Assertion Supported
Judge levies record $29M fine against Standard Oil
“He levies a twenty nine million dollar fine on Standard Oil which is like, by like an order, like two orders of magnitude, the highest fine ever given to a company ever at this point.”
David Rosenthal Oct 19, 2021 ▶ 1:32:42 Standard Oil Part II (Extended Cut) · Acquired
Jun 20, 2022
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: A16z raised a $4.5B crypto fund in 2022
“Just yesterday they raised another four and a half billion dollar crypto fund.”
David Rosenthal Jun 20, 2022 ▶ 31:49 The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories · Acquired
Sep 28, 2022 negative
Insight
Equal-partnership VC models trend toward mediocrity due to diluted individual responsibility
“For most groups of people, I think it actually trends towards mediocrity. And this was some of the criticism of LPs and some of the other GPs in the early days thinking they were crazy. They called it communist capital. This looks like communism, right? Like i…”
David Rosenthal Sep 28, 2022 ▶ 1:45:13 Benchmark Part I · Acquired
Dec 19, 2022 neutral
Disclosure
Acquired explicitly chooses to operate without a large team or staff
“One thing we've been very explicit about in a trade off for the show and acquired as an entity in a business is we don't want to have a lot of employees. We don't want to have a team.”
David Rosenthal Dec 19, 2022 ▶ 29:15 Holiday Special 2022 · Acquired
Dec 18, 2023 negative
Disclosure
Gilbert and Rosenthal deeply regret interviewing Sam Bankman-Fried on Acquired
“We totally regret doing it.”
Ben Gilbert Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 1:15:52 Holiday Special 2023 (Audio) · Acquired
Dec 18, 2023 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rosenthal: The best venture capitalists get calls right at most 20%–30%
“They are, at least on the diligence and investing side of the equation, making these calls in real time, and the very best of them only get it right, what, 20% of the time? At most? You know, 30% of the time?”
David Rosenthal Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 1:16:57 Holiday Special 2023 (Audio) · Acquired
Dec 18, 2023 bullish
Disclosure
Gilbert and Rosenthal to pool investments for growth-stage tech companies
“For companies that we already know well, David and I are going to join our investing forces and invest more in those growth stage market leading tech companies.”
Ben Gilbert Dec 18, 2023 ▶ 1:08:43 Holiday Special 2023 (Audio) · Acquired
Sep 30, 2024
Disclosure
Rosenthal: Acquired records nine hours of audio for every finished episode
“Well amazingly, shockingly, we tell you all all the time that we make, when we make an episode, we sit in our houses, in our studios, we record all day for nine hours, we turn that nine hours into three or four or five hours that you all hear”
David Rosenthal Sep 30, 2024 ▶ 4:38 Acquired LIVE from Chase Center (with Daniel Ek, Emily Chang, Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg) · Acquired
Oct 28, 2024 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rosenthal: Zuckerberg told Acquired he optimizes for impact over money
“And Mark has said so much in so many words to you and me personally that he's not optimizing for financial outcome here. He's optimizing for impact.”
David Rosenthal Oct 28, 2024 ▶ 1:58:00 Meta (Audio) · Acquired
Oct 28, 2024 bullish
Opinion
Meta Enjoys Guaranteed Profitable ROI on AI Hardware via Ad Optimization
“It's one of the fundamental advantages that Facebook has today relative to all other AI companies is that they are guaranteed profitable ROI on all of their AI spend. All of their research, all their infrastructure, all their GPUs, they have highly, highly pro…”
David Rosenthal Oct 28, 2024 ▶ 4:37:18 Meta (Audio) · Acquired
Nov 18, 2024 positive
Assertion Contradicted
A 1938 500-kronor bank loan was IKEA's only outside capital
“And that, listeners, is the only capital that ever goes into Ikea. That is the only money that Ingvar would ever raise.”
David Rosenthal Nov 18, 2024 ▶ 15:05 IKEA (Audio) · Acquired
Nov 18, 2024 neutral
Assertion Supported
IKEA holds twenty-five billion euros in cash
“They own, I think, all of their real estate today, they own all this, I'm sure they probably use construction financing today, but, you know, they have twenty-five billion euros in the bank, like, This is it.”
David Rosenthal Nov 18, 2024 ▶ 15:43 IKEA (Audio) · Acquired
Feb 24, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Rolex is likely worth over $100 billion in enterprise value before assets
“There's no way that this business is worth 40. I don't know if it's worth 200, but it's worth a hundred plus. Zero doubt in my mind.”
David Rosenthal Feb 24, 2025 ▶ 4:24:44 Rolex (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 24, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
David Rosenthal: No domestic cricket league had proven valuable before IPL
“No domestic cricket league has ever proven valuable anywhere in the world. You know, there are domestic leagues in Australia, in England, in New Zealand, etc., but they're peanuts. You know, they're minor leagues. They're fine. They're not going to justify a h…”
David Rosenthal Mar 24, 2025 ▶ 1:44:20 Indian Premier League Cricket (Audio) · Acquired
Apr 21, 2025 neutral
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sequoia Capital acquired a massive secondary stake in Epic
“One fun thing is at one point in time, I think this was probably the 2000, maybe a pretty good chunk of those shares Made their way to Sequoia Capital.”
David Rosenthal Apr 21, 2025 ▶ 42:48 Epic Systems (MyChart) · Acquired
Oct 27, 2025
Assertion Contradicted
Rosenthal: Only one deceased person holds all of Trader Joe's equity
“Well, I wish that you and I had investments in this company, but unfortunately, only one person in the world does, and he's deceased, as we will see at the end of the episode.”
David Rosenthal Oct 27, 2025 ▶ 4:59 Trader Joe’s: Hawaiian shirts and counter positioning (Audio) · Acquired
Oct 27, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Historical fair trade laws banned selling below manufacturer-set minimum prices
“There are a set of laws called fair trade laws that impact Everything that retailers sell in this era. It's actually kind of crazy. It's a holdover from the depression. We talked about it on the Costco episode where it was illegal for retailers to sell goods b…”
David Rosenthal Oct 27, 2025 ▶ 36:05 Trader Joe’s: Hawaiian shirts and counter positioning (Audio) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Acquired's podcast revenue plummeted 40% during the late 2022 advertising downturn
“So end of 22 FTX happens interest rates go up, you know, all the podcast advertising market, you know, falls off a cliff. Our revenue dropped 40%.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 36:27 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025 positive
Disclosure
Rosenthal and Gilbert: Acquired operates with no assistants or sales agents
“No, no, no assistance. No, we do everything. Michael Lewis: You don't sell, Michael Lewis: You don't have an ad sales. David Rosenthal: There's no agent. Michael Lewis: We do all the selling. Ben Gilbert: We love doing the ad sales ourselves.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 1:10:54 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Rosenthal: Acquired Is Recording at Google's Historic First Office
“This is Google's first office right here. They gave it to us for the day.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 0:47 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025
Disclosure
Rosenthal: I write 10,000 to 20,000-word scripts for Acquired episodes
“So I write a script. I write 10 to 20,000 words. In sentence form, word for word.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 2:11:13 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025
Disclosure
Rosenthal: Acquired episodes must retain 80% relevance after five years
“It must be that, like, if you listen to this, an episode that we make five years after we made it, it's, 80% is relevant. It's still, it will still be an important institution in the world.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 31:17 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025
Insight
Rosenthal: CPM ad models force podcasts to maximize episode volume
“Most podcasts sell their ads on a CPM basis, and they are incentivized to make as many episodes as possible. With as many ad slots as possible. Our business is entirely structurally different.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 2:05:15 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025 negative
Insight
Celebrity guest interviews underperform Acquired's core narrative storytelling episodes
“We thought the interviews would be better than our core storytelling episodes because we hadn't discovered that the Ben and David storytelling is our N of one product. It is the thing that we uniquely can do that no one else can do, and we thought getting thes…”
Ben Gilbert Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 52:25 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Dec 15, 2025 positive
Insight
Rosenthal: Passionate niche episodes pay off through asymmetric listener resonance
“If one of us feels passionate about something, even if the episode is a relative dud, it's still worth doing, because invariably, somebody latches onto that passion.”
David Rosenthal Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 1:43:04 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis) · Acquired
Mar 5, 2026
Assertion Supported
Eight Formula 1 Teams Threatened to Form a Breakaway Rival League in 2009
“In 2009, eight of the 10 teams threatened to pull out of the sport. And start a rival breakaway league called FOTA, the Formula One Teams Association.”
David Rosenthal Mar 5, 2026 ▶ 1:57:48 Formula 1: Fast cars, celebrities, and B2B software (Audio) · Acquired
Mar 5, 2026
Assertion Supported
Top Formula 1 Teams Spent Up to $500 Million Annually by the 2000s
“The top teams are spending like four to five hundred million dollars a year on their cars.”
David Rosenthal Mar 5, 2026 ▶ 1:54:32 Formula 1: Fast cars, celebrities, and B2B software (Audio) · Acquired
Jun 23, 2026
Insight
Synchronized sound was critical for animated characters to express personality
“It turned out that sound was the critical enabling technology for animation to go beyond a novelty and allow the characters that are on screen to actually have personality that audiences connects with.”
David Rosenthal Jun 23, 2026 ▶ 49:27 The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio) · Acquired
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