Straight Answers
An LLM assessed 252 question → answer exchanges, the host's own answers included. Speaker names were hidden during assessment. Each exchange was marked answered, partly, redirected or not addressed, with a quote as its source. Every exchange below is timestamped and plays. How it works →
These readings are observational: the transcript shows whether the question was answered directly, whatever the reason. It is an AI reading of a public exchange, never a claim about intent, and the tape is one tap away on every row. full disclaimer →
Nobody here carries a rate, and that is deliberate: rates are not published without enough raw tape, which means 8 or more assessed questions on raw, unedited recordings, and every Acquired episode we hold is the produced feed. So this page counts instead of rating. Every one of the 53 people on the record is accounted for: 46 have their questions counted (11 of them with at least one not answered directly), and the remaining 7 never took a direct question in any tape we hold: compilations, panels and cameo appearances leave nothing to assess.
No needle for Acquired Ledger: every tape we hold is the produced feed, and rates are not published without enough raw tape. So the board below counts exchanges instead of rating them.
All speakers
All 46 people with assessed questions on the record, ranked by how many were not answered directly. Every count comes from the produced feed. Click a name to see their exchanges.
| Person | Redirected + not addressed | Questions | Tape | Argument clarity /5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Mauboussin Head of Consilient Research, Counterpoint Global | 1 | 16 | produced | ≈4.5 |
| Mark Canlis Owner and Operator, Canlis | 1 | 11 | produced | ≈4.0 |
| Katherine Boyle General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz | 1 | 6 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Jim Weber Former CEO, Brooks Running | 1 | 6 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Jensen Huang Founder and CEO, NVIDIA | 1 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Chenyi Shi Partner, Strategy Capital | 1 | 5 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| David Senra Host, Founders Podcast | 1 | 4 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Jason Calacanis Founder & CEO, LAUNCH | 1 | 4 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Eric Yuan Founder & CEO, Zoom | 1 | 4 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Hamilton Helmer Co-Founder & Co-CIO, Strategy Capital | 1 | 4 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Ben Gilbert Co-founder & Co-host, Acquired | 1 | 1 | raw | — |
| Packy McCormick Founder & Writer, Not Boring | 0 | 13 | mixed | ≈4.5 |
| Michael Ovitz Chairman, Treville Capital Group | 0 | 13 | produced | ≈4.5 |
| Sam Bankman-Fried Former CEO, FTX | 0 | 12 | produced | ≈4.0 |
| Brinton Johns Co-founder & Portfolio Manager, NZS Capital | 0 | 9 | produced | ≈4.5 |
| Dara Khosrowshahi CEO, Uber | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Christina Cacioppo CEO and Co-founder, Vanta | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Mitch Lasky General Partner, Benchmark | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Ben Thompson Founder & Author, Stratechery | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Anthony Gonzalez Co-CEO, Cobalt Service Partners | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Brad Gerstner Founder & CEO, Altimeter Capital | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Brendan Eich Co-Founder and CEO, Brave Software | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| John Bathgate Investor & Portfolio Manager, NZS Capital | 0 | 6 | produced | ≈4.5 |
| Jamie Dimon Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Steve Ballmer Owner and Chairman, Los Angeles Clippers | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Morris Chang Founder, TSMC | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Mark Zuckerberg Founder & CEO, Meta | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Howard Schultz Chairman Emeritus, Starbucks | 0 | 6 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Daniel Ek Founder & Executive Chairman, Spotify | 0 | 5 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Doug DeMuro Co-founder, Cars & Bids | 0 | 5 | raw | ≈4.0 |
| Joseph Gordon-Levitt Co-founder & CEO, HitRecord | 0 | 4 | raw | ≈4.5 |
| Andrew Marks Co-Founder and Managing Partner, TQ Ventures | 0 | 2 | raw | — |
| Howard Marks Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Oaktree Capital Management | 0 | 2 | raw | — |
| Anu Hariharan Founder & Managing Partner, Avra | 0 | 2 | raw | — |
| David Rosenthal Co-Host, Acquired | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Blake Robbins Co-founder & Partner, Hidden Capital | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Ben Miller Co-Founder and CEO, Fundrise | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Chetan Puttagunta General Partner, Benchmark | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Miles Grimshaw Partner, Thrive Capital | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Peter Fenton General Partner, Benchmark | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Anatoly Yakovenko Co-Founder and CEO, Solana Labs | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Peter Gassner Founder & CEO, Veeva Systems | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Michael Lewis Author & Financial Journalist | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Max Neukirchen Co-Head of Global Payments, J.P. Morgan | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Umar Farooq Global Co-Head, J.P. Morgan Payments | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
| Charlie Munger Former Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway | 0 | 1 | raw | — |
The moments, on tape
The question asked, then the AI assessment note from the answer. Tap to play the moment. Not addressed = the question was not engaged; redirected = acknowledged, then steered elsewhere.
“What did your family think of this? Like?”
answered: “It was pretty heady stuff, because I wound up being on the cover”
“Can you share the story of when you personally got kicked out of the U.S. track and field Olympic trials?”
answered: “And then there's the sport, which is so fun, um, to be at”
“You can't really imagine that, whereas that happens here. Are there other companies, either current or historically, that you look up to, admire, maybe took some of this inspiration from?”
answered: “You're supposed to be inspired and learn from every, everybody else.”
“They're not, yeah. That guy like left you an opening, and how did you not take that opening?”
answered: “Let's tie this to Jay-Z and J. Cole and answer your question also”
“And Eric, when, how, how fast should it pay back?”
answered: “As I would say, it's, ah, as big as possible, right?”
“Okay, so ride sharing is an example platform where you get to the end of the questions, and maybe there's still kind of a question mark about the industry and the companies within it. Could we walk through an example of a company or an industry where you get to the end and you conclude, oh wow, this company, this platform has a lot of power?”
answered: “So David, before we leave ride share, I Think of the moving parts here.”
“You're not, you know, here in California anymore or Seattle or the West Coast. How has your personal experience been over the past two years with that?”
answered: “This is a core part of the American dynamism thesis.”
“Chen Yi, can you walk us through your work on how to assess platform power?”
answered: “I guess even before that we're not trying to understate.”
“How do you get to keep some of it for yourself? Which is what power is about.”
answered: “just to make sure I understand... Do I have that right?”
Every count on this page comes from the produced feed: no raw unedited tape of Acquired exists in our library. Rates are not published without enough raw tape, so this page counts and shows no percentage. This is a reading of a transcript. It is not an accusation of dishonesty, and there are many good reasons not to answer a question directly (confidential numbers, unreleased products, someone else's news to break).