Google faces the greatest innovator's dilemma in history. They invented the Transformer — the breakthrough technology powering every modern AI system from ChatGPT to Claude (and, of course, Gemini). They employed nearly all the top AI talent: Ilya Sutskever, Geoff Hinton, Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei — more or less everyone who leads modern AI worked at Google circa 2014. They built the best dedicated AI infrastructure (TPUs!) and deployed AI at massive scale years before anyone else. And yet... the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 caught them completely flat-footed. How on earth did the greatest business in history wind up playing catch-up to a nonprofit-turned-startup?

Today we tell the complete story of Google's 20+ year AI journey: from their first tiny language model in 2001 through the creation Google Brain, the birth of the transformer, the talent exodus to OpenAI (sparked by Elon Musk's fury over Google’s DeepMind acquisition), and their current all-hands-on-deck response with Gemini. And oh yeah — a little business called Waymo that went from crazy moonshot idea to doing more rides than Lyft in San Francisco, potentially building another Google-sized business within Google. This is the story of how the world's greatest business faces its greatest test: can they disrupt themselves without losing their $140B annual profit-generating machine in Search?

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Many thanks to our fantastic Fall ‘25 Season partners:

• J.P. Morgan Payments
• Sentry
• WorkOS
• Shopify

Acquired’s 10th Anniversary Celebration!

• When: October 20th, 4:00 PM PT
• Who: All of you!
• Where: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84061500817?pwd=opmlJrbtOAen4YOTGmPlNbrOMLI8oo.1

Links:

• Sign up for email updates and vote on future episodes!
• Geoff Hinton’s 2007 Tech Talk at Google
• Our recent ACQ2 episode with Tobi Lutke
• Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Alphabet Study
• In the Plex
• Supremecy
• Genius Makers
• All episode sources

Carve Outs:

• We’re hosting the Super Bowl Innovation Summit!
• F1: The Movie
• Travelpro suitcases
• Glue Guys Podcast
• Sea of Stars
• Stepchange Podcast

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‍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 its first six years from 1998 to 2004, Google built one of the greatest products of all time (and certainly the greatest business of all time) with Search. Then in its next six years from 2005 to 2011, Google built seven (!) more billion+ user products: Gmail, Maps, Drive and Docs, YouTube, Chrome, Android, and Photos — all either started from scratch internally or acquired as startups that were still in their infancy. This six-year period of wild innovation STILL stands unmatched in technology history… no other tech company counts more than four billion+ user products in its portfolio total. And of course, this “Google 2.0” era culminated in the transformation of the very company itself into Alphabet.

So the question we answer today is… how did they do it?? And why? What was the strategy that led a once “pure play” search company into such far flung fields as email, mapping, funny cat videos and operating systems? We unpack the brilliant (and sometimes accidental) strategies behind each product, the simultaneous three-front war Google fought against Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, and the spectacular failure of Google Plus that nearly destroyed the company's culture — before ultimately setting the stage for both Alphabet and the AI revolution to come.

Sponsors:

Many thanks to our fantastic Summer ‘25 Season partners:

• J.P. Morgan Payments
• Anthropic
• Statsig
• Vercel

Links:

• Sign up for email updates and vote on Fall Season episodes!
• Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat New Yorker article
• Eric Schmidt on stage at the iPhone keynote (!)
• Bill Gurley’s classic “Less than Free” Android post
• Our recent ACQ2 episode with Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor
• Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Alphabet Study
• Episode sources

Carve Outs:

• Bluey x Camp in NYC
• Steam Deck vs Switch 2 (Part 2)
• Claude
• Sony RX100 VII
• Carissimi clothing

More Acquired:

• Get email updates and vote on Fall Season episodes!
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!

‍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.

We sit down with Jamie Dimon for a live conversation at Radio City Music Hall, covering the incredible journey from his 1998 firing at Citgroup (where he was widely expected to become CEO) to building the most powerful bank in the world. Today JPMorgan Chase is a juggernaut — the most systemically important non-governmental financial institution in the world, with over twice the market capitalization of its nearest competitor. But it certainly wasn’t always this way! Jamie takes us from his career restart at the struggling Chicago-based Bank One through how he transformed that platform into the foundation for the modern JPMorgan Chase. We dive into the “fortress balance sheet” strategy that has defined his tenure, and cover blow-by-blow Jamie’s approach to the Great Financial Crisis, Bear Stearns, WaMu, First Republic and more. Tune in for an incredible conversation, live from New York City’s most iconic venue!

Sponsors:

Many thanks to our fantastic Summer ‘25 Season partners:

• J.P. Morgan Payments
• Vercel
• Anthropic
• Statsig

Episode image photo credit: Rockefeller Center

More Acquired:

• Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
• Join the Slack
• Subscribe to ACQ2
• Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!

‍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.