https://www.acquired.fm

I’d never heard of it.

Then again, doing a bit of research I found it was blown up by the “Wall Street Journal,” and I read that pretty comprehensively.

Then again, I might not have found the headline appealing:

“The Smartest People in the Room Are All Listening to the Same Podcast – How did Acquired become the business world’s favorite show?”

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/acquired-podcast-tech-business-history-strategy-90e73603

You see I never went to business school. Where I went to college they didn’t even have business classes. Business was taboo, at least until you graduated. But now business is the most exciting vertical out there, it trumps music, movies, television…

Just look at the AI story.

Now my eyes roll into the back of my head when I hear business school speak. As soon as someone tells me they’re writing up a business plan, I’m out. I run on emotion. Does something feel good. If it does, if you’re willing to dedicate all your time to it, it will be a success. Sure, vision is important, but execution trumps idea every day of the week.

I used to judge people for being out of the loop. But that paradigm died with the internet. There’s so much available that no one can be comprehensive. Not that people still don’t put you down for not knowing about something. I laugh when this happens. This is how people feel superior, and I know how much they don’t know. Actually, that’s part of getting older, in my late teens and early twenties I knew EVERYTHING! I’ve been learning how much I don’t know ever since.

So I found out about the Acquired podcast in e-mail. I’d written about going to Costco and numerous subscribers told me about it. Which indicated to me it was worth checking out. Everything is word of mouth these days, marketing dollars are most often wasted, but even so, unless it’s a trusted source, you have to hear the same story more than once to dive in. And I did, and I did.

And…

Now going back to the top. The two guys who do this podcast are not exactly nobodies from nowhere, but unlike the brand extensions of today’s celebrities, they started from zero. With 500 downloads of their first podcast. Now they get in excess of 500,000 per episode and they make millions.

They started in 2015. A ten year overnight success. With a who’s who of listeners, everybody from Daniel Ek to Eddy Cue. So many would like ear time with those two, but the way you achieve this is by doing something unique in a spectacular fashion. The more successful you are, the less time you have. You can separate the wheat from the chaff. Which is why you can’t get the music exec to listen to your demo, not without a story. They need to hear about you from someone else, they need to see numbers, because their time has been wasted so much in the past.

And in a supposed attention deficit society, where we keep hearing people have short attention spans, the Acquired podcast goes on for HOURS!

And that’s one of the great things about it.

Unlike too many other podcasts, the hosts are not injecting their personalities. Too often you tune into a conversation between buddies, laughing, talking about what they did over the weekend, and you feel left out. You feel included listening to the Acquired podcast. It seems like a secret society. Unlike too many influencers and wannabe musicians they’re not constantly dunning listeners to subscribe and spread the word. When you do this you can’t be taken seriously. Either your work stands for itself or…

Turns out the Costco podcast is legendary, and it’s two hours and fifty three minutes long!

That’s what people want, a deep dive. They have all the time for that which they deem truly interesting. You may denigrate youngsters for swiping quickly online, but if their attention spans are so short, how come they have streaming marathons, watching hours of “Friends” and other series?

But I don’t expect the mainstream to glom on to Acquired, because it’s not sexy in the usual ways. It’s not visual, based on beautiful people. It focuses on people who paid their dues, usually after a boatload of education. The general public doesn’t want to hear this. They want it all, and they want it NOW!

So as much as I knew about Costco…

I learned a ton more.

I knew about Sol Price. I even knew about the legendary Fedco. But what I did not know is when Fedco refused to do business with Sol that Price started a company called FedMart! Which was a juggernaut, and that’s why we have WalMart and Kmart… They were trying to trade off the success of Sol’s FedMart!

And the history is deep, and there’s all this info about margins… 

Costco caps its average margin at 11%. Never charges more than 14% to !5% on any item. It’s all about the relationship with the customer. Who is incredibly loyal. Bands should listen to this podcast. Everybody talks about the Grateful Dead, but they did it by accident, only in retrospect does it look like a plan for success. Where everybody here took risk, but only after having experience and knowing what they were trying to achieve.

And I’d tell you more about the Costco podcast, but I listened it to a week ago and I don’t want to get anything wrong.

Last night I just finished the Formula 1 podcast. It was four and a half hours long, and I could have listened to another four and a half, not a single lick was boring.

Now I’m always wary of reporters, as opposed to those who’ve lived a subject, when the newspaper calls, beware. Most of the time I’m busy informing the writer of the industry. However these two guys who do the Acquired podcast go VERY deep. If you grew up in the vertical maybe you can quibble, but they know they’re starting from zero, but they’re fans of the story, they want to know more and more.

Now of course there are multi-episode podcasts on one subject that last as long, however…

This is old school, it’s the same problem HBO and Apple have. They think they’re increasing audience by doing this. They couldn’t be more wrong. People want it all and they want it now. They want to go deep, they want to marinate, they want to bond with the project and then tell everybody about it. You can be early and own a show that’s dropped all at once. You can watch the latest Netflix production when it drops on Friday and then boast about having seen it, you’re a number one fan, you’re hard core. But by time “White Lotus” drips out its episodes weeks later everybody’s on the same plane, in a world where we’re all looking for status.

Acquired is a club. A pretty large one, but nowhere near as big as those who rule the Spotify Top 50. However, Acquired has a better batting average than the Spotify Top 50. They don’t whiff. And they do it all themselves, except for the addition of an editor. This is what the internet affords, the electronic tools, you can do it and distribute it and if it’s great, people will find it.

Eventually.

Eleven years, that’s how long ago Acquired was started. Imagine telling a musician they’ve got to wait eleven years to reach critical mass.

But that’s the new game. You start off the radar screen, you refine your act in public and when you finally get it right you gain hard core fans that spread the word. That’s your business plan, period.

People want something more quantified, with success much earlier in the game. But almost everything that rises instantly falls just about as fast, that’s what MTV taught us.

Acquired is the sh*t. Check it out, it’s not flashy, but once you start listening, you cannot stop.

Tune in July 4th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

1. Steve Miller “Fly Like an Eagle”

He hadn’t put out an album in nearly three years and by this point no one was waiting, it appeared he’d fallen off the radar screen. After 1973’s smash “The Joker,” all we got was crickets.

“Fly Like an Eagle” was different from what came before, short songs all radio friendly. It is this album and 1977’s “Book of Dreams” that have sold tickets for Miller ever since.

The initial radio track was “Take the Money and Run,” which immediately hooked the listener. It had an upbeat sound foreign to today’s depressed era. We get hedonism today, but very little optimism.

From there the label went to “Rock’n Me” to the title track and it was truly astounding, Miller had come back with a vengeance, truly bigger than ever.

2. Steely Dan “The Royal Scam”

Steely Dan had an up and down career commercially. The initial LP was an instant smash, as a result of the singles “Do It Again” and “Reelin’ in the Years.”

Despite being the favorite of the cognoscenti, the follow-up “Countdown to Ecstasy” had no hit singles and not much commercial impact.

But then came “Pretzel Logic,” which had “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” which was ubiquitous, this sleeker, more jazz-oriented Dan was bigger than ever.

However, 1975’s “Katy Lied” failed to produce a hit single and is talked about very little these days, but I love that album.

I know every lick of 1976’s “The Royal Scam” because I drove from Utah to Connecticut with it in the Blaupunkt, along with five other brand new albums. At this late date “Kid Charlemagne” is well-known, but back then not so much. My favorite cut on the album is “Don’t Take Me Alive”:

“I’m a bookkeeper’s son

I don’t want to hurt no one

Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon

Don’t take me alive”

A bookkeeper is anything but a desperado, and with a specific state mentioned, the story becomes 3-D.

Of course, this is the album with “Everything You Did,” where the desperadoes themselves are mentioned:

“Turn up the Eagles the neighbors are listening”

3. Jeff Beck “Wired”

Jeff was riding high after the surprise success of “Blow By Blow, “Wired” was not as good, yet Beck still had relevance, but more on the turntable than the radio, I’m surprised by this high chart position, I don’t remember hearing this stuff on the radio.

4. James Taylor “In the Pocket”

The second collaboration with Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman, “In the Pocket” was a little less upbeat. But there are some amazing tracks. I used to point everyone to “Shower the People” all these years later, it was a hit, but ultimately it was deep and truthful, it was this insight we wanted from our artists:

“Once you tell somebody

The way that you feel

You can feel it beginning to ease

I think it’s true what they say

About the squeaky wheel

Always getting the grease”

But the true height of the album comes on the second side, the trilogy of “Captain Jim’s Drunken Dream” to “Don’t Be Sad ‘Cause Your Sun Is Down” to “Nothing Like a Hundred Miles”

“There’s nothing like a hundred miles between me and trouble in my mind”

Ain’t that the truth.

Then again, used to be when you drove that distance you were truly disconnected, not anymore.

But the piece-de-resistance is:

“Up here I’m a whisky bum but down there I’m a king”

You’re a king in one place, but it doesn’t mean anything when you take the fish out of water.

5. Chicago “X”

Really? By this point they were really a Top 40 band. Where they had a presence with Peter Cetera’s “If You Leave Me Now.” The days of the hard-charging debut were gone, the edges had been shorn off.

6. Carly Simon “Another Passenger”

It had her version of the Doobie Brothers “It Keep You Runnin’,” and “Radio & Records” was the Bible, but I never heard this album on the coasts, where I lived.

7. Marshall Tucker Band “Long Hard Ride”

They’d moved in a more country direction, but they still had a presence on AOR.

8. Aerosmith “Rocks”

They were truly back in the saddle, with a monster album that followed up “Toys in the Attic.” From there it was downhill until the Geffen days.

9. Gordon Lightfoot “Summertime Dream”

This is the one with “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” but despite his folk pedigree, by this point AOR rocked harder and Gord was seen as a Top 40 act, where he had some big successes.

10. Wings “At the Speed of Sound”

The worst of the three, the trilogy from “Band on the Run” to “Venus and Mars” to  this. “Venus and Mars” is unduly overlooked, it might be lighter than “Band on the Run,” but it’s a great summer album, I love it.

All the attention was on “Silly Love Songs,” but it was the album tracks that make this LP. “Beware My Love” and “Time to Hide and “Warm and Beautiful.”

McCartney had peaks, but he has never been consistently this good since.

11. Firefall “Firefall”

They had their moment, but if you weren’t there, you don’t know, never mind remember.

12. “Southside Johnny” “I Don’t Want to Go Home.

Springsteen had broken through and he tried to pull Southside Johnny over the transom, however…

It was really a good bar band, a really good bar band, but that was it. This was the debut, the title track especially is very good, but with all the hype and the ultimate disappointment, despite more albums, the general public moved on from Southside Johnny.

13. Rolling Stones “Black and Blue”

I don’t think you could get away with that title today, never mind the bondage billboard.

This was a hodgepodge, trying out different replacements for Mick Taylor before they settled on Ronnie Wood and surprised everybody with 1978’s “Some Girls.”

I never liked the single “Fool to Cry,” but there are two great tracks on this album, “Memory Motel” has been resurrected as a result of the live duet with Dave Matthews, but “Hand of Fate” still has not gotten the recognition it deserves.

14. Grateful Dead “Steal Your Face”

The last LP on the band’s own label, it was neither a gigantic seller nor a big radio presence, despite this high chart number. Then again, it had just been released on June 26th.

15. Blue Oyster Cult “Agents of Fortune”

This is the one with “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” but in truth, it was all downhill from the debut, which was MARVELOUS!

16. Doobie Brothers “Takin It to the Streets”

This was the first LP with Michael McDonald, and although good, it was a complete change from what had come before. Tom Johnston was barely on it, and then left the group. The band soldiered on and then surprised everybody by resurfacing with “Minute by Minute” two albums later, in 1978

17. Boz Scaggs “Silk Degrees”

To say this was unexpected…

You have no idea how big this album was unless you were conscious back then. It was the favorite of women, they bought it and played it in their apartments and…you heard it everywhere.

One can argue it’s so good because of David Paich’s songwriting chops. Expectations were high for the follow-up, “Down Two Then Left,” however…sans Paich, it just didn’t hit the mark, and Boz never reached anywhere near these heights again. But for a moment there…

18. George Benson “Breezin'”

This is when he gained mainstream success, you can attribute the subsequent infiltration of soft jazz to this album, even though Benson had cred, a lot of dreck followed him. With this album, George became a household name.

19. Thin Lizzy “Jailbreak”

This is the one with “The Boys Are Back in Town.” And after that they dropped off the radio and never returned.

20. Todd Rundgren “Faithful”

The first side proved Rundgren’s chops as a producer, player and engineer, but side two of the LP, the one with the originals, was the heart of the album. “Love of the Common Man” and “The Verb ‘To Love'” are excellent.

21. Peter Frampton “Frampton Comes Alive!”

He’d already come alive on AOR, the summer of ’76 is when he penetrated Top 40.

22. Heart “Dreamboat Annie”

Unknown act on an unknown label produced by an unknown producer in Vancouver, far from the beaten track. But all you had to do was hear it. Kinda like “More Than a Feeling” later in the year.

This album had actually come out in 1975, but it was still being played. The one-two punch of “Crazy on You” to “Magic Man”…who were these people!

They had a soft side, but really they were straight ahead rockers, overnight they were part of the firmament. I’ve got a half-speed mastered vinyl album of this recording, it’s FANTASTIC, which is surprising, you wouldn’t expect such clarity considering the people who made it and where they made it.

23. Andy Pratt “Resolution”

I bought it, but really it was about the 1973 Columbia debut with “Avenging Annie,” he never reached those heights again, either in quality or sales.

He came from a rich family…

24. Jethro Tull “Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die”

After the blues-influenced debut with Mick Abrahams the audience loved Tull, but the critics never did. Even at this late date, the act was getting airplay, especially with the title track of this LP, but they’d burned out the audience with “A Passion Play,” which was a redo of the concept of the previous breakthrough “Thick as a Brick,” but not as good. You can only stunt once, do not repeat yourself.

And then, in 1987, an album that whose tracks were picked by focus group, was all over the airwaves. It was “Crest of a Knave” that won the metal Grammy everybody thought Metallica deserved.

Ian  Anderson didn’t even go to the ceremony, but somehow he’s been tarred by the inanity of the Grammy voters. I mean it wasn’t his fault.

Tull still gets no respect, but it deserves it. But the same critics who pooh-poohed the band refuse to induct it into the Rock Hall. Wankers…

25. Spirit “Farther Along”

The band had broken in two, and despite a good track here and there, neither the latter-day Spirit nor Jo Jo Gunne really had any commerciality.

Once again, as is the case with a lot of the unsuccessful records in this chart, this album had just been released, and stations were giving it some spins before they dropped it.

26. Jay Ferguson “All Alone in the End Zone”

Did you know he became a soundtrack composer when the hits dried up?

Jo Jo Gunne had broken up. This album was not highly anticipated and it did not sell. No one foresaw the success of “Thunder Island” the following year.

27. City Boy “City Boy”

The act had some success in the U.K., got some reviews over here, I actually bought it, but it’s the backstory that makes this album interesting.

Clive Calder, Ralph Simon and Mutt Lange left South Africa where they’d been cutting soundalike records and dropping them before their official releases to come to London and play in the big leagues. Produced by Mutt, this was the beginning of the juggernaut, not that anybody knew it back then.

28. Billy Joel “Turnstiles”

It had come out in May, and if you think Billy meant much on rock radio after “Piano Man,” you’re misinformed or delusional. He did get some airplay with “The Entertainer,” and “Los Angelenos” from the second Columbia LP, but by the time of this third, Billy was making his bones on the road. It wasn’t until he hooked up with Phil Ramone on the following year’s “The Stranger” that he became the Billy Joel revered today.

“Turnstiles” suffers from Billy’s production and less than crystal clear engineering…the sound may not be right, but there are some FANTASTIC songs on this. This is the LP with “New York State of Mind,” which may be a standard now, but was not a single back then. And it also has “Summer, Highland Falls” and “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway,” and I’d say I’d have liked to have seen Billy rerecord “Turnstiles” with Ramone, but in reality he did, on 1981’s “Songs in the Attic.” There they truly come alive, it’s Billy’s best work.

29. Santana “Amigos”

It was over, sans the original band most people were not paying attention.

30. Tubes “Young and Rich”

A grave disappointment after their Al Kooper-produced debut the previous year, but it does include “Don’t Touch Me There.”

31. Charlie Daniels “Saddle Tramp”

This was back when he was still a rocker, before “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and the turn to country. He’d had “The South’s Gonna Do It” from two albums before, from “Fire on the Mountain,” but I don’t remember this album having any presence on rock radio.

32. Jerry Jeff Walker “It’s a Good Night for Singin'”

I think even Jerry Jeff would be surprised he’s this high on the chart.

33. Fleetwood Mac “Fleetwood Mac”

Other than the Frampton album, this is the biggest LP on the chart. But it took a long time to percolate in the marketplace, yet despite being released nearly a year and a half earlier, this music was still regularly played on the radio.

34. Ben Sidran “Free in America”

Clive Davis had actually given him a major label deal. But Clive couldn’t make Ben a household name.

35. Harry Nilsson “…That’s the Way It Is”

The way it was was Harry had blown out his voice on 1974’s “Pussy Cats” and although that album sold on his name…

Once bitten, twice shy.

36. Bob Marley & the Wailers “Rastaman Vibration”

He didn’t live up to the hype, true Jamaican reggae had not gone mainstream. Johnny Nash and Paul Simon had hits, but Bob Marley was not a household name. But he ultimately became one, with the release of “Live” in the U.S.

“One good thing about music

When it hits, you feel no pain”

37. Leon & Mary Russell “Wedding Album”

Leon had seemed to lose the plot, we read about him, but we didn’t listen to him.

38. Chris Hillman “Slippin’ Away”

I bought this album, other than Andy Somers, I don’t know anybody else who did. It’s actually pretty good!

39. Toot & the Maytals “Reggae Got Soul” 

I did hear the title track on the radio, but Toots never really broke big up here.

40. Sons of Champlin “Circle Filled with Love”

All you’ve got to know is this album came out on Ariola America, after the band was on Capitol and Columbia. Bill had his greatest success with Chicago.

Click to access RR-1976-07-02.pdf

This is a painful read, at least until NeXT pivots to WebObjects and revenue starts coming in.

Yes, this book chronicles Steve Jobs’s time in the wilderness, in between his two stints at Apple. And it hasn’t been documented to this degree before, not really ever. We know NeXT failed and was ultimately rescued by Apple, but…

Everything you’ve heard about Steve Jobs is evidenced here. He demands absolute loyalty and even that is not enough to keep you safe from his wrath. But it’s even worse, he’s delusional! Not only promising impossibilities, but categorically unable to see the landscape. Known as a visionary, he’s got very little vision here.

One can debate whether there was a need for the NeXT computer, a $3000 workstation for universities, but it ended up costing more than 10k. Even worse, by time it hit the market, much of its innovation had already been adopted by competitors.

But Jobs refuses seemingly every olive branch. He won’t sell to the government…

They don’t usually write books like this. Nonfiction is either about winners or utter tragedies, and this is neither. I mean yes, Jobs comes back to Apple at the end, but that’s a sliver of the overall book.

Which is not hard to read.

But you will be stunned how it all happened so long ago. Hardware has been superseded by software. Unless you were paying attention back then, does anybody remember Gil Amelio? Even John Sculley?

And that’s another point the author makes, how this history is not well-documented, so many people who were there have passed and so much has been thrown out/destroyed, even legal documents.

So the author, Geoffrey Cain, deserves kudos. There have been tons of books about Apple and Steve Jobs, but none about NeXT.

And the truth is you’ll learn a lot more lessons reading this book of failure than the ones of triumph.

Then again, Jobs admits he needed that failure to evolve into the person he became.

A big turning point is when he has kids. He suddenly gets it. His priorities change, a little. He can see that his employees need time off. He mellows.

So… Ultimately this is a very good business book, but who is going to read it?

I cracked it because I’m one of the Apple faithful, I wanted to fill out my mental history. But even I had a hard time continuing at times, because Jobs keeps shooting himself in the foot.

So if you devour everything Apple, I recommend this book.

I only wish wannabe business people would read it. But it’s almost too depressing to get through. But when you see a guy f*ck up this bad… It teaches you how not to behave.

And it also teaches you that people can change.

But some do not.

However, the lore is true, when the prodigal son returns to Apple he’s been wizened by his losses. He’s mellowed just enough to get along with people. Furthermore, he’s learned lessons about the computer world, which continues to evolve. He re-evaluated his priorities.

This is something you rarely see today, whether it be in business or in government, people questioning their actions and behavior. Everybody doubles down, trying to win via intimidation. But it didn’t work for Steve Jobs, and he had a lot of tools in his belt. He was smart, he was there at the beginning of the computer revolution, but even he couldn’t see where it was going. Oh, he saw a few things, but those were not enough to save NeXT.

People will read the Walter Isaacson book, but you’ll learn more about Steve Jobs in this book.

Assuming you care.

And even Jobs says this. That today’s tech is built on the foundation of yesterday’s, and those who created yesterday’s are forgotten.

But Steve had a run. And if you were there, it was mesmerizing, and fulfilling.

But what was he doing before he made the turn? How bad did it have to get for him to see the light?

This book tells you.