Why Disney Keeps Rebuilding Its Empire, and Why Streaming Makes This Time Different
Acquired·Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
2026-08-10The Disney described at the beginning of this Acquired episode is not an inevitable empire.
Articles(10)
Curated articles and deep insights from podcasts
Pixar Had Beaten Disney. Why Did It Still Choose to Sell to Disney?
Acquired·Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
2026-08-10Pixar did not begin as a miniature Disney.
Disney Does Not Have to Become Netflix to Survive the Streaming War
Acquired·Disney: The Renaissance and the Empire
2026-08-10Netflix did not suddenly appear when Disney began planning Disney+. By the point the episode treats as the market's decisive recognition, Netflix was already a large public company.
Disney's Flywheel Was Not a Diagram. It Was a Series of Bets That Survived
Acquired·The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio)
2026-06-23Disney is now commonly represented as a precise flywheel: films create characters, merchandise, television, and parks expand their reach, and the resulting money and attention finance the next work.
Disneyland: How a Rejected Personal Project Became Disney's New Platform
Acquired·The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio)
2026-06-23Disneyland did not begin as a corporate strategy for extending film characters into the physical world.
Snow White Was Not a Film Project. It Was an Animation Industry
Acquired·The Walt Disney Company: The most successful enterprise for monetizing human nostalgia (Audio)
2026-06-23Animation in the early 1930s could reliably produce laughter, but it had not proved that an audience would believe characters, follow emotion, and remain engaged across a feature.
Ferrari's Real Product Is a System of Desire
Acquired·Ferrari: What happens when you staple a luxury brand to a sports team? (Audio)
2026-04-14Ferrari is often reduced to one famous rule: make one car fewer than the market wants. But low volume alone does not create a luxury company. It can just as easily create a small, fragile manufacturer.
Why Ferrari Had to Make Fewer Cars Before It Could Grow
Acquired·Ferrari: What happens when you staple a luxury brand to a sports team? (Audio)
2026-04-14When Luca di Montezemolo returned to Ferrari in 1991, the obvious response to weak sales would have been to find more buyers. He did the opposite.
Formula 1 as a global commercial system
Acquired·Formula 1: Fast cars, celebrities, and B2B software (Audio)
2026-03-05The episode presents Formula 1 as more than a racing championship.
The NFL's Real Product Is Not Football. It Is Competitive Uncertainty.
Acquired·The NFL: How small-town teams became America's most valuable sports empire (Audio)
2026-01-27The NFL's rise is often told as a story about America's love of football. In Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal's account, that explanation misses the operating system.