1976
Steve Jobs said building an Apple I by hand took about fifty hours, which a printed circuit board could cut to about an hour.
“It took maybe fifty hours to build one of these things by hand.”
Topic
Apple
83 facts from 50 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
1976
Paul Terrell's computer store in Mountain View ordered fifty fully assembled Apple computers, according to Jobs's account.
“Well, I'll take fifty of these computers, but I want them fully assembled, which is a twist that we had never thought of.”
1977
Sequoia Capital's Don Valentine invested $150,000 in Apple Computer in 1977.
“Don invested $150,000 in Apple Computer in 1977.”
1978
Sequoia Capital made roughly a 40x return on Apple and sold its shares for $6 million before Apple's IPO.
“They made a 40X on that investment. They sold their shares for $6 million before the IPO.”
1978
Apple paid Microsoft $31,000 for eight years of access to Microsoft BASIC for the Apple II.
“the Apple deal is $31,000 for eight years of access for Apple for the Apple II to Microsoft's basic.”
1980
Nike went public in the second week of December 1980, the same week as Apple.
“So Nike IPOs, the second week of December in 1980, the same week as Apple.”
1983
John Sculley, the Pepsi marketing executive behind the Pepsi Challenge, left Pepsi in 1983 to become CEO of Apple after Steve Jobs recruited him.
“finally, in 1983, he gets an offer that he can't refuse. Steve Jobs comes to pitch him and says, do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life?”
1984
Steve Jobs said the first Macintosh was the first computer with beautiful typography, thanks to a calligraphy class he had taken at college.
“It was the first computer with beautiful typography.”
1996
According to the book's introduction to Part Three, Apple lost $800 million in the year before Steve Jobs returned.
“Apple had lost $800 million that year, but he also found many employees whose talents and love for Apple struck him as phenomenal.”
1996
Apple bought NeXT for $427 million to obtain an operating system.
“Apple, in need of an operating system, bought Next for 427 million.”
1997
Apple acquired NeXT in 1997, which brought Steve Jobs back to the company.
“Apple's 1997 acquihire of Steve Jobs. Greatest acquihire of all time.”
1997
Apple paid $429 million for NeXT.
“So first of all, the acquisition price, $429 million.”
1997
In August 1997 Microsoft agreed to invest $150 million in Apple, commit to Office for Mac for five years, end patent disputes, and make Internet Explorer the Mac's default browser.
“One is the $150 million investment from Microsoft and Apple.”
1997
After returning to Apple, Steve Jobs cut the company's product offerings from seventeen to four.
“Soon after he returned, he slashed the company's product offerings from seventeen to four.”
1997
Steve Jobs told Apple employees that 70 percent of the items on the product roadmap had been eliminated.
“We actually got rid of 70% of the stuff on the product roadmap.”
1997
Brian Chesky says Apple was about ninety days from bankruptcy when Steve Jobs returned in 1997.
“Steve Jobs, when he came back to Apple in 1997, in July of 1997, they were ninety days from bankruptcy.”
1998
Steve Jobs said Apple posted profits of $47 million in one quarter and $55 million in the next as part of its recovery.
“Apple delivered profits of $47 million in the next quarter, and then delivered a quarter, uh, the quarter after that, of $55 million in profits.”
1998
Steve Jobs said Apple's market value rose from $1.8 billion to about $4 billion in roughly a year after his return.
“the market value of Apple has risen from $1.8 billion a year ago to about $4 billion yesterday.”
1998
Brian Chesky dates Apple's golden age of industrial design to roughly 1998 and the iMac.
“you get to the golden age of Apple, starting probably in 1998 with the iMac”
2001-2021
Mauboussin says Apple's market capitalization rose from under $10 billion in 2001 to about $2.4 trillion in 2021.
“But Apple's market cap was less than $10 billion, I believe. And now it's $2.4 trillion, right?”
2003
In 2003, Jeff Bezos and a group from Amazon visited Apple's campus in Cupertino to meet Steve Jobs.
“Jeff and a bunch of people from Amazon traveled to the Apple campus in Cupertino to meet Steve Jobs”
2003
Before iTunes for Windows, buying digital music from Apple required a Mac, which made up less than 10% of the home computer market at the time.
“you needed a Mac, which at this time comprised less than 10% of all the home computer market.”
2005
Eich says Apple forked WebKit from KHTML in 2005, and WebKit became the basis for Safari and Chrome.
“Eventually, that led to WebKit being forked from KHDML in 2005.”
2006
Bob Iger appeared at Apple's keynote to announce that Disney and ABC content would be available for the video iPod.
“Bob Iger walks out on stage and says all our Disney and ABC content”
2006
Eric Schmidt joined Apple's board in 2006 while Google was developing Android.
“Summer of 2006. That next year, Eric Schmidt joins the Apple board. He sees how far along and how good the iPhone is.”
2007
The original iPhone was sold without carrier subsidies, so buyers paid full price.
“There was no carrier subsidization for the original iPhone.”
2007
Kevin Scott dated the iPhone launch to 2007 and said the App Store followed a year later.
“when smartphones, uh, you know, came on the market fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago now, like, it's, uh, yeah, 2007, I I guess, was iPhone launch”
2007
Steve Jobs told Apple employees that the iPhone was driven by dislike of existing phones rather than by market research.
“It was driven by the fact that we all hated our phones.”
2008
Apple paid $278 million for chip designer P.A. Semi in 2008.
“And they paid a bunch of money, too. I mean, it was $278 million.”
2009
Apple introduced push notifications for third-party apps in summer 2009, which made WhatsApp's evolution into a messenger practical.
“through WWDC 2009 in the summer when Apple introduces push notifications for third party apps”
2010
In September 2010 Epic demonstrated Unreal Engine 3 running on iOS during an Apple keynote.
“Epic demoed on stage at an Apple keynote”
2010
To win Apple's business, TSMC committed an initial $9 billion and 6,000 employees to a dedicated plant, according to a Bloomberg report the host cites.
“it meant an initial investment of $9 billion, fabs are expensive to build, and devoting 6,000 employees to building a dedicated plan for Apple in just 11 months.”
2010
Apple's chief operating officer Jeff Williams visited Morris Chang's home for dinner, brought by Foxconn's Terry Gou, to ask TSMC to manufacture Apple's chips.
“He was not just a vice president. He was the chief operating officer of Apple.”
2010
Morris Chang says TSMC's gross margin was already about 45% when Apple floated a 40% margin, and he was trying to raise it to 50%.
“but our margin at that time was already 45%. And I was trying to push it up to 50%.”
2011
Morris Chang says TSMC financed the Apple-related capital spending by borrowing, rather than cutting its dividend or selling new stock.
“we decided not to cut dividend. We decided not to sell new stock. We decided to just borrow.”
2011
Morris Chang says Apple's Jeff Williams told him in February 2011 that talks must pause for two months because Intel's top executive had approached Tim Cook.
“we need to pause our discussions for two months because the highest level of Intel has approached Tim Cook and has asked Tim Cook to consider”
2011
Morris Chang says Apple CEO Tim Cook told him Intel does not know how to be a foundry.
“he told me, there's nothing to worry about because Intel just does not know how to be a foundry.”
2011
In his resignation letter, Steve Jobs recommended Tim Cook as his successor as Apple CEO.
“I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.”
2013
DoorDash's founders used the Find My Friends app on iPhones to track couriers in real time.
“They used find my friends on iPhones to track the deliveries in real time.”
2013
Morris Chang says he was shocked to learn Apple had placed its first 16-nanometer orders with Samsung after TSMC took the 20-nanometer detour.
“it was a real shock when I heard that Apple had placed their first orders of 16 with Samsung”
2014
Morris Chang says TSMC developed its own 16-nanometer process about half a year later and still won most of Apple's 16-nanometer business.
“we had our own 16, about half a year later, and most of Apple's 16 nanometer requirements still belonged to us.”
2015
In June 2015 Apple announced a three-month free trial for Apple Music, during which artists would not have been paid.
“this is June 2015, they announced that everybody's going to get a three-month free trial of Apple Music before you have to pay.”
2015
After Swift's public letter, Apple reversed its Apple Music policy and agreed to pay artists during the free trial.
“Overnight, they change it and they say, we're going to eat the cost during the three month free trial for customers and pay artists.”
2015
Charlie Munger said Berkshire invested about $30 billion in Apple, not hundreds of billions.
“We didn't put hundreds of billions of dollars into it. Tens of billions. We put a 30 billion into it.”
2015
Apple launched the Apple Watch in 2015, and Hermès later became its luxury partner.
“Here's the story. 2015, Apple launches the Apple Watch.”
2016
The six founding corporate backers were Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook (now Meta), Google DeepMind and IBM.
“So that's Amazon and Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, now Meta, Google DeepMind and IBM.”
2016
Ben Gilbert says AirPods launched a year after Acquired started and helped by making listening while moving socially acceptable.
“One giant tailwind for us is a year after we started the podcast, AirPods came out.”
2019
The hosts cite an estimate that the App Store generated about 18.3 billion dollars of revenue for Apple in the prior year.
“the App Store last year generated an estimated $18.3 billion of revenue for Apple.”
2019
Ben Gilbert said Apple's 2019 settlement with Qualcomm included about $4.5 billion for a six-year patent license.
“I think it was $4.5 billion for a six-year deal.”
2020
It has been reported that Google pays Apple about $9 billion a year to remain the default search engine on the iPhone.
“it is reported that Google currently pays Apple about $9 billion a year in order to keep Google as the default search engine on the iPhone.”
2020
On August 13, 2020, Epic pushed a Fortnite update offering a discount on V-Bucks for direct purchases, after which Apple and Google removed the game from their stores.
“finally on August 13th, 2020 Epic pushes a new version of Fortnite to the iOS app store”
2022
At the time of recording, Apple was worth about $2.8 trillion, roughly 19 times Sony's market value.
“Apple is now worth $2.8 trillion, or about 19 times what Sony is worth.”
2022
Ben Thompson says Apple's privacy changes structurally damaged Meta's advertising business and justified a lower valuation.
“the Apple changes were very devastating and they're structurally devastating and so they deserve a significant haircut on their valuation”
2022
A host describes the Apple Watch Ultra's display as 2,000 nits bright, with a flashlight function.
“It's really bright. It's 2000 nits so like it has a flashlight button because it functions as a fairly effective flashlight.”
2022
In February 2022, Meta lost about $232 billion in market cap in a single day, a record at the time, after warning of Apple's App Tracking Transparency impact.
“The actual number is they lost $232 billion in market cap, the new largest in history, surpassing their previous record.”
2024
Ben Gilbert says Google paid out $55 billion in total traffic acquisition costs in the year before the episode, including about $20 billion to Apple.
“So Google paid out last year, and I'm just using the current numbers to try to figure out what the splits have always been. They paid out last year $55 billion in total traffic acquisition costs.”
2025
Daniel Whitenack says one of Apple's top AI researchers, Ruoming Pang, was hired away by Meta in July.
“Apple's kind one of Apple's top AI folks, Roaming Pang, was poached by Meta.”
2025
The Apple film F1, starring Brad Pitt, grossed about $630 million worldwide.
“Which grossed $630 million worldwide at the box office, the highest amount not only for a racing film for any sports movie ever”
2025
Apple won the U.S. F1 media rights with a rumored five-year deal worth about $150 million a year.
“Apple comes in over the top for the U.S. media rights negotiations with a five-year deal at $150 million a year.”
2025
A co-host said that in January 2025 Apple agreed to a $95 million settlement in the class action Lopez v. Apple, which alleged Siri eavesdropped on private conversations and shared data with advertisers.
“Apple agreed to a ninety-five, 95 million dollar settlement. The case was Lopez versus Apple, to resolve a class action lawsuit alleging that Siri eavesdropped on private conversations”
Undated
The hosts say NeXT's NeXTSTEP software became Mac OS X and later iPhone OS, the basis of iOS.
“Objective-C language and runtime next step, which turns into Mac OS X, which then gets refactored into iPhone OS, which then became iOS”
Undated
Clemente believes Apple is pursuing Raman spectroscopy, a light-scattering technique, for noninvasive glucose measurement.
“It's called Raman spectroscopy is what I think the technique they're working on is. And it's a light scattering technique.”
Undated
Apple's announced iTunes podcast support gave Rose and Alex Albrecht a distribution channel for their show Dignation.
“Steve Jobs had announced that there was something called podcast that they were going to support and build that into iTunes.”
Undated
Apple authorized Mac clones such as those from Power Computing that ran its operating system on other makers' hardware, which did not save the company.
“And with power computing and all these sort of Mac clones that Apple authorized and said, we're going to enable our OS to run on these other PCs.”
Undated
Hamilton Helmer recalls that Apple took out a full-page ad welcoming IBM when it entered the PC business.
“I remember when IBM entered the PC business, Apple took out a full-page ad in, what was it, the Wall Street Journal or something?”
Undated
Ben Gilbert reports that investors from NZS Capital said they avoid holding Apple because they see its App Store fees as overly extractive.
“we actually don't like to hold Apple in our portfolio right now because our view is that they're being overly extractive to their customers or over the whole ecosystem.”
Undated
A speaker says that over the last decade consumers have switched from Android to iPhone but rarely the other way, which supports Apple's pricing power.
“people kind of only switch in the direction from Android to iPhone. They tend not to switch in the opposite direction based on the last 10 years of data.”
Undated
Ben Gilbert said Apple has several thousand people working on a car that has not launched and whose strategy has changed five times.
“they've got, what, several thousand people working on this car now, still hasn't launched, changed strategy five times.”
Undated
Huang says there are over 5 million iPhone applications, far more than mainframe applications.
“the number of iPhone applications is over 5 million.”
Undated
The host recounts a story from a Steve Jobs biography in which Jobs, who was seriously ill with cancer, agreed to rebuild a nearly finished Apple store prototype from scratch.
“Steve quietly says, He's right. Do what he says, start from scratch. We're doing it all over again.”
Undated
Zuckerberg says he expects Apple to be Meta's primary competitor in the next platform generation.
“Now, there are advantages of doing a closed and integrated model. I think Apple will have a place for sure. I expect them to be our primary competitor.”
Undated
Bret Taylor expects personal AI agents to be built mainly by very large consumer companies such as Apple, Google and OpenAI.
“the domain of personal agents is probably of the very large consumer companies like Apple and Google and OpenAI and others that have big consumer brands.”
Undated
Early in his career, MacInnis worked as an individual contributor at Apple, where he experienced performance review and calibration.
“um, I did that for a while early in my career at Apple”
Undated
Walter Sun worked at Apple on early versions of QuickTime.
“working on some of the early versions of QuickTime, which is now integrated into, like, you know, iTunes and other products.”
Undated
Guido Appenzeller cited iPhone photos as data not accessible through any API because of a walled garden.
“My iPhone, the photos are not accessible via any API because it's a walled garden,”
Undated
Sherif Mansour says Apple is encouraging app developers to build app intents, which let AI such as Siri use an app's functions as tools, rather than focusing only on user interfaces.
“Apple's got a big push right now with their app vendors of like, hey, spend time focusing on building app intents over UIs.”
Undated
Rene Haas says Arm began as a joint venture between VLSI Technology and Apple, seeking a chip for the Newton PDA.
“it was a joint venture between chip company called VLSI Technology and and Apple. And they were looking for the first chip for a first PDA known as the Newton.”
Undated
Tony Robbins says buying every iPhone cost about $22,000, while the same money in Apple stock on each release day would now be worth about $326,000.
“If you got an iPhone each time, somebody who's older to do it, you spent 22,000 in some change at the retail price.”
Undated
Neeley says Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google and Netflix have deployed specific AI at scale for roughly fifteen to twenty years.
“Many of the companies in the 2,000 s, like Meta, used to be Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google, Netflix. They've been deploying specific AI at scale in the last fifteen, twenty years.”
Undated
At Apple, users followed Siri's voice onto dirt roads when Apple Maps data was wrong, showing Siri and Maps sharing one voice led to excess trust.
“Siri told me to go there, and that's when we realized the Siri voice and Apple voice being the same voice was actually a problem”
Undated
Brian Chesky says Apple was worth a few hundred billion dollars when Steve Jobs died and is now worth multiple trillions.
“They were a few 100 billion dollar company. When he died, they're like a multi 1 trillion dollar company.”
Undated
Ben Affleck compares valuing a film by its production cost to offering a price for an iPhone based on what its assembler was paid.
“going into the Apple Store and saying, I'll tell you how much I give you for the iPhone when you tell me how much you paid the guy that put it together.”
Undated
Schmidt argues that only founder Steve Jobs could oversee Apple's transformation, and that others who tried could not.
“Could anyone else have overseen the transformation of Apple, except for Steve Jobs? A number tried, they couldn't do it.”
Episodes
- 2 Mar 2026Formula 14h 29m
- 15 Dec 202510 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)2h 47m
- 24 Nov 2025Coca-Cola4h 2m
- 26 Aug 2025Google Part II: Alphabet4h 10m
- 27 Jan 2025TSMC Founder Morris Chang2h 55m
- 28 Oct 2024Meta6h 18m
- 18 Sep 2024The Mark Zuckerberg Interview1h 29m
- 22 Jul 2024Microsoft Volume II4h 49m
- 22 Apr 2024Microsoft Volume I4h 24m
- 20 Feb 2024Hermès4h 8m
- 30 Oct 2023Charlie Munger1h 7m
- 25 Jul 2023Nike4h 2m
- 4 Apr 2023Interview: Hamilton Helmer & Chenyi Shi on How to Build an AWS-Like Second Business1h 31m
- 19 Dec 2022Holiday Special 20222h 21m
- 6 Dec 2022Stratechery (with Ben Thompson)1h 55m
- 15 Nov 2022Qualcomm2h 28m
- 20 Jun 2022The Playbook: Lessons from 200+ Company Stories1h 5m
- 6 Apr 2022Platforms and Power (with Hamilton Helmer and Chenyi Shi)1h 24m
- 7 Mar 2022SONY3h 3m
- 15 Feb 2022The Browser (with Brendan Eich, Chief Architect of Netscape + Mozilla and CEO of Brave)1h 43m
- 23 Jan 2022Taylor Swift (Acquired’s Version)2h 39m
- 5 Oct 2021Michael Mauboussin Master Class — Moats, Skill, Luck, Decision Making and a Whole Lot More1h 25m
- 7 Sep 2021TSMC2h 29m
- 30 Aug 2021Kevin Rose from Web 2.0 to Web31h 40m
- 6 Apr 2021Special: "Why Now" for Digital Health (with Levels founder Josh Clemente)1h 28m
- 10 Dec 2020DoorDash3h 0m
- 2 Sep 2020Epic Games2h 28m
- 17 Mar 2020The Top 10 Acquisitions of All-Time1h 51m
- 29 Jan 2020WhatsApp1h 52m
- 25 Nov 2019Disney, Plus2h 19m
- 15 Jan 2026Tony Robbins: No One Is Ready For What's Coming! Why The Next Decade Will Break People!2h 0m
- 14 Aug 2025#398 Steve Jobs In His Own Words (Make Something Wonderful)2h 1m
- 21 Sep 2023#321 Working with Jeff Bezos57m
- 31 Jul 2023#314 Paul Graham (How To Do Great Work)57m
- 8 Oct 2026RE-RELEASE: Ben Affleck59m
- 28 Oct 20261073. Andy & DJ CTI: Election Controversies, Absentee Ballot Envelopes Mysteriously Shipped To Soros & '60 Minutes' Profile Of Deported Husband1h 44m
- 5 May 2026Behind the AI in the Newsroom: The Washington Post’s Vineet Khosla35m
- 13 May 2025Building Better Answers With AI Agents: SAP’s Walter Sun28m
- 12 Nov 2024Sharing AI Mistakes: Partnership on AI’s Rebecca Finlay38m
- 19 Mar 2026Strategy Summit 2026: Why AI Means Radical Change30m
- 21 Oct 2026Eric Schmidt: The Age of Agents, Superintelligence, and Why Europe Is Falling Behind43m
- 12 Apr 2023Jensen Huang Founder and CEO of Nvidia47m
- 17 Dec 2025‘Like Disneyland when it just opened’: Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI revolution24m
- 25 Sep 2024Using AI to evaluate employee performance with Rippling’s COO Matt MacInnis31m
- 19 Sep 2024Transforming Customer Service through Company Agents, with Sierra’s Bret Taylor48m
- 24 May 2023Going Full Send on AI, and the (Positive) Impact of AI on Jobs, with Kevin Scott, CTO of Microsoft54m
- 5 May 2026Brian Chesky - AI Founder Mode - [Invest Like the Best, EP.471]1h 16m
- 22 May 2025What Is an AI Agent?36m
- 20 Nov 2025Escaping AI Slop: How Atlassian Gives AI Teammates Taste, Knowledge, & Workflows, w- Sherif Mansour1h 36m
- 1 Aug 2025Workforce dynamics in an AI-assisted world44m