About this episode
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an... enterprise software company? We give the full Acquired treatment to newly-public Slack, one of the most extreme and successful pivots of all-time. From a log cabin in Canada to a never-ending game and back again, Slack’s journey has more twists and turns than a Hobbit’s tale. Tune in for one APLUSS story you don’t want to miss!
Sponsors:
- Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
- WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25
- Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25
- Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26
More Acquired!
- Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
- Join the Slack
- Subscribe to ACQ2
- Merch Store!
© Copyright 2015-2026 ACQ, LLC
Links
- Kara Swisher’s Flipcam interview with Glitch: https://www.wsj.com/video/tiny-speck-stewart-butterfield-speaks/C51EAD27-FE8E-46AE-B785-6ECF1A9798B0.html
- Marc Andreessen on “all will still end well...” https://twitter.com/patphelan/status/1142733251691405312
- The Glitch public domain archive: https://www.glitchthegame.com
- Naming Slack: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/780906639301812225?s=21
Carve Outs
- Ben: The Expanse on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/The-Expanse-Season-1/dp/B018BZ3SCM
- David: Give to any non-profit on Alma: https://alma.app/blog/1-4-million-reasons-to-love-alma-search
Get every episode summarized
Each time Acquired publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Hosts & guests
No transcript yet
This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.
More episodes
