Kyle’s Rating: 5/10
This is the full recording of Acquired’s sold-out Radio City show, with the Jamie Dimon interview as Act One and a late-night talk show with New York CEOs as Act Two. The second act is the reason to watch: Meredith Kopit Levien’s update on The New York Times since the hosts’ 2021 episode, and Barry Diller walking through 60 years of media and tech with stories you won’t hear elsewhere. If you’ve already heard the standalone Dimon interview, skip to intermission. I was there in person. The atmosphere was electric - like the superbowl for business nerds - but the actual show was not as amazing as Ben and David’s typical work. I think it’s hard to translate that live.
Key Takeaways
The New York Times has more than doubled its subscribers since Acquired covered it. Kopit Levien says the company had about 5 million subscribers in 2021 and is closing in on 12 million. Print is now about 20% to 25% of the business.
The Times grew through acquisitions that fit one strategy. Wirecutter, The Athletic and Wordle each sit in a giant category where people do something every day, and each feeds readers into the rest of the bundle.
Barry Diller learned two businesses by doing the work himself. He read every file in the William Morris file room, then built ABC’s Movie of the Week from one employee, himself, to 75 films a year, learning every job along the way.
Diller’s rule is to never bet the company. Take all the risks you want, he says, but don’t let a single bet drag a working company down with it. The exception is Rupert Murdoch.
Diller thinks tech has won entertainment. Netflix, Amazon and Apple have at least 100 times the resources of the old studios, and their business models don’t depend on making hits.
Episode Overview
Venue: Radio City Music Hall, New York, sold out before any guests were announced
Hosts: Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal, dressed by Hermès
Guests: Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase), Andrew Ross Sorkin, Meredith Kopit Levien (The New York Times Company) and Barry Diller (IAC), with audience cameos from Christina Cacioppo, Ben Clymer and Howard Schultz
Format: Act One is a history of JPMorgan Chase with Dimon. Act Two is a new late-night talk show format built for Radio City
Partner: Presented by J.P. Morgan
Note: The Dimon conversation was released earlier as its own episode, which has a separate briefing
The Show
The opening
Backstage, the hosts recalled their first live listener event, at a WeWork in San Francisco’s Tenderloin with about 100 people, where the PA system died halfway through and someone ran to Best Buy for a new one. At Radio City, they started with a quiet intro, decided it wasted the stage, and called out Mike Taylor to perform the show’s theme song live.
Act One: Jamie Dimon
The hosts walked Dimon through JPMorgan Chase’s history, from his 1998 firing at Citigroup to running a company the hosts put at about $800 billion, the most valuable east of the Mississippi. He described taking calls about running Amazon and Home Depot before choosing Bank One in Chicago, where he put about half his net worth, $60 million, into the stock and found 21 board members, 11 of whom hated the other 10.
The throughline was risk: stress-testing for the worst case ever, conservative accounting and a “fortress balance sheet,” which let JPMorgan buy Bear Stearns, WaMu and First Republic in crises. He closed with his Greek immigrant grandparents’ ethic of having a purpose and giving it your all.
Andrew Ross Sorkin’s quiz
Act Two opened with Sorkin at the host desk, offering to help with their New York Times research before quizzing them. They knew the paper was founded in 1851 and that Times Square is named after it, but guessed Adolph Ochs for the man who defended the building from its roof with a gun. It was co-founder Henry Raymond.
Meredith Kopit Levien
The Times CEO gave an update four years after the hosts’ episode: close to 12 million subscribers, 50 million to 100 million weekly visitors, about 20 million podcast listeners and newsletter readers, and about 150 million registered users. She says the company has gone from playing defense to playing offense.
She calls journalism a human endeavor and AI a potential force multiplier, explained the lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft and the content partnership with Amazon, and rejected the idea that the paper has an anti-tech bias. She ended by playing a custom Acquired-themed Wordle, solving it only after the hosts hinted at the founder of a predecessor to one of the world’s largest retailers.
The audience quiz
The hosts asked the crowd for Acquired’s most-listened-to episode. Vanta co-founder Christina Cacioppo guessed Hermès, and Hodinkee founder Ben Clymer guessed Rolex, which the hosts called neck and neck. Then Howard Schultz spoke up from the audience: it’s Starbucks, at 1.3 million downloads. Dimon called out “so far.”
Barry Diller in Hollywood
Diller started in the William Morris mailroom in 1961 and read the agency’s entire file room from age 19 to 22, a full history of the entertainment business. At ABC, then the youngest and least established network, he became the youngest vice president ever at 25 and a half and started Movie of the Week, growing from one film to 75 a year at about $500,000 each.
Gulf and Western’s Charles Bluhdorn then made him chairman of Paramount, despite Diller’s protest that he was a TV executive. He says he failed for two years before Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and that Paramount became the top studio by developing about 90 projects of its own instead of buying packages assembled by agents.
Barry Diller after Hollywood
After a fourth TV network was shelved at Paramount, Diller went to Fox, where Rupert Murdoch bought in a few months later. He calls Murdoch a great entrepreneurial gambler and a perfect boss who never made an operating decision at Fox, with one disagreement in eight years.
At 49, Diller left Fox to see whether he could build something on his own. On a cross-country drive, his wife, Diane von Furstenberg, told him to visit QVC, where he saw phones, TV and computers working together and had what he calls an epiphany. The company he later founded, IAC, has bought, started or sold over 150 companies, including Expedia, Ticketmaster, Tinder and Match.com.
Deep Dive: The New York Times, Four Years Later
The hosts covered The New York Times Company in 2021. Kopit Levien’s update shows a company that has kept the same strategy and widened it.
The goal: be essential. Kopit Levien traces the strategy to the 2014 Innovation Report, when print still drove the business and digital upstarts were winning the audience. Today the aim is to be the essential subscription for curious people everywhere.
Three parts. The world’s best news destination; market-leading lifestyle products in games, cooking, sports and shopping; and a bundle that ties them together. A host compares it to the old newspaper, which also came with comics, shopping and classifieds.
Acquisitions that fit. The three deals that worked, Wirecutter, The Athletic and Wordle, sit in big categories where The Times could do something rare. Wirecutter drove about $1 billion in commerce last year, and The Athletic, with about 550 journalists, has the fastest-growing audience at The Times. The Athletic and Wordle were bought the same week.
Each part feeds the others. A reader is as likely to come in for a game and then read about the war in Ukraine as the reverse.
Podcasts build trust. Shows like The Daily let reporters explain how a story came together, which Kopit Levien sees as showing listeners the work behind the journalism. She says she listens to the Acquired hosts on her runs.
By the Numbers
About $800 billion: JPMorgan Chase’s value today, per the hosts
$60 million: Bank One stock Dimon bought, about half his net worth
21: Bank One board members when he arrived
1851: the year The New York Times was founded
About 5 million → close to 12 million: Times subscribers in 2021 compared with today
50 million to 100 million: weekly visitors to The Times
About 150 million: registered Times users
20% to 25%: print’s share of the business today
About 550: journalists at The Athletic
About $1 billion: commerce Wirecutter drove last year
1.3 million: downloads of the Starbucks episode with Howard Schultz, Acquired’s biggest
25 and a half: Diller’s age when he became ABC’s youngest vice president
75: Movie of the Week films ABC made a year at its peak
About $500,000: cost of each, compared with up to $10 million for one hour of TV today
About 90: projects Paramount had in development under Diller
49: Diller’s age when he left Fox to go out on his own
Over 150: companies IAC has bought, started or sold
Best Lines
“I tell people my net worth, not my self-worth, was involved.” Jamie Dimon, on being fired from Citigroup
“It is by humans; it is for humans.” Meredith Kopit Levien, on journalism in the age of AI
“If you’re that stupid, I’ll fire you!” ABC founder Leonard Goldenson, when Diller said he might turn down Paramount
“I think the only thing you don’t do is bet the company.” Barry Diller
“They have won. No one is ever going to beat them.” Barry Diller, on Netflix
Water Cooler Material
Dimon’s kids took the firing in stride. His youngest asked if they’d have to sleep on the streets, the middle one asked about college, and the oldest asked for his cell phone since he wouldn’t need it. That night, when a friend who worked for Dimon told one daughter, “I work for your daddy,” she replied, “Not anymore you don’t.”
Dimon didn’t take a houseboat. Talking with Jeff Bezos about becoming Amazon’s president, he says, he pictured never wearing a suit again and living on a houseboat. It was a bridge too far.
He had never been in a Home Depot. Dimon told the founders so at his first dinner with them in Atlanta.
“You do now.” On his first day at Bank One, executives told him they didn’t drink coffee in the white-carpeted conference room. Dimon looked at his cup and said, “You do now.”
Barry Diller parks at fire hydrants. He drives himself everywhere in New York and gets the tickets. “Someday I’ll pay for them.”
Saturday Night Fever’s premiere was half empty. At 7:45, about 40% of the seats were filled, and Paramount’s publicity man told Diller that Travolta couldn’t draw an audience. Ten days later there were lines around the block.
The private plane test. Deciding whether to leave Fox, Diller asked himself whether he’d stay just to keep a company plane that wasn’t his. He couldn’t accept that, so he left.
Gulf and Western started with car bumpers. It went on to own a hundred businesses, including Paramount and Puerto Rican sugar.
Carveouts
The live show didn’t include carve-outs.
Links
Episode Metadata
Title: Acquired Live at Radio City Music Hall (Presented by J.P. Morgan)
Season / Episode: Special episode
Release Date: November 5, 2025
Length: 1:59:41