Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola

From Acquired by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

November 23, 2025 · 3h 54m · Season 18 · Episode 3

About this episode

This episode explores the transformation of Coca-Cola from a simple beverage to a cultural icon and examines its business success.

Coca-Cola is… sugar water. And somehow it’s also America, Christmas, summertime, friendship and happiness. Today we tell the story of how The Coca-Cola Company amazingly transmogrified a beverage into emotion in all of our collective psyches, and ALSO built one of the most incredible scale economy businesses of all-time. And oh yeah, there’s also cocaine, WW2, Mad Men, Warren Buffett, James Dean, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, Michael Ovitz, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, McDonald’s and Monsanto. So cozy up to the fire with your favorite images of Santa Claus and Polar Bears and enjoy an ice-cold episode of Acquired — always delicious, always refreshing. Sponsors: Legora: https://bit.ly/acquiredlegora Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredservicenow26 Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig26 Links: Sign up for email updates and vote on future episodes! The Hilltop ad / Mad Men finale Pepsi Challenge commercials Pepsi’s Michael Jackson commercials Coke’s Bill Cosby commercials Two liter bottles inflating Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Coca-Cola Study For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Secret Formula All episode sources Carve Outs: SkiErg Super Smash Bros…

Topics covered

Keywords

Sponsors

J.P. Morgan Payments, WorkOS, Shopify, Sentry

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Coca-Cola, Shopify, Sentry

Books & works: Mad Men, Acquired, Pepsi Challenge

Places: America

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