Coca-Cola
From Acquired by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
November 24, 2025 · 4h 1m · 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: Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25 Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry WorkOS: https://acquired.fm/unplugged Playing Cards: https://bit.ly/workOSshop (Code: ACQDECK) 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…
Topics covered
- Coca-Cola
- business
- marketing
- economics
- history
Keywords
- sugar water
- emotion
- scale economy
- advertising
- cultural impact
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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