If and How to Scale the Acquired Podcast

If and How to Scale the Acquired Podcast

From Cold Call by HBR Presents / Brian Kenny

February 3, 2026 · 42 min · Episode 275

About this episode

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal discuss their experience scaling the Acquired podcast while maintaining work-life balance.

By 2025, the business podcast Acquired was getting one million listeners per episode, having doubled the audience year over since Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal started it in 2015. And they’d grown without a strict release schedule or relentless optimization. Still, they felt pressure to scale—without throwing off their work-life balance. How did they determine a way forward? They join Harvard Business School Professor Shane Greenstein and host Brian Kenny to discuss the case “The Acquired Podcast: Scaling the Mic.”

People in this episode

Host: Brian Kenny

Guests: Ben Gilbert, David Rosenthal

Topics covered

  • scaling podcasts
  • audience growth
  • work-life balance
  • business strategy
  • podcast management

Keywords

  • podcast scaling
  • audience growth
  • business podcast
  • work-life balance
  • Acquired podcast

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Harvard Business School

Books & works: The Acquired Podcast: Scaling the Mic

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