By J.R. Robinson, Founder/Financial Planner (February 2025)
Below is a list of my top five Acquired podcast episodes. They are not ranked in any particular order, but they represent the episodes that I have played multiple times, have had the most profound impact on my business, and I believe are the most insightful for Financial Planning Hawaii and Fee-Only Planning Hawaii clients.
The Complete History and Analysis of Bitcoin – This podcast is 3 hours and 13 minutes long, and I have listened to it three times. The reason I have devoted almost ten hours of my life to this episode and why I am compelled to share it with our flock is that it is not about making a case for investing in Bitcoin, it is about the story of Bitcoin… and what a fascinating story it is!
Even though Bitcoin is not a company, as Ben and David explain, its origin story is similar to those of many of today’s great companies insofar as its growth and success are attributable to a remarkable chain of unrelated serendipitous events and its use-case today is very different from what its creator(s) envisioned. The episode clears up a common misconception/conspiracy theory about Bitcoin’s creation, provides clarity about its role in the global financial ecosystem, and provides a framework for estimating its future value.
It is worth mentioning that the price of Bitcoin was around $35,000 when the Episode was recorded in 2021. It would rise to a high of $68,991 in November 2021 before falling below $17,000 a year later. It took 16 months for Bitcoin to recover and pass its previous all-time high in March 2024. As of this writing, the all-time high for Bitcoin’s price is just under $110,000 and the current price is just under $97,000.
[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN] (3 hours, 13 minutes). NOTE: I recommend listening to the very end.
The Complete History and Strategy of Renaissance Technologies… Most individual investors have never heard of Ren-Tech or its flagship Medallion Fund. It is the most successful portfolio management platform ever. At the time this episode was recorded, the net compound annual return of the fund was just under 40%, and it had never had a down year in its 34-year history! This return profile makes Warren Buffett seem like a chump.
The company’s history is fascinating on so many levels –
- The fund effectively disproves the Efficient Market Hypothesis’ assertion that it is impossible to outperform the stock using technical analysis of trading trends.
- The Medallion fund invests in many different asset classes, including stocks, but the trading algorithm does not incorporate any fundamental stock research. In fact, Ren-Tech does not hire any financial analysts or economists – only mathematicians and computer scientists.
- In theory, its incredible compound annual growth rate should fairly quickly make the portfolio so large that the size of its own trades would move the markets enough to foil the algorithm (As chronicled in the book, When Genius Failed, this was part of the reason why Long Term Capital’s vaunted trading algorithm spectacularly imploded in 1996.) The episode explains how Ren-Tech anticipated and solved for this problem.
- The success of the Medallion Fund is attributable to machine learning. While that concept seems plausible in 2025 with today’s powerful processing chips, the fund’s underlying algorithm was created in the late 1970s!
The Acquired Podcast’s hosts take the listener from the birth of Ren-Tech’s founder, Jim Simons, through his succession and even greater performance after his retirement.
[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN] (3 hours 7 minutes)
Costco…I did not fully understand how Costco is different from other big box/discount retail stores until I listened to this episode. Here are a few of the interesting facts I learned-
- Costco’s discount warehouse membership club concept was developed by Sol Price who introduced the concept with the creation of FedMart in 1954 and again Price Club in 1975. Costco’s original co-founder, Jim Sinegal, began his career as a bagger at FedMart in 1955 and rose to become an executive and Sol Price disciple at Fedmart until it was sold.
- Sol Price was famous for openly sharing all of his business principles with would-be competitors. Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, and Amazon all trace their roots to Sol Price’s business model. When asked how much of Sol Price’s business model was incorporated into Walmart, Sam Walton famously proclaimed, “All of it!” When he was asked late in his lifetime , how he felt about being called “ the father of the discount warehouse model,” Sol quipped, “I should have worn a condom.”
- Costco’s humanitarian business model is unique and endearing. It is based on the idea that placing consumer and employee interests above those of shareholders will lead to exceptional performance for shareholders.
- Most discount retailers carry tens of thousands of SKU (stock-keeping units) numbers. For instance, Walmart carries approximately 130,000 SKUs. In contrast, Costco intentionally keeps under 4,000 different products.
- Costco’s “honest pricing” policy, limits the company’s product markup to just 14% above cost with an average markup of just 11%. This is in contrast to the 25%-50% markup at most discount retails and the 100%-200% markup at regular retail department stores. Further, Costco adamantly eschews the practice of using loss-leaders to bring consumers into stores because they believe it is dishonest to consumers.
- I was struck by how efficient Costco is in executing its store expansion strategy and by how much room there is for the rollout of future stores. Similarly, the company has proven to be impervious to online competition. At the same time, Costco has a remarkable opportunity for expansion into the online market space that it is only just beginning to tap.
In listening to the Acquired Costco Episode, it occurred to me that I had unknowingly incorporated some of Costco’s “honest pricing” principles into Financial Planning Hawaii and Fee-Only Planning Hawaii. When I listened to it the first time, I had just been advised by some of my financial planning industry peers that I was “leaving money on the table” with my tiered asset-based pricing model and that I should charge more. It was similar to the situation recounted in the Episode about how Jeff Bezos was feeling pressure from his Board of Directors to raise prices in order to boost profitability in the early 2000s when he turned to Jim Sinegal for guidance. Jim advised, “There are two kinds of companies – those that work hard to charge more and those that work hard to charge less. We choose to be the latter.” That concept resounded with Bezos at Amazon, and it works for FPH too.
[Click to Listen] (3 hours, 0 minutes)
The Complete History & Strategy of Hermès… As much as I am a raving fan of Acquired, I almost did not listen to this episode because luxury women’s handbags is just not a topic of interest for me. However, after reading scores of great reviews, I decided to give the episode 10 minutes to pique my interest. I ended up listening for four hours straight!
It is a remarkable story of how a one-man shop that began in the 1830s as a saddlery maker for the French aristocracy adapted to multiple existential industry changes and evolved to be the iconic luxury goods manufacturer it is today. The two most compelling elements of the story for me are how the company has remained a closely held family business for more than 150 years and how the company bucked the fashion industry trend of scaling by outsourcing manufacturing to low-cost foreign factories.
The latter is particularly relatable because the trend in financial planning is to outsource portfolio management to turnkey asset management platforms (TAMP) and to present clients with generic, computer-generated “financial plans.” Just as each Hermes bag is created from start to finish by a single craftsman without any machine cutting or stitching, every client financial plan is written by hand based upon our deep-dive understanding of each client’s understanding, and no two client investment portfolios are identical.
Listening to the Hermes episode helped develop my succession plan for Financial Planning Hawaii. This plan involves the company being passed on to my children with all financial planners (including family members) beginning in apprenticeships that teach them to replicate the system that has enabled me to develop multi-generational relationships with many clients over the past 35+ years.
[Click to Listen] (4 hours, 7 minutes)
The Complete History & Strategy of Taiwan Semiconductor… The TSMC episode made the cut for my Top 5 list in no small part because it is Exhibit A in the case for “Old Guys Rock.” The protagonist in this story is Morris Chang, a once revered electrical engineering PhD who, at age 57, was put out to pasture by his long-time employer, Texas Instruments.
Shortly after retiring to Taiwan, he was approached by the Taiwanese government to help develop Taiwan’s non-existent technology sector. Given a ridiculously short time frame to develop a viable business plan, Morris quickly penciled and a plan to create a chipmaking foundry for the nascent fabless semiconductor industry.
He would spend the next 30 years leading TSMC to become not only the leading player with the widest moat (and the smallest microchips – currently 3 nanometers), but arguably the most important company on the planet. TSMC is the supplier to nearly all of the leading chipmakers on the planet, including Apple, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Broadcom. It is also at the geopolitical epicenter of perpetually strained Sino-American relations.
[Click to Listen] (2 hours, 34 minutes)
In addition to the original episode that aired in 2021, a few weeks ago, Ben and David dropped a follow-up “bonus” podcast featuring their December 2025 interview with the now 93-year-old Dr. Chang.
[Click to Listen] (2 hours, 55 minutes)
John “J.R.” Robinson is the owner/founder of Financial Planning Hawaii and Fee-Only Planning Hawaii and is a co-founder of personal finance software maker Nest Egg Guru.
