Coca-Cola

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: Many thanks to our fantastic Fall ‘25 Season partners: J.P. Morgan Payments WorkOS Shopify Sentry — Link to ACQ Cassette Players , use code “audiophile” 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. Ultimate Claude Nike Vomero Plus Hermanos Gutiérrez More Acquired: Get email updates and vote on future episodes! Join the Slack

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Coca-Cola is an episode from Acquired by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal.

This episode is 244:28 long.

This episode was published on Nov 24, 2025.

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