Season 3, Episode 1: Tesla

Do you know the do you know the code name for the model S? Uh White Star. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing how cool you feel doing this and learning the code names of projects and you're like, ah, that was a codename, even though it has no it's not secretive, it's not it's just boring, but I think it's cool. Welcome to Season 3, Episode 1 of Acquired, a podcast about technology, acquisitions, and IPOs. I'm Ben Gilbert, I'm David Rosenthal, and we are your hosts. Today we are covering a company that was not founded by Elon Musk.

Tesla. Debatable. Depends who you ask. Tesla's an unbelievably Complex and nuanced company to research.

They're without a doubt one of the most innovative companies in the world right now. They've created the electric vehicle era that we're in. They've invented the most adored cars on the market through sheer force of will, brilliant design, and world class engineering. In fact, the most recent US automaker to reach success before Tesla was Ford, and that was a hundred and eleven years ago. Tesla is also a solar energy company, semi-tru company, autonomous vehicle pioneer. They're becoming the world's largest lithium ion battery manufacturer. They're a creator of large-scale charging infrastructure across the country. They have a car in orbit. And by all accounts, their CEO appears to be the love child of Tony Stark and Steve Jobs.

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