Oprah (Harpo Studios)

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2020

⏱️ 132 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We close out Season 6 with the story of perhaps the single most successful media entrepreneur of all-time: Oprah Winfrey, and her juggernaut conglomerate Harpo Studios. Born to a poor single mother in the segregated 1950's deep south, Oprah's rise from terrible adversity to wealthiest Black woman in the world ranks among the very greatest American success stories. And oh yeah — along the way she single-handedly created the entire influencer economy, rewrote the blueprint of a modern power broker, and set the world record for most cars given away at one time (276). Sit back, listen and get ready to live your best life.

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Carveouts:

David: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07959YG1R?
Ben: Reply All "Long Distance" https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/6nh3wk

Sources:

Transcript

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0:00.0	Did you see the I think this was a tweet is it Tom Morello that has a you don't have to go to Harvard. Yeah, actually I did
0:11.6	Really good.
0:13.0	So good. Welcome to Season 6 episode 8, the season finale of acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and the stories behind them.
0:32.0	I'm Ben Gilbert.
0:33.4	I'm David Rosenthal.
0:34.9	And we are your hosts.
0:36.8	Today we are covering an incredible entrepreneur,
0:39.6	Oprah Winfrey and her company Harpo Studios. Oprah is a fixture of American life
0:45.1	entering the home of tens of millions of Americans through their television set
0:49.5	every day at 4 p.m. for the 25-year run of her show. The Oprah Winfrey Show! So great. It is. But it is the unique story of her business decisions, how she created her brand across her show, a magazine,
1:06.1	a cable channel, and more, how she controlled every detail and grew from TV personality
1:11.7	to business mogul that we're going to cover today.
1:14.8	She is the first black female billionaire and perhaps most relevant to the acquired audience.
1:20.1	She really invented the idea of what we today call an influencer.
1:25.0	If you watch a Yitover, Tik-Talker, have ever bought a product that an internet
1:29.4	personality recommended, or even more abstractly you like thinking about how social platforms are transforming
1:35.9	the consumer economy, you really have Oprah to thank for paving the way.
1:40.3	On a piece I was watching the David Dobrik YouTube a little bit ago where he and his crew
1:45.6	dirt around LA and tossed out like you know gifts to he was tossing out like
1:50.0	PS4s and cell phones and Xbox and then like to tossing out like 10,000
1:55.0	000-000-dollar checks and stuff, and it's like,
1:56.8	yeah, I guess who does that first.
	...

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