On this extra-long episode of Acquired, Brian McCullough from the Internet History Podcast returns to discuss perhaps the most (in)famous merger of all time: AOL - Time Warner. Who doesn’t remember the soothing sounds of 56k modems and the timeless phrase, “You’ve Got Mail”? Join us all as we unpack how one of the biggest ISP’s of the 90’s tried to take over the world… and fell far short.

Sponsors:

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25
ServiceNow: https://bit.ly/acquiredsn
Vanta: http://vanta.com/acquired
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig25

More Acquired!

Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups from recent episodes
Join the Slack
Subscribe to ACQ2
Merch Store!

© Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC

Topics Covered Include:

AOL’s status in the 90’s / early 00’s
Explaining just what it is that AOL did at the height of their popularity
How AOL pioneered a number of internet paradigms
AOL’s persistent money troubles and bailouts from other companies
Steve Case foreseeing the coming era of broadband, inspiring AOL to pursue working with a cable company
Ebay vs. Time Warner in a down-to-the-wire war for a merger with AOL
Why the money dried up for AOL after their merger with Time Warner
AOL and its value in the post-Time-Warner era
Speculating about what would have happened had AOL and others stayed independent businesses
And much discussion on how to grade this one…

The Carve Out:

Ben: Give and Take by Adam Grant
David: Season of the Witch by David Talbot
Brian: A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Rob Goodman

5 things to look at if you get stuck in your head