Alle afleveringen
52 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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The Company That Became a Country
4 november 2026 · 54 min
Before there was Canada, there was the Hudson’s Bay Company. Lees meer
HBC had its own laws and its own currency, and at one point controlled trade routes from the Arctic to Hawaii. It started cities like Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Victoria. It also fought an actual war with a rival business over pemmican, a traditional indigenous snack made of dried buffalo meat, fat and berries.
Business History’s resident Canadian Robert Smith tells Jacob Goldstein how two French traders built an empire out of beaver fur, and how the company they created later signed one of the biggest real estate deals in history.
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The Pigeons That Built a Global News Empire
28 oktober 2026 · 42 min
Before Reuters was a global news giant, it was a man and 45 homing pigeons. Julius Reuter saw that the telegraph would change how information moved, and he used that to his advantage. He didn’t have to get news out immediately — he just had to be first. Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith follow Reuter from Germany to England, where he scoops The Times of London with news that Europe was headed to war. Lees meer
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How the Company Conquered the World
21 oktober 2026 · 48 min
Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith talk with Adrian Wooldridge, co-author of The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea. Lees meer
Companies are some of the most powerful institutions in the modern world – right up there with the nation-state. Where did the modern corporation come from? And what do AI and Chinese state-owned firms mean for the future of the company?
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Sam the Banana Man: Gunboats, Coups, and United Fruit
14 oktober 2026 · 56 min
In the late 1800s, a Russian immigrant named Samuel Zemurray spent nearly everything he had on a load of bananas, and turned it into a fortune. But Sam the Banana Man wasn’t just a business titan. He was a puppeteer on the geopolitical stage, bankrolling a revolution in Honduras and pushing the CIA to overthrow Guatemala’s democratically elected leader. Lees meer
For decades, Zemurray battled the United Fruit Company, an institution with its tentacles in governments across the Americas — including the United States. In the end, he wound up running the company.
Connect with us:
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Blockers | A Preview of Michael Lewis's New Audiobook
7 oktober 2026 · 50 min
We're here with a preview of Blockers, a new audiobook from Michael Lewis, the author of Liars Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short and more. In Blockers, Lewis tells the story of a handful of people who dedicated their careers to public service—until the Department of Government Efficiency decided they were a problem. These were people who believed they had a calling—people who kept American's sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands, made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules, and figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighborhoods—and then discovered they were no longer wanted. Lees meer
Here's an excerpt from the audiobook. You can buy the audiobook exclusively at blockers.fm.
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Hitler's Gift to the Hippies: The VW Beetle Story Part I – Rerun
30 september 2026 · 35 min
Business History is off this week, so we wanted to keep you entertained with a rerun, in case you missed our Beetle episode the first time around. (You can help us win a Signal Award for this episode by voting here.) Lees meer
The VW Beetle was the biggest selling car of all time - and it found particular favor with people like hippies and surfers. But this icon of the 60s counterculture had its roots in Nazism. The Volkswagen - the People's Car - was an obsession of Adolf Hitler. He wanted to transform Germany into a land of drivers - and needed an affordable, but reliable automobile.
Germany's private auto manufacturers knew the project was doomed to failure. So Hitler assembled a team of designers and factory managers to enact his vision - even if that meant enslaving workers and committing murder.
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King of the Roll-Ups: The Man Who Created a Trash Empire, Then Built Blockbuster Video
23 september 2026 · 38 min
Wayne Huizenga came from a long line of trash collectors. It was a rough, fragmented, mom-and-pops business which notoriously attracted mobsters. But Huizenga set out to buy his small competitors - to roll them up - to form the biggest waste management firm in the world. Lees meer
Huizenga bought up rival companies at a furious pace - several per week - and when he tired of the trash business he looked for something new. In the 80s, video stores also tended to be mom 'n pops outfits. Huizenga spotted that there was a golden opportunity to consolidate the rental industry, so used roll ups to build the giant Blockbuster Video chain.
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How Warren Buffet Built His Legacy By Finding Value No One Else Could See – Rerun
18 september 2026 · 44 min
With the news of Warren Buffett stepping down as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, we are revisiting an episode from our two-part series on Buffet. Lees meer
Warren Buffett rose from obscurity to become the richest person in the world - and he did it in a unique way. As a boy in Omaha he collected information obsessively - writing down car license numbers and hoarding bottle caps. As a young man, Buffett turned his focus on scouring business accounts to find companies that had hidden value no one else could spot.
We tell the story of young Warren Buffett as he quietly worked building up the expertise and accumulating the wealth that would allow him to become the most famous investor of our age.
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Herman Petty's Dream: The Struggles of the First Black American to Own a McDonald's
16 september 2026 · 45 min
Herman Petty was a Chicago barber and bus driver who dreamed of running his own business. When his local McDonald's restaurant was abandoned in 1968, Herman approached the company and said he should be the first black American to be given a hamburger franchise. Lees meer
Herman and other black pioneers faced unique problems running McDonald's in America's inner cities - but their businesses soon flourished and they fought to make the burger giant listen to its black franchisees and customers.
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The Battle of Fort Frick and the Anarchist Assassin
9 september 2026 · 45 min
Concluding our story of Andrew Carnegie's effort to break the unions at his Homestead steel factory, we look at how the plant boss Henry Clay Frick enlisted a private army of Pinkerton detectives to confront the steel workers. Gunfire erupts and there are deaths on both sides. Lees meer
The so-called battle of "Fort Frick" seems to go the way of the unions - until a young anarchist comes to town hoping to piggyback on the unrest to further his goal of sparking a revolution. He finds a way into Frick's office... and he comes armed with a pistol and a knife.
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Andrew Carnegie's War with his Workers
2 september 2026 · 40 min
In the first of two shows about the fight between the richest man and the unions at his Homestead steel plant - we look at why Andrew Carnegie decided that his workforce deserved a smaller share of his profits and the lengths he went to to cut their wages. Lees meer
Carnegie grew up in poverty and publicly proclaimed that rich moguls such as he had a duty to aid the poor - but that didn't stop him using every weapon at his disposal to crush the steel workers' union. The fight got violent - very violent - and its ripples are still being felt to this day.
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George Washington’s Trusted Tavern Guide: The Birth of the User Review
26 augustus 2026 · 45 min
When America’s first president set off to tour his new country, he had no idea where to stay. George Washington slept in some taverns he described as dirty and grim, but also stayed at some delightful inns. In the 1790s, there was no way for travellers to share tips on the nice places to sleep and those to avoid. Lees meer
Fast forward to today and the rise of peer-to-peer services where we book a car ride, rent a vacation home or bid in an online auction, and the same trust problem occurs. How do we know we can rely on a vendor we’ve never met? And how can we praise good customer service with a glowing recommendation? That's why the user review was created.
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The DeLorean Saga: Fraud, Drug Deals and Marty McFly's Car
19 augustus 2026 · 48 min
This is a special crossover episode with Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. Lees meer
John DeLorean was a top car executive - but he was too maverick to fit into the oppressive corporate culture of GM. He wanted to make a new and exciting sports car - a futuristic stainless steel marvel with distinctive gull-wing doors (which found fame in Back to the Future). He just needed someone to give him millions of dollars to get started.
The British government agreed to foot the bill, but only if DeLorean built his factory in a troubled part of Northern Ireland. The cars coming off the production line were beset with problems and sales slowed down. Company finances were also strained by DeLorean's spendthrift ways and brazen theft. Finally, someone offered DeLorean a lifeline if only he'd come in on a cocaine deal.
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The Tangled Story of Instant Ramen
12 augustus 2026 · 42 min
Momofuku Ando told the world he invented instant ramen noodles in a shed in his backyard. In Japan, there's not one, but two museums celebrating this breakthrough. Only Ando wasn't the first person to flash-fry noodles to preserve them - but he was willing to sue any rival ramen maker. Lees meer
Ando had suffered repeated business failures and even been jailed for tax fraud - but he created an origin story for his instant noodles so compelling that it helped him build a convenience food empire that sent instant ramen everywhere on earth and finally into space.
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Billy Beer: When American Beer Hit Bottom, Then Bounced Back
5 augustus 2026 · 41 min
President Jimmy Carter had a brother, and this brother LOVED beer. Billy Carter was a big 1970s celebrity and a struggling brewery decided to bet on him to revive its fortunes. Together they created Billy Beer and launched a huge ad campaign. The beverage was a global sensation... except nobody including Billy liked the taste. Billy Beer was a flop. Lees meer
Billy Beer was emblematic of American brewing at the time. It was all bad beer and gimmicky marketing. Coincidentally, it was Jimmy Carter who would change that. He signed a new tax law that kickstarted the craft beer revolution which brought us some of modern America's most popular brews.
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The Printing Press: The Invention Built on Debt and Sin
29 juli 2026 · 46 min
Before 1450, books were written out by hand. It was slow and expensive. But Johannes Gutenberg borrowed a ton of money to create a printing press that could crank out Bibles and pamphlets and documents in huge numbers. Science, politics and philosophy were all up-ended. Lees meer
For example, the Catholic Church seized on the invention to sell special certificates absolving people of their sins - a move that made money, but caused a permanent schism in Christianity.
And Gutenberg too found himself in trouble - when a financier sued the inventor to reclaim his loan, plus interest.
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The Robberiest Robber Baron: The Villainy of Jay Gould
22 juli 2026 · 47 min
Jay Gould became hugely rich without ever really making a product or offering a service to benefit his customers. Other "Robber Barons" in the 19th century forged steel or pumped oil to make money - but Gould preferred to manipulate the stock market or bribe judges and politicians to generate a profit. Lees meer
Even when he was fired from the railway company he mismanaged, he used this inside information to profit from the soaring share price. No one liked Jay Gould - indeed many people physically assaulted him because of his awful behaviour - but his real legacy was the raft of laws America passed to try to prevent such a businessman ever rising to power again.
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The Factory That Was Wiped Off The Map (From Cautionary Tales)
8 juli 2026 · 38 min
Business History will be back on July 22nd - but here's an episode from another Pushkin Industries show we're sure you''ll enjoy, Cautionary Tales. Lees meer
A giant chemical plant near the small village of Flixborough, England, is busy churning out a key ingredient of nylon 6, a material used in everything from stockings to toothbrushes to electronics. When a reactor vessel fails, the engineers improvise a quick-fix workaround, so the plant can keep up with demand. Before long, the temporary patch - a small, bent pipe - becomes a permanent part of the factory, and the people of Flixborough unknowingly drift towards disaster.
Listen to more Cautionary Tales whenever you get your podcasts.
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The Nobel Winners Who Almost Crashed the Economy
1 juli 2026 · 48 min
John Meriwether assembled the smartest team on Wall Street. In the 1980s, he combed Harvard and MIT for geniuses to join him at Salomon Brothers and make the investment bank a fortune with arbitrage - the trick of buying an asset cheap in one place and quickly selling it for a profit in another. Lees meer
When he parted ways with Salomon Brothers, Meriwether took his "nerds" to set up a hedge fund. They prospered - making themselves and their clients rich. Two employees even picked up a Nobel Prize. But Long Term Capital Management operated in the real world - where projections and charts and formulas can't protect you from political chaos and economic turmoil.
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A Store Owner You Can Trust: John Wanamaker, Returns and the Price Tag
24 juni 2026 · 40 min
Shopping used to be adversarial. Shoppers and store owners would bargain and haggle over prices. What one person got for $1, the next guy bought for £1.25. And there were no returns. It was unfair and stressful - and made shoppers distrustful that they were getting a good deal. John Wanamaker changed all that. Lees meer
Wanamaker thought about being a preacher before setting up as a clothes merchant. So he built a retail empire built on fairness and trust. Price tags appeared in his stores - promising everyone would pay the same. And if you weren't happy - you could return your purchase. This was so unusual that Wanamaker even won the praise of a US President.
AND to see Joseph Monroe Bennett's magnificent moustache for yourself go to: https://archives.upenn.edu/exhibits/penn-people/biography/joseph-monroe-bennett/
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The Boy Scout Who Brought us the Age of Disruption
17 juni 2026 · 41 min
Why have so many tiny start-ups come from nowhere to take down huge established corporations? Is it because the incumbents were dumb? Harvard Business School professor Clayton M Christensen decided to explore these David versus Goliath battles - and came up with a theory to explain why seemingly solid businesses suddenly lose market share... disruptive innovation. Lees meer
In his hit book, The Innovator's Dilemma, Christensen explored how flawed products from small companies can suddenly catch on, disrupt the market and steal customers from established corporations. Christensen - a life-long Boy Scout - was an odd champion for "disruptive innovation", but his ideas have totally changed the business landscape.
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The Reporter Who Took Down John D. Rockefeller
10 juni 2026 · 46 min
At a time when women couldn't vote or freely enter the workplace, Ida Tarbell took on the richest man in America and triumphed. Ida grew up in the Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1870s, and saw how John D Rockefeller and his company Standard Oil bought or bullied independent firms. Ida's neighbors and even her own father were in Rockefeller's sights. Lees meer
In adulthood, Ida joined a new movement in journalism. She was a "muckraker" - looking to dig up dirt on the greedy and unscrupulous monopolies of the Gilded Age. She wrote a 19-part investigation of Standard Oil that became a nationwide hit and forced the US government to act and break Rockefeller's empire apart.
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"Time is Money": How Ben Franklin's Sayings Created American Capitalism and Grind Culture
3 juni 2026 · 44 min
Benjamin Franklin had a full life - he was a scientist, statesman, and a Founding Father. But we're looking at the huge impact he had as a writer of best-selling business books. Franklin first picked up the pen as a poor, downtrodden teenager to write satire, but as he became richer and more successful he instead shared his entrepreneurial insights with the public. Lees meer
His sayings about time-wasting, thrift and the rewards of hard work were revolutionary. And both his admirers and critics claim his writings caused a profound global shift in how we think about work and wealth.
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The Founding Father Who Got Rich in the Revolution
27 mei 2026 · 48 min
Two-hundred-and-fifty years ago George Washington was fighting the Revolutionary War against the British, but Robert Morris doing something just as vital. He was raising money for the fighting and buying the gunpowder, tents, food and uniforms Washington's army needed. Lees meer
Morris had been a merchant before the revolution, so didn't see why he shouldn't personally profit from his work supplying the colonists' struggle. He emerged from the war as a rich man and owned huge tracts of land. But the turbulent final years of the 18th Century saw Morris go first into substantial debt and then fall into utter ruin.
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The Ice King: How Frederic Tudor Got Rich Shipping Ice to India
20 mei 2026 · 47 min
Frederic Tudor could get ice any time he wanted. He lived in chilly Boston and his family had a lake that froze over in the winter. Harvesting ice and storing it was a normal thing in New England in the 1800s, but Frederic decided he'd make a fortune if he could ship ice to the warmest places on earth. And everyone thought this was the dumbest business idea of all time! Lees meer
No one would back Frederic's plan - no one would even let him rent a ship to carry his ice. For decades he tried and failed to get his ice business running. He even ended up broke and in jail. But finally he prevailed and became a wealthy and celebrated figure - who changed the world.
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Ivar Kreuger: The Match King Behind the Biggest Fraud You’ve Never Heard Of
13 mei 2026 · 49 min
Swedish entrepreneur Ivar Kreuger built a fortune selling matches. He used this money to build a world famous financial empire that bankrolled whole countries. France borrowed from Kreuger. Germany borrowed from Krueger. He was crowned "The Match King" and ruled Wall Street in the 1920s. Lees meer
But Kreuger's business was about to burn to the ground. The Swede had been using shady - even criminal - methods to move money around his empire and the good times came to an end. The discovery of Kreuger's crimes created chaos, but also proved pivotal in the creation of America's modern financial safeguards.
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Did "Neutron" Jack Welch Nuke GE?
6 mei 2026 · 53 min
In 1999, Jack Welch was named "Manager of the Century". As CEO of General Electric for 20 years, Welch transformed the conglomerate and made it the biggest company in the world. Nicknamed "Neutron Jack", he closed down big chunks of old GE and set up new ventures... including GE Capital - which operated more like a bank than the wing of a manufacturing giant. Lees meer
Under the leadership of "Neutron Jack", General Electric was consistently profitable and seemed to be a safe investment... but in fact the company was headed for disaster.
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Veuve Clicquot: The Widow Who Built a Champagne Empire
29 april 2026 · 41 min
Running a wine business in Napoleonic France wasn't easy. Constant wars meant naval blockades stopped you exporting your wares and invading armies might loot your cellars. But it was even harder for women - who were forbidden to run companies. Lees meer
None of this stopped Barbe-Nicole Clicquot. When her husband died, she used a loophole that allowed widows to be entrepreneurs. Naming her Champagne brand after herself - Veuve Clicquot - the "Widow Clicquot" pioneered innovations in production and marketing that transformed the entire industry.
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Silicon Valley’s Obsession with Living Forever (with Kara Swisher)
22 april 2026 · 42 min
Kings and emperors spent fortunes pursuing the secret of eternal youth - but now it's tech billionaires who want to live forever and are funding research into scientific (and not-so-scientific) ways to beat aging and death. Lees meer
Kara Swisher (host of CNN's new series Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever) joins Jacob and Robert to discuss the longevity business - from ancient China, via yoghurt enemas and blood swaps, to the latests developments in DNA editing. We also find out how Kara wants to die.
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How Lloyd’s of London Nearly Sank the Global Economy (Lloyd’s, Pt. 2)
15 april 2026 · 40 min
In the 1980s, Lloyds of London insured satellites, rock singers' voices and the legs of sports stars. Everyone was having fun and making money - but disaster was just around the corner. Lees meer
Lloyds had always operated on the principle of unlimited liability - so the people backing up the insurance policies were expected to pay over all their assets if required. That hardly ever happened - until a series of huge claims hit Lloyds and the insurers suddenly faced huge bills that threatened to destroy the whole operation and the wider economy.
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The Insurers Who ALWAYS Paid Out: The Lloyds of London Story (Lloyd’s, Pt. 1)
8 april 2026 · 32 min
Edward Lloyd opened a coffee shop near the River Thames in the 1680s - it became a place where ship owners and money men rubbed shoulders and a trade in marine insurance sprang up. Lees meer
The coffee-drinking insurers eventually decided to form an association and agree on a set of rules - and so Lloyd's of London was born. It became a key factor in keeping the global sea trade going, but soon branched out into insuring against burglaries, hurricanes and even earthquakes.
Lloyds developed a principle that seems odd today. It ignored the small print and said: "Pay all our policy holders in full, irrespective of the terms of their policies.”
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Prediction Markets: The Wild History of Betting on Taylor Swift and Popes
25 maart 2026 · 36 min
A live mash-up between Business History and Bloomberg's Everybody's Business. Lees meer
On platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket you can bet on just about anything - from Taylor Swift's album sales to whether President Trump will say a certain word in a speech. Many people worry about these new prediction markets, but the concept is far older than some critics might think.
We go back centuries to Papal conclaves; hear about how counting drinking toasts stood in for political polling; and learn how the US government tried using betting markets to predict terrorist attacks.
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Who Owns a Song? Bowie, McCartney, Michael Jackson and the Royalty Wars
18 maart 2026 · 45 min
Once if you wrote a hit song there was no guarantee it would make you rich. So songwriters formed a cartel - the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. ASCAP started suing concert halls, cafes and nightclubs to claim back royalties. Seemed fair... except ASCAP started a war when it demanded radio stations turn over 10% of their revenues. Lees meer
ASCAP's monopoly on music rights was broken, but they'd made songs into valuable financial assets. This set the scene for an epic copyright beef between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, and for David Bowie to turn his pop hits into a complex special purpose vehicle... a securitization pool!
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How GM Beat Ford: The Character Flaw That Cost Henry Ford His Crown
11 maart 2026 · 36 min
Ford was the pre-eminent American car maker and Henry Ford was the king of modern manufacturing, until a Michigan cigar salesman decided to consolidate a bunch of small auto companies into a single firm to defeat the Colossus of Detroit. Lees meer
General Motors united the likes of Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac and decided to live by "the laws of Paris dressmakers" to make cars that were more stylish and fashionable than the austere, black-painted Model T that was coming out of the Ford plant.
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Henry Ford Invented the Modern World... Then Got Left Behind
4 maart 2026 · 50 min
Farm boy Henry Ford hated toil. If only someone could invent ways to work more efficiently, as well as cheap, reliable machines to take some of the strain. Ford was a tinkerer and a lover of the newly invented automobile - so he started building cars in a new, streamlined way that made them affordable to many more Americans. Lees meer
Thanks to Ford’s production line techniques, the Model T became the biggest selling car in the world. And other factories copied his system to manufacture the radios and vacuum cleaners that kickstarted the modern boom in consumerism. But then Henry Ford stopped listening to what car buyers wanted.
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War, Exploration and Beer: How the Tin Can Changed the World
25 februari 2026 · 57 min
Old-fashioned ways of preserving food made for salty, vinegary or chewy meals - but it was often a choice between that or starving. Soldiers, explorers and ordinary people alike faced malnutrition and food poisoning - but then came a French revolution... in a can! Lees meer
First invented in Napoleonic France, the humble can would feed armies; sustain bold exploration; and give poor people access to wholesome food all year round. We don't think about the tin can much today, but its history is filled with skullduggery, vast riches and deadly choking hazards.
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A&P: How America’s Biggest Grocery Chain Became Public Enemy No. 1
18 februari 2026 · 48 min
Mom and Pops grocery stores were charming, but inefficient. They contributed to Americans either spending a lot on their food or having to go hungry. The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company changed the entire model. The A&P established a chain of stores selling branded goods at the lowest prices. Lees meer
The A&P kept its profit margins slim and allowed Americans to buy more food for less - but this wasn't celebrated as a success story. Politicians, radio stars and vested interests ganged together to hound The A&P. They demanded the grocery chain change its strategy, raise prices and even put its owners on trial on criminal charges. So why didn't America like cheap groceries?
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The Rise and Fall of Atari (and the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Game That Sank It)
11 februari 2026 · 50 min
Nolan Bushnell loved weed, hot tubs and games... especially games. He took computer games out of the laboratory and put them in bars. His arcade game Pong was a monster hit, so he set up Atari to build a home games console which became the must-have Christmas present of 1975. Lees meer
Atari was the name on every kid's lips... but then investors came onboard to help the company expand. Bushnell and his engineers were sidelined, and Atari embarked on a crazy plan to rush out a game based on Spielberg's movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was so bad... it sank Atari.
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How a Bad Boss Kickstarted Silicon Valley
4 februari 2026 · 48 min
William Shockley was an electronics genius - he even won a Nobel Prize - but he was an awful boss. Shockley was a cruel, paranoid micromanager. And this annoyed the staff of brilliant young engineers he'd assembled in a quiet town in Northern California. In fact, they quit and set up a company of their own inventing silicon chips. Lees meer
Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and the rest of "The Traitorous Eight" transformed computing, but also blazed a trail for the tech founders who would flock to Silicon Valley and change the world. Members of "The Traitorous Eight" set up Intel and AMD, while also funding businesses such as Google and Slack.
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Sears: Cocaine Wine, Shotguns, and the World’s Tallest Tower
28 januari 2026 · 43 min
Richard Warren Sears started off selling pocket watches - then published a catalog full of hundreds and hundreds of products from shotguns to cocaine wine. Sears & Roebuck offered even Americans living on remote farms the chance to shop like city dwellers. The catalog became an American institution - the Amazon of the 1890s - but as the nation changed, Sears adapted too and built a vast chain of physical stores. Lees meer
Sears felt so secure that it built the world's tallest office building to house all its staff - but then came competition from specialist big-box stores and out-of-town megastores. Sears found itself in a death spiral and couldn't pull out.
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De-Nazifying the Love Bug: The VW Beetle Story Part II
21 januari 2026 · 42 min
It's 1945. The Volkswagen factory has been bombed and members of the staff have been arrested as war criminals. So how did the company turn around in just a few years and begin making Beetle cars that became a global sensation? Lees meer
Big political and economic moves helped - but a British Army officer, Walt Disney and a New York ad agency also played pivotal roles in turning a car that Hitler had championed into the favourite ride of surfers, school teachers and hippies.
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Hitler's Gift to the Hippies: The VW Beetle Story Part I
14 januari 2026 · 34 min
The VW Beetle was the biggest selling car of all time - and it found particular favor with people like hippies and surfers. But this icon of the 60s counterculture had its roots in Nazism. The Volkswagen - the People's Car - was an obsession of Adolf Hitler. He wanted to transform Germany into a land of drivers - and needed an affordable, but reliable automobile. Lees meer
Germany's private auto manufacturers knew the project was doomed to failure. So Hitler assembled a team of designers and factory managers to enact his vision - even if that meant enslaving workers and committing murder.
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How Jim Simons Built a Machine That Beat the Market
7 januari 2026 · 44 min
Jim Simons loved cigarettes and math. He started out as an academic mathematician and a Cold War code breaker - but decided to use his skills to write computer programs to spot investment opportunities in the financial markets. Lees meer
Simons and his fierce nerds bought up all the data sets they could find - reports, books, magnetic tapes - and built machine learning algorithms to hunt for tiny market discrepancies they could exploit. The investment funds Simons started made extraordinary profits - so is this the end for human emotions in financial trading?
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Warren Buffett vs. Tech: The Investing Rule That Made Him a Legend
24 december 2025 · 41 min
Young Warren Buffett became rich in anonymity - but in the 1980s he became a global star. During the excesses of 1980s Wall Street the middle-aged investor was reluctantly drawn into the spotlight to save troubled companies. And then came tech - which suited Buffett's style even less. Lees meer
Warren Buffett couldn't even use a computer - but everyone was telling him to buy tech stocks. How did Buffett navigate the dot com bubble when he'd never surfed the internet? And what will his company Berkshire Hathaway do in the era of AI as Buffett steps away?
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How Warren Buffett Found Value No One Else Saw
17 december 2025 · 44 min
Warren Buffett rose from obscurity to become the richest person in the world - and he did it in a unique way. As a boy in Omaha he collected information obsessively - writing down car license numbers and hoarding bottle caps. As a young man, Buffett turned his focus on scouring business accounts to find companies that had hidden value no one else could spot. Lees meer
We tell the story of young Warren Buffett as he quietly worked building up the expertise and accumulating the wealth that would allow him to become the most famous investor of our age.
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Jesse Livermore: The Trader Who Saw the 1929 Crash Coming
10 december 2025 · 48 min
The stock market was once a Wild West free-for-all. There were few rules or regulations. Investors were more or less gambling, or manipulating stocks to make a profit. This is the world Jesse Livermore came to dominate. He would often bet against the market, making money when businesses failed. Lees meer
By 1929, Livermore was rich and famous. And then the Wall Street stock bubble burst. Share prices went through the floor, fortunes disappeared, and lives were ruined. Many blamed Livermore, some even sent him death threats. But what of Livermore's fortune? Did he make the right calls during the Wall Street Crash?
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How a Labor Rights Lawsuit Rocked Major League Baseball
3 december 2025 · 52 min
Curt Flood was the best center fielder in baseball and one of the game's highest payed players. He helped the St Louis Cardinals reach the 1968 World Series... but then got traded. The rules said he had no say in the decision. He either could go to Philly, or quit the sport. So Curt decided to sue. Lees meer
Curt argued that Major League Baseball should act like any other business and let workers sell their labor to whichever team they liked. But for decades, courts had ruled in favor of the team owners. Curt’s fight would destroy his career; anger many parts of American society; and change sports forever.
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Did Thomas Edison Eliminate His Biggest Rival? (Thomas Edison, Pt. 3)
26 november 2025 · 53 min
The man who invented the movie camera got on a train in France in 1890 and was never seen again. The wife of Louis Le Prince thought she knew who’d ordered her husband’s disappearance and presumed murder - Thomas Alva Edison. Lees meer
Many people were simultaneously racing to develop moving pictures - so had Edison decided to bump off his closest rival so he could win? The story of who deserves the credit for the movies is a murky one - involving bitter betrayal, courtroom drama and soft-core porn.
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Edison vs. Tesla: The Power War That Gave Us the Electric Chair (Thomas Edison, Pt. 2)
19 november 2025 · 47 min
Thomas Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb, but he created something more important: the grid. Edison's system of power plants and wires brought lightbulbs to homes and offices and revolutionized modern life. Lees meer
Edison was adamant that direct current (DC) should power America, and attacked competitors who said that alternating current (AC) was better. This sparked a bitter war between Edison and his rivals - and prompted Edison to become involved in the first case of a murderer being sent to the electric chair.
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The Edison Invention People Don't Talk About (Thomas Edison, Pt. 1)
12 november 2025 · 50 min
Thomas Alva Edison helped transform America and the world. He registered over one thousand patents before he died in 1931 - and we can thank him for advances in electric power, communications technology, music recording and even the movies. But his biggest breakthrough doesn't get nearly enough attention. Lees meer
In many ways, Edison invented modern inventing. Join Business History hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith as they trace the life story of a scrappy young boy with bad hearing who almost singlehandedly invented R&D.
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