Did “Neutron” Jack Welch Nuke GE?
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…
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It’s the history of business. How did Hitler’s favorite car become synonymous with hippies? What got Thomas Edison tangled up with the electric chair? Did someone murder the guy who invented the movies? Former Planet Money hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small and find out what you can learn from those who founded them.
Most Recent Episode
Did “Neutron” Jack Welch Nuke GE?
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…
The Widow Who Ruled the Champagne World
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…
The Business of Staying Young and Living Forever (with Kara Swisher)
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)…
Sinking the Global Economy: The Lloyds of London Story Part II
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 Insurers Who ALWAYS Paid Out: The Lloyds of London Story Part I
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…
Betting on Taylor Swift or Who’ll Be Made Pope: The Past and Present of Prediction Markets
A live mash-up between Business History and Bloomberg's Everybody's Business. On platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket you can bet on just about anything - from Taylor Swift's album sales to whether…
Bowie, McCartney & Michael Jackson: How Songwriters Learned to Play Hardball
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.…
Henry Ford Invented the Modern World… Then Got Left Behind
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…
War, Exploration and Beer: How the Tin Can Changed the World
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…
The War on The A&P: When America Decided Cheap Groceries Were “Evil”
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…
When E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Tanked Atari
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…
How a Bad Boss Kickstarted Silicon Valley
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…
Sears: Cocaine Wine, Shotguns, and the World’s Tallest Tower
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…
De-Nazifying the Love Bug: The VW Beetle Story Part II
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…
Hitler’s Gift to the Hippies: The VW Beetle Story Part I
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…
How Jim Simons Built a Machine That Beat the Market
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…
Old Warren Buffett: “Never Invest in a Business You Cannot Understand”
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 Riskies! 2025 Edition
Nate and Maria give out their second annual awards for decision-making in 2025: Who made the best decision this year? Who made the worst? Who were 2025’s biggest nits and…
Young Warren Buffett: How to Find Value No One Else Can See
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…
How to Make Billions When the Bubble Bursts: Lessons from 1929
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 Man who Sued Major League Baseball (Rather than go to Philly)
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…
Edison and the Movie Murder Mystery
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…
Edison, Tesla and the Electric Chair
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…
The Edison Invention People Don’t Talk About
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…
The Secret of Southwest’s Success: Free Whisky, Hot Pants and Low, Low Fares
It's hard to make money running an airline - but Southwest was profitable every year for nearly five decades. How did it manage it? Business History hosts Jacob Goldstein and…
Coming Soon: Business History with Robert Smith and Jacob Goldstein
Was the world's most lovable car originally made just to please Hitler? And what links Thomas Edison and the electric chair? From Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith of Planet Money…
The Hosts
Jacob Goldstein
Jacob Goldstein spent more than a decade as co-host of the Planet Money podcast. He's also the author of the book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing, which the New…
Robert Smith
Robert Smith, co-host of the Business History podcast, is a Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and contributing host of NPR's Planet Money where he tells stories about how the…
