BLOCKERS - New Audiobook from Bestseller Michael Lewis PRE-ORDER NOW
Gain access to ad-free versions of 20+ podcasts from the Pushkin library along with exclusive bonus episodes and other member benefits.
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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
This is a special crossover episode with Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. John DeLorean was a top car executive - but he was too maverick to fit into the oppressive…
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…
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…
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…
Jay Gould became hugely rich without ever really making a product or offering service to benefit his customers. Other "Robber Barons" in the 19th century forged steel or pumped oil…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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)…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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, 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…
