The Pigeons That Built a Global News Empire

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 Reute…

How the Company Conquered the World

Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith talk with Adrian Wooldridge, co-author of The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea.  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…

Sam the Banana Man: Gunboats, Coups, and United Fruit

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…

Blockers | A Preview of Michael Lewis's New Audiobook

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…

Hitler's Gift to the Hippies: The VW Beetle Story Part I – Rerun

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.) The VW Beetle was the biggest selling car of all time - and it found particular f…

King of the Roll-Ups: The Man Who Created a Trash Empire, Then Built Blockbuster Video

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.  Huizenga bought up rival …

How Warren Buffet Built His Legacy By Finding Value No One Else Could See – Rerun

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. 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…

Herman Petty's Dream: The Struggles of the First Black American to Own a McDonald's

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.  Herman and other black pioneers fac…

The Battle of Fort Frick and the Anarchist Assassin

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.    The so-called bat…

Andrew Carnegie's War with his Workers

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.     Carnegie grew up in poverty and publi…