Business History
Business History
Playlist by Business HistoryIt’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 movie…35 clip(s) in playlist
The Factory That Was Wiped Off The Map (From Cautionary Tales)
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. 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…
38:19
The Nobel Winners Who Almost Crashed the Economy
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. …
47:35
A Store Owner You Can Trust: John Wanamaker, Returns and the Price Tag
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 chang…
40:26
The Boy Scout Who Brought us the Age of Disruption
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 so…
40:42
Ida Tarbell: The "Muckraker" Who Beat John D Rockefeller and Big Oil
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 a…
46:26
"Time is Money": How Ben Franklin's Sayings Created American Capitalism and Grind Culture
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 succes…
44:06
The Founding Father Who Got Rich in the Revolution
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. Morris had been a merchant …
47:42
The Dumbest Business Ever... Shipping Melting Ice to Calcutta.
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 ea…
47:17Clean
The Match Maker Who Nearly Burned Down Wall Street
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. But Kreu…
48:34
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 world. Nicknamed "Neutron Jack", he closed down big chunks of old GE and set up new ventures... including GE Capital - which ope…
53:23