Business Wars

It's the late '90s, and Travis Kalanick is hanging out in his dorm room at UCLA. He’s having a file-sharing party with his friends that leads to his first business. But Kalanick’s forced to grow up quickly as he learns that naïveté can cost you millions and Silicon Valley investors aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. 

Logan Green finds inspiration while stuck in horrible LA traffic and adopts a new anti-car ethos that will shape Lyft’s mission. And on the East Coast, John Zimmer learns how to woo customers — a skill he’ll translate into startup success.

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It’s December 2008, and two friends and fellow tech entrepreneurs, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick, can't get a taxi. Camp’s already obsessed with the idea of a service that summons a private driver with the push of a button, but now Kalanick gets the appeal. Together, they'll build Uber, and do whatever it takes to reign supreme. 

Meanwhile, recent college grads John Zimmer and Logan Green channel their shared passion for the environment into the creation of a carpooling startup for long rides. But pretty quickly, they realize they need to service short trips, too, and Lyft is born. But in order to succeed, they have to convince people to jump in a car with a complete stranger. And, they’ll have to go up against Uber in a battle for ridesharing supremacy. 

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Quarantine restrictions during the coronavirus have induced toilet paper panic-buying as people scratch, claw and punch each other to get rolls. But why? What’s behind the frenzy, and how will that affect the TP industry? 

In the last 150 years, it’s grown from selling humble boxes of paper to mass marketing rolls of delicate, luxurious tissue. And now a wave of eco-friendly independent companies are making a bid for your bathroom business. 

It’s a high stakes, multi-billion dollar industry that we take for granted. Until we fear losing it. Then all bets are off.

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It’s 1988, and Tetris is making waves. It’s billed as the first Soviet video game, and it’s selling fast.

But the man who introduced it to the West harbors a secret: he doesn’t own the rights. And when his subterfuge fails, a multi-million-dollar battle to win over the communist regime breaks out on the streets of Moscow.

It’s a clash that pits the Japanese gaming overlords of Nintendo against the sprawling empire of ruthless media baron Robert Maxwell.

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It’s 1984 and the cola war is neck and neck. After years of struggle, Pepsi looks ready to triumph over Coca-Cola. 

So Coke’s striking back by opening a new battlefront in the quest for soda supremacy: outer space. 

But its plan to send its world-famous drink into orbit won’t stay secret for long. And when Pepsi finds out, it sparks a new space race.

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It's 1902 and political campaigner Lizzie Magie is fighting a losing battle. For years, she’s pushed the idea of a land-value tax, but fewer and fewer people are listening.

So she’s going to try something new to spread the word. She’s going to make a board game – and not just any game. Magie’s game is going to become the biggest game of all time.

Trouble is, when the battle for her game breaks out, she’s the one who winds up the loser.

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Since the novel coronavirus hit, Amazon and Walmart have seen a rise in profits, unlike many other retailers. But there have also been struggles to keep up with the flood of customer demands during the pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands of workers have been hired collectively between Amazon and Walmart. And employees for both companies have accused management of not protecting workers enough from the threat of COVID-19. So how are Amazon and Walmart handling the pushback from disgruntled employees? And will they become even bigger threats in the retail market once the pandemic ends? 

To find out what the future holds for these companies, we turn to Jason Del Rey, a senior correspondent covering commerce at ReCode. Del Rey also hosted a podcast from Vox and ReCode called “Land of the Giants: The Rise of Amazon.”

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This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we’re featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small.

In upstate New York, a Kurdish immigrant wants to make his biggest dream come true: to produce the tart, custard-thick Greek yogurt of his childhood for American palates. In 2005, he buys an abandoned Kraft factory for cheap. With an ingenious financing deal, standout packaging and clever marketing, he launches Chobani — the yogurt sensation that eventually forces goliaths Yoplait and Dannon to move over. 

While Chobani launched a quiet incursion, William Wrigley Jr. set out to upend the gum industry in 1893 with an improved spearmint flavor.  After one misstep after another, he finally gets traction. Then the gum monopoly approaches him: join or be crushed. Thanks to a savvy advertising campaign, he blows past them to become the nation’s biggest gum purveyor.

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As the COVID-19 virus spreads across the globe and forces people inside their homes for months, the world relies on online shopping more than ever. Amazon and Walmart both struggle to keep up with surging demand as their legendary infrastructures are put to the test. And workers inside both companies rise up, arguing that the retail giants are failing to protect them from the virus, prioritizing the bottom line over workers’ health. They’re both more powerful than ever, but also more vulnerable.

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This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we’re featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small.

In 1972, pinball machines and mechanical games ruled the arcades. Then, Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney came up with a game on a television screen controlled by two players. Pong helped catapult Atari from a start-up to the leader of video games, where it would stay – almost unopposed – for the next decade. 

Once Atari made Pong, the company took off like a rocket. But for Dietrich Mateschitz, success was a slog. When he returned home to Austria from a trip to Thailand in 1982, he brought an idea for an energy drink with him. His creation was expensive and tasted foul, and would be rejected over and over.  But a slick marketing campaign made it the symbol of club cool and fuel for daredevils — and it took North America by storm.

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