Business/Disrupted

Porn, adult entertainment, pornography, smut, whatever you call it, is big business. More than $97 Billion per year big. And, amusingly enough, much of it is consumed only ten minutes at a time. We speak with Lux Alptraum, writer, blogger and expert on sexuality, technology, and adult entertainment about the business that few admit to consuming, yet someone's gotta be clicking Pay because business is booming. We'll explore how porn has evolved, where the industry is today, and where it's headed.

In our continuing series on the business of politics, we look to state political parties - where the real action happens. Dealing with state, local and national races, state political parties are where volunteerism in politics starts, and where fundraising rubber meets the road. Running a state political parties is the work if being a candidate for office onesself - and it involves managing people, dollars, public perception and a changing political environment on the best of days. In a state as politically diverse (some might say confused) as Wisconsin, it's downright complex.If all politics are local, and local politics are retail politics, then is state politics just another form of retail business?

Politics happens because of people - very skilled, dedicated people. So do political operations in labor unions, in elected officials’ offices, in national political parties. We discuss the ins and outs of a career in politics with Amy K. Dacey, who has done just about everything in professional politics, including roles with Senator John Kerry, Executive Director of EMILY’s List, and CEO of the Democratic National Committee.

From world-class skier to waitress, to administrative help to a real estate developer to the creator of a $4 million business - a poker game for the rich and powerful; only to pick up, change coasts and start it over again, only bigger. Join us as we talk with Molly Bloom - athlete, entrepreneur, inspirational speaker and general badass, and get the story on where she's been, what she's done, how she got Aaron Sorkin to make an Oscar-nominated film of her book, and what's next.

The path to elected office starts years before a candidate declares and starts raising money, knocking on doors, giving speeches and, yes, kissing some babies. But once the campaign starts, it's a complex business with many moving parts - few that the candidate can actually control. Find out how a campaign gets off the ground and how the path to elected office really works from a dollars and cents and organizational perspective.

Purdue Pharma. Asbestos. Boy Scouts. Tobacco. Birth Defects. Medical Devices. The Opioid Crisis. Airline accidents. The common thread tying all of these things together is that they generate litigation - a lot of it. Mass Torts are big business - if the plaintiffs can survive the decades it takes to finally see the start of a trial. Join us as we learn, from the inside, exactly what is involved in seeking and obtaining justice for plaintiffs wronged on a mass scale.

In early 2021, lobbying behemoth the National Rifle Association filed a chapter 11 case in Texas, intending to use the bankruptcy process not for financial or operational reorganization, but to escape the reach of the New York Attorney General. Immediately thereafter, the organization issued a press release in which it proudly stated that they were as financially strong as ever, prompting questions from creditors as to why they were in bankruptcy in the first place. Now their bankruptcy case has dismissed, they're still litigating in New York, and everyone knows a lot more about how things worked - or didn't - in the inner workings of one of the world's most powerful interest groups. Was the chapter 11 case a mistake? Was it misguided? Was it fraud? We'll discuss these issues and more with Law360 bankruptcy beat reporter Vince Sullivan.