It is a travesty that I am making this episode in such a dire time. As of right now when I am recording this, it is the second day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Thousands of Russian troops are crossing the borders into Ukraine while Kyiv gets shelled every 30 minutes and their civilians hide in subway stations underground. We all wanted to avert this, but to tell you the truth, humanity has never been quite successful in averting wars. Statistically speaking, over the past 3400 years of human history, we have spent only 268 years in peace, which inherently means we as the human race have spent 92% of our time engaging in one war or the other. I think it was back in August when I talked about the war in my 9th episode, that was entirely about how war affects the economy as a whole and how it kind of acts as another method of easing the economy if not provide mass employment you should scroll down and check that episode out, but what I am here to talk about today is completely different. Today I am here to talk about an inherently disgusting, repulsive practice. Trading human lives for dollars. A concept called war profiteering. Financially profiting from wars and making militarisation possible has always been a driving force for wars as long as they have existed, but it is only until recently that things got so dirty. To you and me, the war might be all about the immense human sacrifice and the toll it takes on our society, but for lobbyists advocating for war, it is a completely different story. This is not an episode that I am recording in my fun-loving spirit, nor my passive-aggressive one. I am making this episode just for those people who think government intervention in invading countries accomplishes anything other than filling the pockets of those perpetuating it. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

Sustainable Fashion- I am pretty sure you have heard this term being thrown around a lot. This is a hot topic right now. Not just because the eco-friendly materials used are much better for the planet, but because that tends to go hand-in-hand with better treatment of people making the clothes themselves and Not to mention the better treatment of animals. But what does sustainable fashion mean? Let’s first hear it as these brands want us to hear. H&M has a ‘conscious’ collection and offers an exchange programme for your less conscious clothes. Levi’s says you are practically helping the planet by wearing its denim. Zara comes up saying that it will make the entirety of its lineup sustainable by 2025. H&M again says it will make sure that all their factories run entirely on renewable energy by 2040. Then we throw some jargon in oh there is plenty of guilt-free fashion, vegan fashion, carbon-conscientious fashion, ethical fashion, recycles fashion, eco-friendly fashion and thereby you get some more jargon coming from none other than companies like Prada who says it is reusing the plastic in their backpacks or how Levi Strauss says it will cut the greenhouse emission in it’s in house facilities by 90%, Balenciaga brings out notations after notations of them being eco friendly followed by Burberry, you can never run out of promises is the point I am trying to make. But what I was curious about researching is how exactly does a multi-billion dollar corporation pan out these changes without cutting corners (which we all know is what they love of course) and that led me into going deeper into every claim made by these companies to ride the ethical fashion bubble and trust me, it gets way more interesting than what any new york times editorial has to say about the industry. We have a lot to unpack today (pun intended) so let’s get right into it, to understand the sustainable fashion industry and its embedded hypocrisy. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

Space- Humanity’s final barrier. Space as an idea fascinates people, but few believe it will affect their lives or businesses in a tangible way. No, today I am not here to exclusively talk about the space race per se in whatever terms you can interpret that on, I am here to talk about the commercial aspect, the future of humanity’s relevance in space. There’s no shortage of hype surrounding the commercial space industry. In 2021, we crossed an important milestone: For the first time in human history, humans accessed space via a vehicle built and owned not by any government, but by a private corporation with its sights set on affordable space settlement. People are now talking about an era of space entrepreneurship that involves not just those renowned companies owned by billionaires but also smaller, less-known businesses and startups. According to the European Space Agency, there have been more than 900 space-related startups that were supported by their Business Incubation Centers and intensive entrepreneurship programs. This was the first significant step towards building an economy both in space and for space. The implications — for business, policy, and society at large — are hard to overstate. In today’s episode, we will brook through all the relevant developments in the space industry as we are now calling it not to mention space tourism, exploration, colonization and what all of that means for us here on earth while subsequently analysing the pertinent economic conditions necessary to facilitate the same. Let’s get right into it. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

The origins of money reflect the origins of humans. See, there have been three great revolutions in human history. We formed communities, then civilization and industry. Currently, we are living through a fourth great revolution in humankind, and these revolutions fundamentally change the way we live. Equally important is the fact that each evolution of humankind creates a revolution in monetary and value exchange and that is why it is important to reflect on the past to understand the present and forecast the future, especially as we are living through the fourth revolution in humanity and trade, and about to enter a fifth. For years, business models in the industry were as fixed as panes of stained-glass cathedral windows. But, new waves of digital-only players have unshackled themselves from vertical integration and are fragmenting the banking value chain by choosing which layers they want to play in. They are unbundling traditional products into micro-products or services and re-bundling their offerings together with components from other providers to offer better customer propositions and to be successful in the coming years, the bank of the future will need to embrace emerging technology, remain flexible to adopt evolving business models, and put customers at the centre of every strategy. Faced with changing consumer expectations, emerging technologies, and new business models, banks will need to start putting strategies in place now to help them prepare for banking in 2030, shaping the future of the banking industry as a whole. So what better could we do than to analyse key trends, macroeconomic dynamics along with a brief look at a day in the life of the bank CEO of the future. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, ecosystems, the future of fintech, cloud banking and highly customized customer experience and services are all on the agenda. Let’s get right into it. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

The World’s smallest sovereign country- The Vatican. Home to, of course, the wealthiest religion on planet earth- The Catholic Church. Don’t let the minuscule area covering approximately one-eighth the size of the Central Park or the shrouds of religious morality bestowed in the pope fool you, The Vatican is and has been the home to one of the biggest, richest and most corrupt corporations in the world. As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution, it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation as a whole. With more than 1.3 billion active members, it is also the second-largest religion in the world, and the power that comes with it is unrivalled. An empire in its truest sense made of vast amounts of unimaginable wealth, but where does it all come from? If they are already so rich, how do they manage to rake in billions in just donations each year? What is the news about the Vatican running deficits every year then? If that is the case, why do they show the public that they have bankruptcy fears? From scandals to frauds to straight-up money laundering, the Vatican has its shady pitch black hands of god into some dim areas that you wouldn't even consider attributing to a church, but luckily we do consider that here. In today’s episode, we take a leap of faith (pun intended) into the murky past of the Vatican and how its veil of secrecy is getting too small to protect itself any longer. Let’s find out. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

If there are two words that have generated more money and harnessed new technology superseding anything else over the last decade, that is Venture Capital. Venture capital is associated with some of the most high-growth and influential firms in the world. No, here is a statistic. Let’s take the top 10 companies in the world by market capitalisation. Out of them, 7 are American and 6 of them stem from a V.C route. Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Tesla, Alphabet and Meta - just short of Warren Buffet’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. It is a decisive argument that the very idea of throwing money at nothing but an idea and making that pipe dream a reality, has shaped up innovation especially in a diverse disruptive economy like the united states possible. But that being said, it is also to be considered that for every Apple and Amazon, there are thousands of Theranos(s). Academics and practitioners have effectively articulated the strengths of the venture model. At the same time, venture capital financing also has real limitations in its ability to advance substantial technological change. So what we will do in today’s episode is understand every nuance about venture capital, how exactly V.Cs work, what are the benefits and deficiencies faced by the industry and lastly, what effect does this kind of money to fuel disruptive ideas have on the Economy. Let’s find out. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

Surprising right? The 3 ‘R’s that you were always told to follow? What if I told you, that very Reduce, Reuse, Recycle propaganda got you fooled by the entire plastic and crude oil industry just for them to be able to sell more to you? Now that makes it even more confusing right? See let me explain,  humans, consume a lot. And in doing so, we inadvertently create lots of waste as well. We produce so much waste that we can find them everywhere. Furthermore, the prevalence of waste even affects areas that are far away from human settlements. Henderson Island, an uninhabited coral atoll, has the highest density of anthropogenic debris recorded anywhere in the world, with 99.8% of the pollution plastic. With such a large amount of waste being generated, we find ourselves in a position where recycling is often touted as the ‘perfect’ answer to all our environmental problems, but as you will see, this is so not the case. In this podcast, we have talked about um let’s say the glory days of the diamond cartel or the heinous tobacco industry, but trust me when I say this, by the time we conclude talking about the plastic industry in this episode, the ingenious marketing as well as the sheer evil that precedes it, it will shock you. Without any detention, allow me to tell you everything you need to know about how the plastic industry surreptitiously scammed, the whole world. You will see. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

The E.V Industry. Ok, riddle me this. How old do you think the E.V industry is? 10 years? 15 years? 20 years? 25 years? How about 180 years? Yeah, that’s right, the electronic vehicle is no new thing. Many people don’t know that at the turn of the 20th century, there were more EVs on the road than gasoline-powered vehicles. But then, as we will explore, E.Vs suddenly lost all it's charm thanks to Ford perfecting the internal combustion engine that drove the automobile revolution throughout the 20th Century. But we all know, if Ford back then made the automobile industry as a whole transition from Electric to Gasoline, Tesla is now the one leading the change in reverse, but there is so much more to it. We all know consumer demand isn’t the only reason leading this change today, a multitude of factors ranging from government incentivising to actual crude oil shortages back this up. The effects of climate change and our need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels is unquestionable, and governments all around the world are introducing legislation that aims to limit or even completely eradicate the sale of new petrol or diesel cars shortly. So a lot, a lot of hypothetical future circumstances lie ahead of the industry but to understand that holistically, we have to trace its origins, challenges faced back then as well as a clear road to what is leading the transformation now along with, yet again, the challenges and solutions to be carved in the coming years- and in today’s episode, we will exactly do just that. You will see. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

Do you remember when we had an episode on the diamond industry? How does it stem from one of the best if not the best marketing campaigns in human history? Well, today’s episode is all that, just add evil to it. The tobacco industry. 8 million people every single year. That’s the death toll of the tobacco industry which is ever-growing too, and when you realise all this should technically be illegal but it’s not and not only that, the way big tobacco got away with it? Yeah, we are in for a ride today. Today, cigarette boxes come with a warning label that the product kills you. In many countries, advertising tobacco products have been outlawed, and if you still choose to buy these products, you need to pay a sin tax, but the interesting part is that information we possess about tobacco being harmful, is as recent as 1964. There was no definitive evidence that smoking was bad for you. And by the 1930s, tobacco companies had an army of doctors ready to debunk you as a quack for even suggesting something as benign as a cigarette could give you cancer. In fact, in the 1940s, you were more likely to see an ad like this, using doctors to promote smoking. Yeah, as bizarre as that sounds, we will get into it.  From its humble roots before the feminist movement in the 40s to the behemoth, it is today, this episode analyzes the exponential and evergrowing rise of the tobacco industry while describing factors that almost made it collapse- well, almost. You will see. As always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan

Just a decade ago, only so many people believed that eSports or Gaming as a whole would even be viable going forward. Just a few years later, the industry has grown so exponentially that it surpassed the billion-dollar mark in 2019. From its humble rise during the days of Atari to multimillion-dollar esport tournaments being held now, the global gaming industry attracted fans, players, investors, sponsors, and even governing bodies, and is shaping up to be a behemoth. Globally, time spent on mobile devices has officially surpassed time spent on television, with users spending eight minutes more per day on their mobile devices. By 2021, this figure had risen to more than 30 minutes. Over 380 million people watch esports worldwide both online and in person. Just for context, the industry has a larger audience than Netflix, Hulu, Espn and Disney+ combined. The 1 billion dollar mark it crossed in 2019, became 180 billion the very next year. Many investors are looking at the industry as a new investment opportunity and are establishing new esport teams to compete in official tournaments. With this staggering growth rate, it is with absolute certainty one can say that e-sports is going to be a dominant part of the internet in the coming decade with its potentially just being unveiled. So with that in mind, it also poses a few key questions. In today’s episode, we will talk about the size of the e-Sport industry in terms of investment, revenue generation, and major costs while also throwing some light on the risks and concerns associated with the same. This should be a fun one, let’s have it!  as always, Thank You so much for taking the time in listening as well as reading this. Do not forget to follow the podcast on any platform you are listening to and review it if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you want to get in touch with me, here is everything I am accountable for - Have a great day! > www.linktr.ee/neogyspandan