Foundering

By Bloomberg

What's Foundering about?

The global technology industry is a powerful engine of innovation that drives the economy. It's also a collection of insular communities full of hidden projects, quiet rivalries, and uncomfortable truths. Join Bloomberg Technology's Brad Stone each week as he and the team's reporters uncover what actually happens behind closed doors.

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LAST EPISODE

Introducing: Breakthrough

10.13.2021

On Breakthrough, a new series from the Prognosis podcast, we explore how the pandemic is changing our understanding of healthcare and medicine. We start with an examination of long Covid, a mysterious new illness that has stumped doctors attempting to ...

Foundering episodes:

10.13.2021 Introducing: Breakthrough On Breakthrough, a new series from the Prognosis podcast, we explore how the pandemic is changing our understanding of healthcare and medicine. We start with an examination of long Covid, a mysterious new illness that has stumped doctors attempting to ...
05.20.2021 Season 2, Episode 6, The Showdown In the summer of 2020, amid a pandemic, historic unemployment and racial unrest, President Donald Trump developed a bizarre obsession with TikTok. In this episode, reporter Shelly Banjo and her colleagues take you aboard Air Force One and into the ...
05.13.2021 Season 2, Episode 5, Should We Be Worried About Our Data? After Donald Trump is elected president, tensions between the United States and China escalate. Several American politicians, security experts and even Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg turn their attention toward TikTok. In this episode, reporter Shelly Banjo looks into the fundamental question ...
05.06.2021 Season 2, Episode 4, Are The Kids All Right? While TikTok is known primarily as a breeding ground for funny memes, dance routines and lip-synching videos, there’s a dark side to TikTok that starts with the young children who populate the app. In this episode, reporter Shelly Banjo looks ...
04.29.2021 Season 2, Episode 3, ‘I’ll Be Making Bank! Hopefully.’ TikTok has redefined American pop culture and upended the music industry, advertising and the economics of fame. In this episode, reporter Shelly Banjo examines TikTok’s hands-on approach with its creators and artists, minting a new generation of social media stars ...
04.22.2021 Season 2, Episode 2, The Silent Force from China TikTok is powered by sophisticated artificial intelligence that predicts what users want to see next. This technology was developed at ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company and the most valuable startup in the world. In this episode, reporter Shelly Banjo explains ...
04.22.2021 Season 2, Episode 1, An Epiphany on a Train Alex Zhu, a Chinese tech entrepreneur, was seated on a train in Silicon Valley across from a group of teenagers. He watched as the kids were listening to music and making videos on their phones, and he decided to create ...
04.01.2021 Coming Soon: A New Season of Foundering TikTok emerged as the defining app of a generation: a cultural tastemaker, a musical hitmaker and a launchpad for a new breed of celebrity. But as the app reached over 2 billion downloads, TikTok became a victim of its own ...
03.12.2021 Introducing: Doubt A few decades ago, nobody really questioned vaccines. They were viewed as a standard part of staying healthy and safe. Today, the number of people questioning vaccines risks prolonging a pandemic that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. ...
07.30.2020 Season 1, Episode 7, In the End, There Was Adam After WeWork's failed IPO, thousands of employees were laid off and the company teetered on the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, ousted CEO Adam Neumann flew to Israel with a generous exit package in hand. In this final episode of Foundering, ...
07.23.2020 Season 1, Episode 6, IPO -- Just Kidding WeWork had spent nine years chasing lightning-fast growth, burning billions of dollars, and expanding around the world. In 2019, the company reached a turning point: WeWork needed even more cash, and Adam Neumann decided to take his company public with ...
07.21.2020 Introducing: Blood River, A New Podcast From Bloomberg The killers of Berta Caceres had every reason to believe they’d get away with murder. More than 100 other environmental activists in Honduras had been killed in the previous five years, yet almost no one had been punished for the ...
07.16.2020 Season 1, Episode 5, The Universe Does Not Allow Waste Adam Neumann always had wild ambitions. By 2017, he had found an even wilder investor who wanted to fund those ambitions: SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Adam spent his billions from SoftBank on competitive tactics, seemingly random investments, and even an ...
07.09.2020 Season 1, Episode 4, WeWork Sued Her the Same Day What happened at WeWork when things got ugly between the company and its employees? As WeWork expanded, a handful of employees wanted to speak out and interrupt the public image that WeWork was presenting to the world. In this episode, ...
07.02.2020 Season 1, Episode 3, Is Naked Pete Coming to Summer Camp? To its thousands of employees, WeWork was much more than a job. Founder Adam Neumann leveraged his employees’ emotions to motivate them. In exclusive tapes obtained by Bloomberg, Adam lectured employees that working at WeWork was special: “You do not ...
06.25.2020 Season 1, Episode 2, The Bar Is Now at Your Desk WeWork sold office space, but also it sold something else: fun. Beer flowed freely, members partied at the office, and your work was your life. But getting these offices off the ground was utter chaos, especially for the burgeoning company’s ...
06.25.2020 Season 1, Episode 1, Capitalist Kibbutz The WeWork Story, Part 1: When Adam Neumann dreamed up WeWork, he took inspiration from part of his childhood: his years on a kibbutz in Israel. On stage when discussing WeWork, he waxed poetic about the spirit of community he ...
06.11.2020 Introducing Foundering Adam Neumann had a vision: to make his startup WeWork a wildly successful company that would change the world. He convinced thousands of other people -- customers, employees, investors -- that he could make that dream a reality. And for ...
06.04.2020 A Message for Decrypted Listeners Bloomberg Technology reporter Ellen Huet has some exciting news about what's coming in the Decrypted feed. We’re launching a new show, Foundering, and spending our entire first season looking at the story of WeWork. Learn more about your ad-choices at ...
12.10.2019 The Last Decrypted This week on Decrypted, hosts Aki and Brad get together one last time for an announcement: This will be the very last episode of Decrypted. They also look back at some of their favorite episodes from the show, with updates ...
11.26.2019 Can AI Compose Good Music? Computers can now drive cars, identify faces and transcribe speech, but many experts said that it would take much longer for AI to tackle creative endeavors. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Natalia Drozdiak meets three composers using artificial intelligence ...
11.19.2019 The YouTube Whisperer Guiding Creators Through Perilous Times Under pressure from users, advertisers and government regulators, YouTube has implemented sweeping changes to its service over the last three years to minimize the spread of harmful and misleading content. But those changes have made it harder for many of ...
11.12.2019 The Amazon Seller Caught in the Middle of a Trade War The U.S.-China trade war has dragged on for more than a year now, harming the livelihoods of people around the world who depend on the two superpowers getting along. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Shelly Banjo profiles one such ...
11.05.2019 Warehouses Watching Every Move Workers Make Warehouse workers suffer from an unusually high rate of injury. Now, at some facilities, workers can wear a sensor on their chest, which buzzes when they’re at risk of getting hurt. But this tracking device also gathers detailed information about ...
10.29.2019 Elon Musk’s Quest to Control Computers With Our Thoughts Over the summer, Elon Musk unveiled the details of his secretive startup Neuralink. Its goal, he said, is to place electrodes in our brains so we can control a computer with our thoughts. Its experiments have so far been limited ...
10.25.2019 Coming Soon: Travel Genius Season 2 Bloomberg's Travel Genius podcast is back! After clocking another hundred-thousand miles in the sky, hosts Nikki Ekstein and Mark Ellwood have a whole new series of flight hacking, restaurant sleuthing, and hotel booking tips to inspire your own getaways—along with ...
10.22.2019 Apple's $50 Billion Dilemma in China Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests have ensnared a number of companies, including one U.S. company that has the most to lose in China: Apple Inc. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Alistair Barr breaks down the iPhone maker's controversial decision to ...
10.15.2019 Why Juul's Co-Inventor Is Making a New E-Cigarette Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
10.09.2019 Dismantling Big Tech: A User's Manual Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice and state governments across the U.S. are investigating the tech giants for anti-competitive behavior. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology’s Eric Newcomer walks us through those investigations, and outlines how a ...
10.01.2019 Update: How Your DNA Test Could Solve a Murder This week on Decrypted, we're re-airing our story about CeCe Moore, who helps law enforcement track down killers by combing through databases of consumer DNA test results. At the end of the episode, host Aki Ito catches up with reporter ...
09.25.2019 Inside WeWork's IPO Disaster Over the last few weeks, WeWork's parent company has lurched from one crisis to the next as it scrambled to keep its IPO alive⁠—resulting in founder Adam Neumann leaving his job as CEO. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Ellen ...
09.17.2019 Will We Be Safe From Election Hacking in 2020? Ahead of the 2016 elections, Illinois' voter database was infiltrated by Russia's state-backed hackers. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Kartikay Mehrotra investigates what Illinois has done since to prepare for the next presidential election, and whether states and counties ...
09.10.2019 Is Your Amazon Habit Wrecking the Planet? For years, critics have accused Amazon.com for not doing enough to curb its impact on the environment—and recently, a group of Amazon employees joined in to try to force the issue by filing a shareholder resolution. This week on Decrypted, ...
09.03.2019 The New iPhones and Apple’s Future: A Preview On Sept. 10, Apple will be unveiling its new products for the year. Ahead of the event, Bloomberg Technology’s Mark Gurman previews the changes Apple’s planning for its three versions of the iPhone, as well as the company’s other products. ...
08.27.2019 Introducing Prognosis Season 3: Superbugs On this new season of Prognosis, we look at the spread of infections that are resistant to antimicrobial medicines. You're probably more likely to have heard of these as superbugs. Their rise has been described as a silent tsunami of ...
06.25.2019 For Police, Social Media Is Now Part of the Job When police officer David Gomez was first stationed at a school in rural Idaho, he thought he’d spend his time breaking up fights in bathrooms and scanning the hallways for weed. Instead, he found that almost every problem was either ...
06.18.2019 Why Silicon Valley Is Hiring Bird Experts A few years ago, reporter Sarah McBride noticed that a top engineer at Twitter was also an expert on the brains of birds. Then, more and more, she started seeing that many top tech companies have bird brain experts in ...
06.11.2019 Google Workers Rise Up: Inside the Protests Google has long had a special relationship with staff, encouraging employee input on all sorts of internal matters. For the last two decades, this approach has worked well. But after a series of controversies and protests in the last two ...
06.04.2019 The Science of Resurrecting Extinct Species Northern White Rhinos are functionally extinct: The two remaining females have no males to breed with. But an ambitious plan is underway to save the species. This week on Decrypted, reporter Kristen V. Brown meets the scientists using cutting edge ...
05.28.2019 WWDC Preview: A Conversation With Apple’s Former App Approval Chief Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is an annual pilgrimage for software developers whose businesses are built on the App Store. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Mark Gurman speaks to Phillip Shoemaker, the former head of app review at Apple who played a ...
05.23.2019 Bloomberg and Wondery Present: The Shrink Next Door Marty Markowitz had his share of problems. His parents had recently died. He had troubles at work. A failing relationship. He needed someone to help him through this rough patch in his life. So he decided to get some professional ...
05.21.2019 Silicon Valley's Van-Dwellers Mountain View, California, is home to Google and Silicon Valley's tech boom. Rents and home prices have soared, and hundreds of people have been forced to live in recreational vehicles parked on the city's streets. This week on Decrypted, we ...
05.14.2019 The Strange World of Virtual Bike Races Cycling enthusiasts have a new way to work out at home: By hooking their bikes up to Zwift, they compete in a video game with other stationary cyclists. This week on Decrypted, reporter Gerrit de Vynck spends a month training ...
05.07.2019 Your Guide to the Uber IPO It's finally happening. A decade after Uber started out as a black car service in San Francisco, it's going public in one of the largest IPOs of all time. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Eric Newcomer joins Brad Stone ...
04.30.2019 Silicon Valley Is Making Gasoline Out of Thin Air A growing number of experts believe that a promising technology, known as carbon capture, will be an essential part of any plan to confront climate change. But until now the science of removing carbon from the air has only ever ...
04.23.2019 As Amazon Gets Bigger, Sellers Feel the Squeeze Jason Boyce built a successful business selling sports equipment on Amazon. As the platform has grown, Amazon has pushed sellers to lower prices, shorten delivery times and compete harder for every sale. This week on Decrypted, we explore whether entrepreneurs ...
04.18.2019 Introducing "What Goes Up," A New Show From Bloomberg On this new show from Bloomberg, hosts Mike Regan and Sarah Ponczek speak with expert guests each week about the main themes influencing global markets. They explore everything from stocks to bonds to currencies and commodities, and how each asset ...
04.16.2019 The App That’s Helping Gay Couples Have Kids in China With 40 million users, Blued is a popular dating app for gay men in China. This week on Decrypted, we explore the company's next venture: a service to help gay couples have babies by surrogate in California. Learn more about ...
04.09.2019 Young Blood and the Pursuit of Eternal Youth A company called Ambrosia Health signed up about 150 patients for a novel anti-aging procedure: young blood plasma transfusions. The only problem was the FDA. This week on Decrypted, the story of a startup that claimed it could restore lost ...
04.05.2019 Coming Soon: The Pay Check Season 2 The Pay Check is back for a second season! For the next six weeks, we’re going to dig into the number one reason women still make less money than men: Motherhood. Women start their careers earning just about the same ...

Older episodes

Foundering

What's Foundering about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Foundering episodes:

Introducing: Breakthrough

Season 2, Episode 6, The Showdown

Season 2, Episode 5, Should We Be Worried About Our Data?

Season 2, Episode 4, Are The Kids All Right?

Season 2, Episode 3, ‘I’ll Be Making Bank! Hopefully.’

Season 2, Episode 2, The Silent Force from China

Season 2, Episode 1, An Epiphany on a Train

Coming Soon: A New Season of Foundering

Introducing: Doubt

Season 1, Episode 7, In the End, There Was Adam

Season 1, Episode 6, IPO -- Just Kidding

Introducing: Blood River, A New Podcast From Bloomberg

Season 1, Episode 5, The Universe Does Not Allow Waste

Season 1, Episode 4, WeWork Sued Her the Same Day

Season 1, Episode 3, Is Naked Pete Coming to Summer Camp?

Season 1, Episode 2, The Bar Is Now at Your Desk

Season 1, Episode 1, Capitalist Kibbutz

Introducing Foundering

A Message for Decrypted Listeners

The Last Decrypted

Can AI Compose Good Music?

The YouTube Whisperer Guiding Creators Through Perilous Times

The Amazon Seller Caught in the Middle of a Trade War

Warehouses Watching Every Move Workers Make

Elon Musk’s Quest to Control Computers With Our Thoughts

Coming Soon: Travel Genius Season 2

Apple's $50 Billion Dilemma in China

Why Juul's Co-Inventor Is Making a New E-Cigarette

Dismantling Big Tech: A User's Manual

Update: How Your DNA Test Could Solve a Murder

Inside WeWork's IPO Disaster

Will We Be Safe From Election Hacking in 2020?

Is Your Amazon Habit Wrecking the Planet?

The New iPhones and Apple’s Future: A Preview

Introducing Prognosis Season 3: Superbugs

For Police, Social Media Is Now Part of the Job

Why Silicon Valley Is Hiring Bird Experts

Google Workers Rise Up: Inside the Protests

The Science of Resurrecting Extinct Species

WWDC Preview: A Conversation With Apple’s Former App Approval Chief

Bloomberg and Wondery Present: The Shrink Next Door

Silicon Valley's Van-Dwellers

The Strange World of Virtual Bike Races

Your Guide to the Uber IPO

Silicon Valley Is Making Gasoline Out of Thin Air

As Amazon Gets Bigger, Sellers Feel the Squeeze

Introducing "What Goes Up," A New Show From Bloomberg

The App That’s Helping Gay Couples Have Kids in China

Young Blood and the Pursuit of Eternal Youth

Coming Soon: The Pay Check Season 2

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