2008 was a monumental year- financial markets collapsed and many countries, including Ireland, where both myself and Keith live, found out pretty quickly that we’d been living in a bubble.

And while the impact of this crash affected so many people around the world, I don’t think any other country had such a huge proportion of its citizens affected as adversely as the 370,000 people in Iceland.

So in this episode we examine why Iceland pivoted from its traditional industries into banking, how its economy grew at a breakneck speed and then how it all came crashing down.

The WeWork story is one that most of us are familiar with but as you’d expect we go deep into how Nueman was able to raise billions from some of the savviest investors, and from other investors like Softbank, who, as we find out, aren’t very savvy at all.

What I love about this story is that as soon as I started digging, I kept coming across facts and figures and quotes from Neuman that just left me stunned- how did he get investors to fall for his schtick?

We dig into Masayoshi Son the founder of Softbank, this revered investor who takes the biggest bets and also, the most reckless ones.

Even if you thought you knew the WeWork story, as I myself thought, I promise that there’s a lot in here that will keep you in a state of disbelief.

It’s an incredible story- enjoy

this is such a fascinating story for so many different reasons- we have traders who were found guilty and sent to jail in the UK for a crime that that apparently wasn’t a crime

We have senior bankers caught on tape talking about collusion and openly manipulating the interest rates and yet they weren’t even charged and we have regulators who knew everything that was going on who had solid eveidence to go after senior bankers yet chose to stitch up those further down the line.

This story goes to the heart of everything that is wrong with the financial sector which is why I love it, hope you do too

In this episode we dig down into the very beginnings of social media, where MySpace was streets ahead of everyone else.

And then Rupert Murdoch, the most famous, the most feared and perhaps one if not the  most successful media tycoons of the 20th century enters the fray and I don’t know about you, but any business story that has Rupert Murdoch in it is going to be a cracker.

Article: The Myspace Meltdown: Murdoch, Missteps, and the Lost Battle for Social Media

Welcome to todays episode "Ackman vs. Icahn: The Herbalife Battle That Shook Wall Street"- now shook might be too strong a word- but it definitely gripped Wall Street and the business media as billionaire hedge funders Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn publicly feuded when Ackman took a short position on Herbalife and Icahn took the other  side of the bet.

https://gbspod.com/blog/ackman-vs-icahn-the-herbalife-battle-that-shook-wall-street

In the episode we look at how 2 very different, diametrically opposed men came together and built a tiny Canadian wireless company into a huge success, and in doing so transformed the way people did business.

And Blackberrys weren’t just transformative, they were loved. 

The company was just hitting its stride when the rug was pulled from underneath them by Steve Jobs with the launch of the iPhone in 2007. 

But as always, what’s really interesting here are the main characters involved, how they built up the company, the pitfalls they encountered but also the nuances- it’s not as straightforward as you’d think- for example did you know that the iPhone captured just 1% of the smartphone market in its first full year, and that the iPhone wasn’t even the best selling phone at Christmas 2008, it was outsold by a Blackberry. And indeed Blackberry kept growing and reached its peak 4 years after the launch of the iPhone- this is a cracking story and I hope you enjoy it.

To subscribe on Patreon go to: https://www.patreon.com/greatbusinessstories

Link to the story on our blog: https://app.podcastpage.io/settings/great-business-stories/blog/edit/sumner-redstones-battles-billion-dollar-deals

Redstone, who died in 2020 is one of the most interesting and successful media moguls of the the 20th century - he bought MTV before it took off, he bought CBS and Paramount studio.

We examine how he built his business from a handful of cinemas to a media empire

We dig into the huge deals he got involved in

We ask if he was a true visionary or a hugely ambitious opportunist

We look at how his dysfunctional and fractured relationship with his family led to the dynasty-like soap opera that probably eclipsed his business successes.

Also, this episode was recorded in 2023 so before Paramount was sold.

And just to let you know, at the start  of the podcast we mention our main sources- there’s a link at the bottom of this podcast that brings you to our blog where the main sources are highlighted at the top of the article, and there’s links to some really great photos there that are relevant to this story.

PayPal: The Greatest Startup Story of All Time

This has been one of my favourite stories to cover, because you have such big characters who are now very much sitting at the top of the table business wise - we’re talking Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, David Sacks and many more.

And it’s fascinating to recall how these guys started out and nearly didn’t make it

There is so much drama in the story with boardroom coups,  Russian fraudsters, Musk being forced to merge his company against his will, the dotcom bubble bursting- I loved it 

Click on the following link to go our article on this episode where we have links to our main sources as well as relevant photos: gbspod.com/blog/paypal-greatest-startup-story-of-all-time

In today's episode, we're digging into the Tyco scandal of the early 2000s, specifically focusing on Tyco's CEO Dennis Kozlowski, who was charged and convicted of stealing $132 million from Tyco to fund a lavish lifestyle.

While other Tyco executives were also charged, and there were additional charges that we don't delve into, we do mention them briefly. However, our main focus is on the primary charges against Kozlowski.

What's really unusual about this story is that both Keith and I started our research believing we knew the story - a tale of corporate greed. We expected to uncover why and how Kozlowski syphoned off so much money.

But as we dug deeper, the actual story turned out to be quite different, and it makes for a great episode.

We hope you enjoy it!

This is the fascinating story of how Jho Low, young Malaysian businessman educated in Harrow formed one of the most notorious and lucrative business partnerships with the Malaysian Prime minister and they syphoned off a jaw dropping $4.5 billion 

It’s the story of how Jho Low and his friends spent their ill gotten gains by splashing out on parties, multi-million dollar properties, jewellery, art as well as financing Hollywood movies- 1 movie in particular that you’ll definitely know.

And it’s a story of Malaysia and the endemic corruption that emanates from the very top- a prime minister who not only brazenly lootes the national coffers but who is also the main suspect in  the grisly murder of a young woman.

This episode was recorded in April 2023, and even now in April 2024  there are still some court cases going on related to 1MDB because this is a business scandal that’s going to be with us for many more years- It’s a really fascinating story and we hope you enjoy it.

Sources

As we usually have way too many sources to link in here, please click on link below that brings you to an article that I wrote to accompany this episode- all of the sources used in this episode are at the end of the article :

https://gbspod.com/blog/the-1mdb-heist-how-jho-low-the-prime-minister-stole-45-billion