Business(y) podcasts

Such podcasts are often mentioned in the "Today I listened to" thread but just thought that I'd throw up a list of some decent ones and people can add some suggestions.

This is a list of business topic / company exploration shows rather than the daily business happenings (e.g. the daily stock market type stuff)

How I built this start-up stories, old and new through an interview with the founder(s)

The Journal really good insights from the WSJ

Planet Money great NPR show on diverse topics ("onion king" is a classic)

Throughline (not fully business but some great ones from history e.g. "There will be bananas" about banana republics)

Business Wars (sort of dramatisation style of business rivalries - not all are brilliant but Netflix / Blockbuster, Boeing etc are not bad)

Masters of Scale (don't listen to all of these as they can be a bit sanctimonious but some are good)

David McWilliams podcast

BBC Business daily

Techstuff more tech focused but if you search back for Sony and Best Buy and others they have done some amazing multi-part company histories that were really well done

CatFromHue

The episodes aren't regular but The Irish Economics podcast can be interesting

https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-irish-economics-podcast/id1477910431

There is also a one-off podcast series running at the moment on the WeWork story of hubris and outrageous valuation, CEO and wife who took the piss etc.

WeCrashed

Have been listening to it and it's good so far. 3 of 6 episodes available as of today.

neris

How I built this started good and was enjoyable but then started getting into repeats and smaller business which were very american or local to one american area

Business wars is great

Find the Wecrashed one amazing. I always found wework strange and couldnt get my head around it but this podcast is starting to make everything clearer. He has Scott Galloway as an advisor on it so I wonder will he be publishing a book in time on it.

Another 1 i like is Bloombergs Masters in Business. One on one talks with high level money managers etc

The WeWork story is just mind-boggling how it all happened.

Adam Neumann is a complete charlatan who sails off into the distance with up to $1.7 billion after he was directly responsible for destroying the value in what was at one stage a promising company (but subsequently wildly over-valued). He was indulged and pretty much convinced himself that he was the second coming.

The fundamentals of the company never made sense to me from the outset in terms of the valuation. Their only assets were leases on office buildings and in a downturn those very assets (that were overpaid for) become liabilities as they are long-term vs shorter-term sublets.

neris

glasso wrote: »

The WeWork story is just mind-boggling how it all happened.

Adam Neumann is a complete charlatan who sails off into the distance with up to $1.7 billion after he was directly responsible for destroying the value in what was at one stage a promising company (but subsequently wildly over-valued). He was indulged and pretty much convinced himself that he was the second coming.

The fundamentals of the company never made sense to me from the outset in terms of the valuation. Their only assets were leases on office buildings and in a downturn those very assets (that were overpaid for) become liabilities as they are long-term vs shorter-term sublets.

Same here, all the company really was, was a sub letting landlord that tried to be hip. There was one clip of his wife in teh 1st or second episode which just got me saying total whack jobs. Cant remember it exactly but she was some sort of vegan on a course in Brazil learning some sort of yoga or spirtuality type ****e. Saw last night on cnbc some mutual fund was getting a hammering for investing in them while complaining they couldnt do anything on the board

1huge1

Given all this self isolation, I've been looking for some new podcasts.

Big fan of a lot of the podcasts mentioned above, I'd also recommend Slate Money. https://slate.com/podcasts/slate-money

Another is Capitalisnt, this one may be a bit too Financial theory heavy for some people but I think it is worth a listen. https://www.capitalisnt.com/show-notes/.

Update on the WeWork saga

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/may/05/wework-adam-neumann-sues-softbank-deal

hopefully that grasping dick never gets his big payout lol

new WeWork podcast

https://www.bloomberg.com/foundering

very good actually as has a lot of new insights from people who worked there and the manipulative and chaotic culture, about Neumann's upbringing etc.

neris

glasso wrote: »

new WeWork podcast

https://www.bloomberg.com/foundering

very good actually as has a lot of new insights from people who worked there and the manipulative and chaotic culture, about Neumann's upbringing etc.

I was going to give this a miss after the previous production but It,s very good and gives a similar perspective but more detail and background to some of the issues. It adds even more to the belief that Neuman is a self obsessed delusional headcase

neris

neris wrote: »

I was going to give this a miss after the previous production but It,s very good and gives a similar perspective but more detail and background to some of the issues. It adds even more to the belief that Neuman is a self obsessed delusional headcase

The Wondery stuff is grand but it's more entertaining rather than based on detailed investigations.

This Bloomberg one is much more the latter.

The whole WeWork debacle really epitomises the end of a funding era where a complete narcissist gobshyte like Neumann could get billions of dollars of funding for pure hype and some sort of cult creation as the primary focus of the company to create paper valuation numbers and not a real sustainable business.

WeWork was the absolute extreme example of course and all fell apart when it came to an IPO when even the idiots who piled the money in had to admit that the emperor had no clothes.

neris

glasso wrote: »

WeWork was the absolute extreme example of course and all fell apart when it came to an IPO when even the idiots who piled the money in had to admit that the emperor had no clothes.

There was either an American bank or a large fund manager had put a shed load of money into them and had a seat on the board but what ever way softbank and neumann had set it up the bank or fund had no input into board meetings and couldnt vote or question things that were going on.

Neuman had ridiculous shares with 20 times voting rights so he'd only need to hold a small amount of total equity to control the company through the voting shares

Softbank put most of the money in.

T . Rowe Price are probably the fund manager that you are thinking of. They were a minor investor compared to Softbank

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t-rowe-price-admits-wework-was-a-terrible-investment-2020-02-13

thenightman

Enjoyed WeCrash & most of the Business Wars episodes, cheers for the recommendations. Also, the voice the Business Wars host puts on whenever he's re-imagining/enacting conversations can be hilarious for just how bad he is at them!