Great Business Stories

Hosted by Caemin

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Latest episode

Aug 2026

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EN-US

About the show

A great business story thoroughly researched and brought to life by Caemin. New episode released every Wednesday .

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60 recent

August 26, 202629 min

Bernie Ebbers & WorldCom - When The Tide Goes Out…

The whole WorldCom scandal never really registered with me- because it happened straight after the dotcom bubble burst, so myself and my cofounders were just dusting ourselves off and slowly realising that we weren’t going to suddenly become business tycoons and on top of that whole Enron scandal had exploded just a bit before so that was the story that consumed me back then - so when WorldCom went bust, I didn’t really give it a lot of time, but I knew in the back of my mind that there was great story here- Bernie Ebbers, this 6 foot 4, honest to goodness church-going cowboy who kind of came from nowhere to all of a sudden building one of the biggest telecom companies in the USA, until suddenly it all collapsed becoming the biggest bankruptcy in US history, far surpassing Enron and and I’m glad that I finally got round to digging into thai story because it really is a cracking one- enjoy

August 19, 202632 min

The Rise and Ruin of the Barclay Twins

This is the remarkable story of how David and Frederick Barclay went from painters and decorators to owning the most prestigious hotels in London: the Ritz, Claridge's, the Connaught, the Berkeley. They bought the Telegraph Newspaper Group, they bought an island and built a £100 million castle on it, their fortune was estimated to be £7 billion pounds as late as 2020. But these guys, man, they were secretive, underhand — these guys pulled some very sneaky shit. And then it all came crashing down when the twins turned on each other, culminating in the Ritz Hotel bugging scandal. This is a sensational and cracking story — enjoy.

August 12, 202631 min

Microsoft 1994-2000: How Bill Gates Turned a Browser War Into an Antitrust Disaster

This is, without doubt, one of my favourite stories ever. And look, I'll be doing a good few episodes on Gates and Microsoft, but why I decided to start off with this one is because it's a fantastic standalone story. You have Bill Gates and Microsoft, in the mid-90s at the height of their power, and then along comes Marc Andreessen and Netscape, who develop a browser that really launches the World Wide Web. And this is an existential threat to Microsoft. They try to bully Netscape into a deal, but Netscape fight back, and this sets in motion an antitrust case that brings out Gates' arrogance, petulance and fear, and it leads to a judgement where Microsoft is ordered to split in two. This is a cracking story, enjoy.

August 5, 202629 min

John Foley and Peloton: What Went Wrong?

I wanted to dig into this story purely because what I knew of Peloton really was just from the headlines. During the pandemic, stock pickers and the business media crowned Peloton the business of the future. It was called the Apple of fitness. You had the Obamas, Usain Bolt, Leonardo DiCaprio, dozens of high-profile celebrities as customers, and some of Peloton's live classes had bigger audiences than Madison Square Garden. And then, just as quickly, the same press that had lauded him turned on him. Foley and Peloton became the poster child for pandemic-era hubris. A company that reached a $49 billion valuation is now just worth $2.6 billion. Was it all Foley's fault? That's what we'll find out in today's episode. It's a cracking story, enjoy.

July 29, 202629 min

Yuri Milner: From Russia With Billions

I've wanted to cover Milner ever since I first came across him in Sebastian Mallaby's excellent book, The Power Law, where Mallaby introduces Milner with the following: "At the start of 2009, the CFO at Facebook took a call from Moscow. A soft Russian voice announced that he wanted to invest in Facebook. The caller had a gentle but insistent style. He had a slight build, a nose bent to his right, and an oval face crowned by a smooth dome. He wanted to meet in person. Facebook did not accept capital from just anyone." The CFO told Milner bluntly: "Don't come all the way here just to see me." Milner booked a plane ticket, flew to San Francisco, and more or less doorstepped the CFO. This is the story of how this small, quietly spoken Russian goes from earning just $5 a month to reaching the very peak of Silicon Valley, investing in Facebook at a valuation that US investors thought was crazy, becoming one of Mark Zuckerberg's most trusted friends and advisors, and then going on to make huge and very successful investments in Spotify, Zynga, and Revolut, to name just a few. Along the way, Milner navigates his way through the oligarch-infested pools of Russian business, survives all of the political and media backlash that comes from the revelation that much of his early money came from entities closely linked to the Kremlin, and has come out the other side still riding high with a personal fortune of $8.7 billion. It's a cracking story—enjoy.

July 22, 202633 min

Steve Ballmer: 1956–2000

And let me start with a quote: "I didn't pull you out of Stanford Business School to bankrupt the company" — that's Bill Gates, early on, arguing with the man he'd just hired as Microsoft's first ever business manager. That man of course was Steve Ballmer, and the two of them would go on to build one of the most valuable companies in history together, through huge arguments, a legendary contract with IBM, and a decade of ruthless sales tactics that got Windows onto practically every computer on the planet. This episode takes Ballmer from his childhood right up to becoming Microsoft's CEO in 2000. It's a cracker — enjoy.

July 15, 202631 min

BlockBuster: The Men & Moments Behind Its Rise and Fall

There are so many great characters in this story — I dig into the founder, David Cook, a guy who sold the business for $12 million but could have made $300 million if he'd stayed on for just a few more years. And then Wayne Huizenga, the guy who turbo-charged the business, after building his first fortune in the rough and tumble of the waste management business in the 70s and 80s. There's the now legendary meeting where Blockbuster's executives had the chance to buy a fledgling company called Netflix for $50 million but more or less laughed the Netflix founders out of the room. And then, as I've come to expect, Carl Icahn makes an appearance and bullies his way into the business, but makes a complete mess of it. It's a cracking story — enjoy.

July 8, 202630 min

Carlos Slim: The Numbers Genius Who Built an Empire

This is a guy whose father fled Lebanon with almost nothing and today is worth $120 billion. I examine how he built his fortune buying up distressed businesses during Mexico's economic collapse of the 1980s, and how a controversial privatisation deal for the national phone company turned him into the richest man in the world. I also look at the huge criticism he's faced for monopolistic practices that cost ordinary Mexicans billions and also held back the development of an entire country, and how he's used that fortune combined with this intrinsic and intangible gift for numbers to make savvy investments in everything from Apple to the New York Times. It's a cracking story — enjoy.

July 1, 202632 min

CZ and Binance: The Man Who Built Crypto's Biggest Empire

This is a guy who grew up in a village in rural China with no running water and today is now worth $110 billion. I examine his relationship with Sam Bankman Fried- and his subsequent involvement in the multi billion dollar collapse of Bankman Fried’s company FTX. I also look at how he tried to keep Binance away from any type of regulation, and this ultimately led him to serve time in jail but then very controversially get a presidential pardon. It's a cracking story — enjoy.

June 24, 202633 min

Hyundai Part 1: Chung Ju-yung, The Founder

I nitially I had intended to do just 1 episode on Hyundai, focusing mainly on the car business and it’s current leadership, but the story of Ju-yung is just too remarkable to be consigned to a footnote- this is a guy who, from nothing, built a conglomerate that at it’s peak in the 90s was one of the biggest companies in the world, with revenues of $90 billion, 200,000 employees, operating in everything from semi conductors, to cars, to ship building, to construction, to retail outlets- you name it, they did it and Ju-yung built it all through wars and military rulers, it’s a cracking story, enjoy.