Great Business Stories

Murdoch doesn’t really need much of an introduction- we all know about Murdoch, we all know how powerful and influential he has been throughout his life- but in this episode we look at the very beginnings, the influence of his father, a powerful newspaper executive. We see how young Murdoch started with just 2 newspapers, was underestimated from the get go but battled his way to the top of the media business in Australia by the age of 37 before setting his sights on the UK- it’s a cracking story, enjoy.

Thor Björgólfur's story is fascinating in one way because it gives us a great insight into Iceland’s catastrophic banking collapse in 2008, but there are also so many other great stories in Thor's own business career—like the 10 years he spent building his first business in Russia, some very big question marks about Thor’s dealings while he was there, how he sold his Russian brewery to Heineken and made $100 million, went back to Iceland to rehabilitate his family name, became Iceland's first billionaire, and how it all came crashing down and he became a pariah in his country.

The fact is that I never gave this guy a chance- of course i was wrong so  I was intrigued to find out how this humble but very smart guy who took on probably the hardest CEO role by having to follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs. How did he grow Apple's revenues from $108 billion to $416 billion, and its market cap from $350 billion to nearly $4.9 trillion without actually bringing out any real blockbuster devices?How did such a low key, no ego guy, come out of Jobs' shadow to be rightly lauded as one of the best CEOs ever?  I enjoyed researching this episode more than nearly any previous one, it surprised me and it’s a cracker- enjoy.

I would say more than anyone else, Richard Branson was the guy who inspired me to become an entrepreneur- I have a terrible memory but I remember so vividly Branson’s first appearance on the Late Late Show- that was Ireland’s biggest talk show - and it was 1986 - and it was the first time I’d ever seen a businessman who didn’t act like a businessman- woolly jumper and jeans, big hair, big teeth and when he talked he just made business sound like fun, an adventure- which for most of us who love business, that’s exactly how we see it - yeah it’s tough, it’s challenging but that’s all part of the fun and adventure. And the story I’m going to tell today where Branson leaves school at 16 to set up an anti-establishment magazine, gets arrested for cheating the tax man, signs the Sex Pistols when no one else would touch them, starts a transatlantic airline, using his hair-raising escapades on boats and hot air balloons to publicise his businesses, brings the mighty British Airways to its knees- it makes for a cracking story- enjoy.

I had heard about General Magic over the years- and it was always held up as this almost mythical startup- the company that more or less developed the smartphone but was years too early, and then just 2 weeks ago I came across a documentary on it- it’s simply called General Magic- and it’s really good- well worth watching. So i did a b it more digging, found great articles and additional interviews with the founders. This is the story of how 1 guy had this vision for a new handheld device, how he got the top talent from Apple to join him, how they got the biggest tech and telecom companies in the world to join them, how they were stabbed in the back by John Skulley, the Apple CEO, and how it all fell apart- this is a cracking story, enjoy.

I have a very clear memory of this story because it became public 15 years ago in 2011, and I remember watching the news and seeing Michael Woodford, the whistleblower being mobbed by the media in Tokyo after he had found out and exposed a 20 year $1.7 billion dollar fraud in Olympus the company where he had just been promoted to the CEO role.And what I love about this story is that it gives us a great insight into Japanese corporate life, how saving face was, and maybe still is prioritised over everything else. This story has drama, strong characters and even the hint organised crime in the form of the Yazuka- it’s a brilliant story- enjoy

Griffin has been on my list from day 1- like he’s the 32nd richest person in the world with a net worth of $60 billion, but I was in no real rush to cover him, until about 2 weeks ago when I finally got round to watching Dumb Money- the movie about the GameStop short squeeze-and it’s a pretty good movie. But in the film the 2 or 3 times when Griffin's name is mentioned, it’s followed by the word “prick”- so that got me really interested- is he that bad or is it simply jealously as a result of his success because, even compared to the other Masters of Universe on Wall, Griffin is seriously successful- his hedge fund is the most successful hedge fund ever in history, but even more than that he has a second separate business, a securities business, and it trades more than $170 trillion worth of securities a year making it one of the biggest trading businesses in the world- how did he get to where he is -  this is a fascinating story- enjoy

The RIP part, well you’ll see what I’m getting at by the end of the episode. I wanted to dig into this story for a while now because like most of you, I knew the outline -you know, 2 hippy type guys who did things a bit differently, who were never really interested in money or success and yet they built one of the biggest and best known ice cream brands in the world. But the details of how they did this- through just being totally authentic, following their sense of fun, getting a lucky break, and then when they become successful they do everything they can to spread the wealth, to develop a different type of business but eventually big business catches up with them and while the ending is sad for Ben and Jerry, I just love this story for so many different reasons- enjoy.

Look, I’d be lying if I said I’d always wanted to cover Chesky and Airbnb. I hadn’t really read much about either of them. The business itself sounds pretty humdrum. People renting out apartments, spare rooms. Nothing really new or exciting there. And Chesky himself has always flown under the radar.But each week the story I pick just depends on what catches my fancy and last week, for whatever reason, I thought, you know what, I know absolutely nothing about this guy. I want to dig into it.And what a story.Because Chesky and his co-founders basically took one of the crappiest business ideas — renting out airbeds on apartment floors — and through sheer tenacity and a fantastic understanding of how a product should work, they turned it into a $100 billion company.But it’s really the stories behind the company that make this so good. Making their own cereal to clear their debts. Not knowing what a slide deck or an angel investor was. Coming up against the king of the clones, the dreaded Samwer brothers from Germany, losing 80% of their business when Covid hit.It all makes for a cracking story.Enjoy.

As regular listeners will know, I’ve wanted to cover Thiel for some time now.He’s going to warrant a three-parter at least because, love him or loathe him, Thiel is without doubt one of the most interesting, controversial and polarising people in business over the last 30 years.For listeners who don’t know him, Thiel was part of what became known as the PayPal Mafia - this group of supersmart guys who founded and built PayPal. The company survived the dot-com crash, it almost went under because of Russian fraudsters and they eventually cashed out in 2002.And then a lot of the people involved went on to even more success. We’re talking Thiel himself, Elon Musk, David Sacks and Reid Hoffman. So this episode focuses on Thiel’s early life and brings us right up to the sale of PayPal in 2002. It is a cracking story. Enjoy.