Great Business Stories

Here's a guy who won the equivalent of £350,000 on a horse race when he was just 16 years old, made international headlines at 21 for eloping with the daughter of one of the world's richest men, employed 400 people by the time he was 23, and went on to become one of the most ruthless and cunning corporate raiders in the US during the 80s, and then emerged in the 90s as one of the most prominent anti-globalisation and anti-EU voices, helping to lay the foundation for what would become Brexit. And all the while publicly juggling his time between his ex-wife, his current wife, and his mistress. It's a cracking story – enjoy.

I wanted to dig into Livermore’s story ever since i came across him in the episode we did on short sellers- and what a story this is- he became a full time trader the age of 16, he built his own system that earned him billions in today's money, but so many times he didn’t follow his own system and went broke and bankrupt many times. This is the guy who shorted the 1929 crash and made over $2 billion from it. It’s a fascinating story- enjoy 

Hsieh sold his first company when he was just 26 years old for $265 million. He then built Zappos into an online retailing giant from zero revenue to $2 billion dollars and in doing so he really did revolutionise online business by offering the type of customer service that was unheard of back- free shipping both ways, 365 day returns. He wrote a book that that stayed at number 1 for 27 weeks, and put $350 million dollars of his own money into redeveloping downtown las vagasBut behind the success was a man chasing something he could never quite catch—trying to engineer happiness, and this became an obsession that consumed him.

This is the amazing story of Yoshiaki Tsutsumi (tsoo-TSOO-mee)- who for 4 years solid from 1987-1990 was ranked the richest person in the world, the most powerful and probably revered business person in Japan throughout the 70’s and 80’s. And yet for all his wealth and power, there is very little known about him- but what we do know his rise and very public fall- because there is a big fall, make for a fascinating story- it’s a cracking episode - enjoy

I’m being a bit flippant here because this is a guy who worked hard for his money- he became a millionaire at 31 and then proceeded to build a company that had the most successful IPO opening day in history up to that point, and within 9 months of that IPO he sold the company for $5.7 billion becoming a billionaire- yet astonishingly at the time of the sale that company has revenues of just $40 million. How did he manage that?He then did what every sports fan would dream of doing and bought his favourite basketball team and turned them from also-rans into champions. He hasn’t been lucky all of the time- he’s had tussles with the SEC, got caught up in the #metoo movement, missed out on an investment that could have netted him $4.75 billion, but through Shark tank and other high profile investments, he’s now being mentioned as a potential presidential candidate for 2028. It’s a fascinating story- enjoy.