Range Rovers, Ruin & Redemption: Iceland’s 2008 Crash
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.
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52:57
Adam Neuman of WeWork- A Great Salesman Or A Great Bullshitter
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
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1:11:59
LIBOR Exposed: How the real scandal was buried
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
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59:05
The MySpace Meltdown: Murdoch, Missteps, and the Lost Battle for Social Media
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
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1:02:49
Ackman vs. Icahn: The Herbalife Battle That Shook Wall Street
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
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