In 1999, Jack Welch was named "Manager of the Century". As CEO of General Electric for 20 years, Welch transformed the conglomerate and made it the biggest company in the world. Nicknamed "Neutron Jack", he closed down big chunks of old GE and set up new ventures... including GE Capital - which operated more like a bank than the wing of a manufacturing giant.

Under the leadership of "Neutron Jack", General Electric was consistently profitable and seemed to be a safe investment... but in fact the company was headed for disaster.

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Running a wine business in Napoleonic France wasn't easy. Constant wars meant naval blockades stopped you exporting your wares and invading armies might loot your cellars. But it was even harder for women - who were forbidden to run companies.

None of this stopped Barbe-Nicole Clicquot. When her husband died, she used a loophole that allowed widows to be entrepreneurs. Naming her Champagne brand after herself - Veuve Clicquot - the "Widow Clicquot" pioneered innovations in production and marketing that transformed the entire industry.

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kings and emperors spent fortunes pursuing the secret of eternal youth - but now it's tech billionaires who want to live forever and are funding research into scientific (and not-so-scientific) ways to beat aging and death.

Kara Swisher (host of CNN's new series Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever) joins Jacob and Robert to discuss the longevity business - from ancient China, via yoghurt enemas and blood swaps, to the latests developments in DNA editing. We also find out how Kara wants to die.

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1980s, Lloyds of London insured satellites, rock singers' voices and the legs of sports stars. Everyone was having fun and making money - but disaster was just around the corner.

Lloyds had always operated on the principle of unlimited liability - so the people backing up the insurance policies were expected to pay over all their assets if required. That hardly ever happened - until a series of huge claims hit Lloyds and the insurers suddenly faced huge bills that threatened to destroy the whole operation and the wider economy.

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Edward Lloyd opened a coffee shop near the River Thames in the 1680s - it became a place where ship owners and money men rubbed shoulders and a trade in marine insurance sprang up.

The coffee-drinking insurers eventually decided to form an association and agree on a set of rules - and so Lloyd's of London was born. It became a key factor in keeping the global sea trade going, but soon branched out into insuring against burglaries, hurricanes and even earthquakes.

Lloyds developed a principle that seems odd today. It ignored the small print and said: "Pay all our policy holders in full, irrespective of the terms of their policies.”

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A live mash-up between Business History and Bloomberg's Everybody's Business.

On platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket you can bet on just about anything - from Taylor Swift's album sales to whether President Trump will say a certain word in a speech. Many people worry about these new prediction markets, but the concept is far older than some critics might think.

We go back centuries to Papal conclaves; hear about how counting drinking toasts stood in for political polling; and learn how the US government tried using betting markets to predict terrorist attacks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once if you wrote a hit song there was no guarantee it would make you rich. So songwriters formed a cartel - the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. ASCAP started suing concert halls, cafes and nightclubs to claim back royalties. Seemed fair... except ASCAP started a war when it demanded radio stations turn over 10% of their revenues.

ASCAP's monopoly on music rights was broken, but they'd made songs into valuable financial assets. This set the scene for an epic copyright beef between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, and for David Bowie to turn his pop hits into a complex special purpose vehicle... a securitization pool!

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ford was the pre-eminent American car maker and Henry Ford was the king of modern manufacturing, until a Michigan cigar salesman decided to consolidate a bunch of small auto companies into a single firm to defeat the Colossus of Detroit.

General Motors united the likes of Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac and decided to live by "the laws of Paris dressmakers" to make cars that were more stylish and fashionable than the austere, black-painted Model T that was coming out of the Ford plant.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.