Jack Dorsey is one of Silicon Valley’s most enigmatic and unconventional figures, a man who served as the CEO of two billion-dollar public companies—Twitter and Square—at the same time. This episode explores the divided mind of a founder with a passion for both the chaotic, 140-character world of social media and the structured, elegant world of financial transactions. We trace the creation of Twitter, from its origins as a side project at a podcasting company to its emergence as the world's

In the late 1990s, one company, Blockbuster Video, completely dominated the home entertainment market. This episode tells the story of Reed Hastings and how his upstart DVD-by-mail service, Netflix, not only defeated a giant but went on to disrupt all of Hollywood. We recount the famous, and perhaps apocryphal, story of Hastings founding the company after receiving a large late fee from Blockbuster, and the moment he tried, and failed, to sell Netflix to Blockbuster for a mere $50 million. We

Before he was the "Techno-King" of Tesla or the man launching rockets into space, Elon Musk was an intense and awkward kid from South Africa who taught himself to code and dreamed of changing the world. This episode delves into the often-overlooked origin story of the world's most audacious and controversial entrepreneur. We trace his difficult childhood, his migration to Canada and then the United States, and the relentless drive that propelled him through his university years at Penn and a two-day

Facebook's stated mission was to make the world more open and connected. But what if that very connection could be weaponized? This episode delves into the series of scandals that shattered Facebook's utopian image and exposed the dark underbelly of social media. We provide an inside look at the Cambridge Analytica scandal, revealing how the personal data of millions of users was improperly harvested and used for political manipulation. We investigate Facebook's role in the 2016 U.S. presidential

In 2012, a small photo-sharing app with just 13 employees and no revenue was acquired by Facebook for a stunning $1 billion. This episode tells the story of Instagram and its co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. We trace the app's creation, from its origins as a clunky check-in app called Burbn to the simple, elegant, filter-based photo app that became an instant sensation on the iPhone. Systrom, a Stanford graduate with a passion for photography, had created a new visual language for the

The mission was simple, utopian, and impossibly ambitious: to organize all the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This episode travels back to the campus of Stanford University in the late 1990s to tell the story of two brilliant graduate students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and their creation, Google. We explore their key technological breakthrough, the PageRank algorithm, a revolutionary way to rank search results based on relevance that left all competitors in the

How did a company founded on the principle of "Don't Be Evil" become one of the most powerful surveillance machines ever created? This episode investigates the darker side of Google's dominance, exploring how its business model—offering free services in exchange for harvesting vast amounts of personal data to sell targeted advertising—created a host of ethical dilemmas. We trace the erosion of the company's early idealism as its quest for growth and profit pushed it into morally gray areas. We

It started in a Harvard dorm room as a way to rank the attractiveness of fellow students. This episode tells the origin story of Mark Zuckerberg and his creation, Facebook, the social network that would rewire human connection for a billion people. We trace the chaotic early days of the company, from its contentious founding, which led to high-profile lawsuits from the Winklevoss twins, to its explosive growth on college campuses across the country. We analyze Zuckerberg’s early vision, summed up in

In 1994, Jeff Bezos, a successful Wall Street executive, read a statistic about the internet's explosive growth and decided to quit his job to sell books online from his garage. This episode tells the origin story of Amazon and the man whose relentless, long-term vision would create "The Everything Store." We explore Bezos’s foundational philosophy: an obsessive focus on the customer, a willingness to operate on razor-thin margins for decades to achieve scale, and a deep-seated belief that the

Amazon's promise of low prices and fast delivery has a hidden cost. This episode goes inside the vast operational empire of Jeff Bezos to expose the dark side of its relentless efficiency. We investigate the grueling, heavily surveilled working conditions inside Amazon's warehouses, where employees are pushed to meet punishing quotas tracked by algorithms, leading to high injury rates and burnout. We also uncover the company's sophisticated and aggressive anti-union tactics, which it has deployed

Every legendary partnership has a less famous partner, and at Microsoft, that was Paul Allen. This episode tells the often-overlooked story of the co-founder of Microsoft, the quiet visionary who was instrumental in the company's creation but whose legacy is far more complex than just a sidekick to Bill Gates. We explore Allen's crucial role in the early days, from coming up with the name "Micro-Soft" to being the technical brain who made their first product, a BASIC interpreter, actually work. We

They were the two titans who defined the personal computer revolution, and their bitter rivalry was the stuff of legend. This episode provides a head-to-head comparison of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, two men with profoundly different philosophies who became the twin poles of the tech universe. We contrast Gates, the pragmatist and brilliant businessman who licensed his software to everyone, with Jobs, the artist and perfectionist who insisted on controlling every aspect of the hardware and software

While Apple and Microsoft battled for the soul of the computer, a college kid in Texas came up with a business model that would completely upend the industry. This episode tells the story of Michael Dell and his revolutionary "direct-to-consumer" model. We trace his journey from a pre-med student at the University of Texas who started building and selling custom PCs out of his dorm room to the head of one of the largest technology companies in the world. We dissect the simple but brilliant insight

How did Apple transform from a computer company into a global cultural phenomenon with the loyalty of a religion? This episode deconstructs the "Cult of Apple," the powerful brand identity that Steve Jobs meticulously crafted during his second act. We analyze the core tenets of his philosophy: a fanatical focus on elegant, minimalist design; a culture of extreme secrecy to build anticipation for new products; and a brilliant marketing strategy that sold not just devices, but a lifestyle and a

In the late 1990s, Microsoft was not just a successful company; it was an empire that held a complete monopoly over the personal computer. This episode provides an inside look at the epic antitrust lawsuit, United States v. Microsoft, the landmark case that accused Bill Gates's company of being an illegal monopoly that stifled innovation and crushed its competitors. We break down the government's central accusation: that Microsoft illegally used its Windows monopoly to destroy the rival web browser,

How did the ruthless monopolist of the 1990s become the beloved global philanthropist of the 21st century? This episode examines the profound and deliberate transformation of Bill Gates's public image, one of the most successful acts of reputation management in history. We explore his transition away from Microsoft to focus full-time on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an organization with an endowment so vast it operates like a small, efficient nation-state. We analyze the immense good the

Before he was a philanthropist or a global health icon, Bill Gates was a fiercely competitive computer geek who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company. This episode returns to the very beginning of the personal computer revolution to tell the origin story of Microsoft. We explore the pivotal partnership between the brilliant programmer Bill Gates and his childhood friend, the visionary Paul Allen, who together saw that the future of computing lay not in the hardware, but in the software

In deze aflevering hoor je Yvette van Veldhuizen. Zij is diergedragsdeskundige, en Sandra praat met haar over waarom wolven doen wat wolven doen — en wat een ‘probleemwolf’ eigenlijk is. Dit is het hele interview van de samenvatting uit seizoen 2 aflevering 10.

(This is a Replay) In our adversarial system, it can often be difficult to be civil and professional with the other side, especially if they are true Black Hats. Tune in to hear 2018 KTI Graduate and Texas attorney, William G. Hagans, share about how to keep the civility and professionalism in the courtroom. Contact William G. Hagans at Phone: (713) 222-2700 Website: https://hagans.law/

While figures like Murdoch and Berlusconi courted the spotlight, the Thomson family of Canada quietly built one of the world's most powerful and least-known media empires. This episode tells the story of a dynasty that represents a different model of media power: less about noisy editorials and more about owning the indispensable data that makes the world run. We begin with Roy Thomson, who started with a single radio station and built a massive newspaper empire with a simple, profit-driven