Business Wars

Netflix-HBO. Nike-Adidas. Business is war. Sometimes the prize is your wallet. Sometimes your attention. Sometimes just the fun of beating the other guy. From Wondery, the network behind Dirty John and American History Tellers.

The debut of the Apple iPhone in 2007 means unprecedented changes for human communication. But even its inventor Steve Jobs at first fails to realize that the most powerful part of his invention isn’t the music player or the web browser. It’s the map. The physical world is about to collide with the virtual one, and that means a bitter fight for mobile mapping supremacy between Apple and its rival, Google. The two companies’ battle eventually leads to one of Apple’s rare missteps — but not before Jobs stuns the world by dying of pancreatic cancer. Meanwhile, an Israeli start-up is starting to make waves by crowdsourcing data to create a turn-by-turn navigation tool that provides up-to-the-minute accuracy. Good thing the founders have agreed not to sell for less than a billion dollars…Brought to you by the 2019 Lincoln MKC. Support us by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we’re featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small. In 1972, pinball machines and mechanical games ruled the arcades. Then, Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney came up with a game on a television screen controlled by two players. Pong helped catapult Atari from a start-up to the leader of video games, where it would stay – almost unopposed – for the next decade. Once Atari made Pong, the company took off like a rocket. But for Dietrich Mateschitz, success was a slog. When he returned home to Austria from a trip to Thailand in 1982, he brought an idea for an energy drink with him. His creation was expensive and tasted foul, and would be rejected over and over. But a slick marketing campaign made it the symbol of club cool and fuel for daredevils — and it took North America by storm.

This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we’re featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small. In upstate New York, a Kurdish immigrant wants to make his biggest dream come true: to produce the tart, custard-thick Greek yogurt of his childhood for American palates. In 2005, he buys an abandoned Kraft factory for cheap. With an ingenious financing deal, standout packaging and clever marketing, he launches Chobani — the yogurt sensation that eventually forces goliaths Yoplait and Dannon to move over. While Chobani launched a quiet incursion, William Wrigley Jr. set out to upend the gum industry in 1893 with an improved spearmint flavor. After one misstep after another, he finally gets traction. Then the gum monopoly approaches him: join or be crushed. Thanks to a savvy advertising campaign, he blows past them to become the nation’s biggest gum purveyor.

Before you’re ready for a full-fledged “Business War,” you need to start somewhere. David Choi put it all on the line and drained his bank account to buy his first food truck. Eight years later, Choi’s bold vision for Korean and Mexican fusion has made an impact on the culinary scene. In this episode, we hear from Choi about his humble beginnings, his hustle, and the importance of small businesses. This episode is sponsored by the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card.

Last week, we gave you the first half of our interview with Seoul Taco Founder David Choi. If you didn't catch that part of our conversation, we encourage you to go back and check it out. Since starting his Seoul Taco business eight years ago, Choi has expanded to seven total locations in Illinois and Missouri. Today, we continue our conversation with Choi and learn more about his business philosophy, his work in the communities he serves, and what’s next for Seoul Taco. This episode is sponsored by the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card.

Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, will break the mold this year, as the pandemic sends retailers scrambling for new ways to bring in customers while minimizing large crowds. But the changes to American shopping habits predate the pandemic. Host David Brown talks with Business Insider retail correspondent Madeline Stone about what to expect from a COVID Christmas and which changes to our spending habits are likely to stick.

This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we're featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small. It’s 1961 and Tom Monaghan is about to drop out of college and put his all into the hole-in-the-wall pizzeria he founded with his brother. But the recipe for success is going to prove elusive. To make it, he’ll have to overcome flaky business partners, a devastating fire, and run-ins with debt collectors.

This episode is brought to you by Wondery in partnership with Dell Technologies. In honor of small businesses, we're featuring inspiring stories of successful companies that started out small. It’s 1970 and Gert Boyle’s life is in ruins. Her husband’s just died, and now, as a middle-aged stay-at-home single mom, she’s become the boss of the family’s debt-ridden outerwear company. No one – herself included – thinks she can save the business. But she’s about to find an inner strength that will enable her to yank the business back from the cliff’s edge and haul it straight to the summit.

Startups search for pain points in the customer experience and design their product to solve these problems. There’s an art to knowing how to find that one thing the market needs and running with it. On the flip side, established businesses need to constantly reassess their products to avoid being disrupted and left behind. On this episode, Wharton School marketing professor Jonah Berger joins Business Wars host David Brown for a conversation about the art of disruption – how small businesses can gain the advantage and how legacy businesses can stay one step ahead.

Since the pandemic began, many of us have traded our blazers for t-shirts and loafers for slippers as remote work has become the new normal. There’s been a fundamental shift in what employees expect from their workplace — and spoiler alert, going in five days a week isn’t it. So how can business owners adapt to this changing landscape without losing employees in this hot labor market? Stanford Economics Professor Nick Bloom has studied productivity and remote work for two decades. On this episode, Nick joins Business Wars host David Brown to explore the future of work, and the role technology will play in helping businesses keep up.