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An audio show about little-known stories from business and history. Full scripts of every episode. 54 posts.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 54
From the 1880 New York corner that blew up, to Brazil burning coffee, the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement, the 1975 black frost and the record rallies of recent years, a look at where coffee futures came from and some of their quirks.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 53
Tickets often don't make money. Airlines survive on miles, ancillary revenue, and treating seats as inventory.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 52
Worst case, you go deliver food? After a day of runs in Melbourne, once you do the math you might not even afford a bubble tea.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 51
The railroads were real, and so was the bubble. In 1873, Americans bought the future at an inflated price.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 50
Diamonds became forever not because of geology, but because of a marketing campaign that ran for a century.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 49
The World Cup is more than a tournament. It sews nations, money and TV commercials onto the same ball.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 48
Shares worth €10 billion went missing for more than a decade. How did a Hermès heir end up handing over the keys to the safe?
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 47
Price controls, protective laws, insurance subsidies: ask less of the slogans, and ask one more 'and then what?'
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 46
After the torch was passed to Bletchley Park, where did the people who first pushed the door open go?
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 45
Long before Turing showed up, Polish mathematicians had already pried open the crack in Enigma's door.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 44
Enigma was not a brain teaser. It was a race to work out the key first.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 43
After Coca-Cola's concentrate was cut off, a German plant made Fanta from cheese-making wastewater.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 42
Why did humanity suddenly break out of the Malthusian trap 250 years ago? Three Nobel laureates have the answer.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 41
No blue light, no white-light screens. How Nakamura Shuji collected the dragon balls at a small provincial company.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 40
When a Western restaurant asks how you want your steak cooked, it's not about raw meat. It's about getting the beef's fibers and temperature right.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 39
Beyond the falling apple: Newton's alchemy, his feuds, and how he tried to erase rivals from history.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 38
Sour grapes, the spotlight effect, hindsight bias: holes your brain digs for itself.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 37
Straw men, red herrings and bad attributions: the logical traps that show up most in everyday arguments.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 36
From a strict reform school to the meeting of the three founders: the choices made before NVIDIA ever opened for business.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 35
Sweet and watery, how did watermelon become humanity's summer staple?
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 34
Fleming's dish grew mold, and P-type carelessness rewrote war and medicine.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 33
From willow bark to Bayer's lab, a fever pill has a history of thousands of years.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 32
When antibiotics stop working, an older approach, phage therapy, has been brought back.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 31
If you want to seem smart, the first step isn't a clever quote. It's saying things clearly.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 30
From kelp broth into a bottle of MSG: how the Japanese turned umami into an industry, and how the Chinese took it further.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 29
The Art of War is not chicken soup. It is a method for calculating information, logistics and human nature.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 28
Boeing's Starliner left its crew stranded at the space station, and in the end it was SpaceX that brought them home.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 27
The inventor was more than a light-bulb maker. He was also a master of grabbing patents, building companies and forcing rivals out.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 26
Why some home outlets are 110 and others 220: behind the sockets is a battle over electric current.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 25
Liuyang's fireworks weren't born overnight. They were built up by technique, trade routes and an entire industrial chain.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 24
From the rise of Japan's Showa-era boom, a look at the years when people would spend 50,000 yen just to take a taxi.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 23
After casinos and debt toppled his empire, how he turned failure into a business too.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 22
Fame, loans and Manhattan real estate: how Trump made himself into a brand.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 21
The Trump family business started with immigration, real estate and appearances, long before it reached Donald himself.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 20
How the first listed company later bubbled and crashed, and what it left behind.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 19
China's connection to the internet, the browser wars, and the .com bubble of the turn of the millennium.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 18
How the East India Company turned a single voyage into shares you could buy and sell.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 17
From ARPANET to the World Wide Web: how the internet went from a military project to something everyday people could hold.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 16
How salmon went from an ordinary fish to the star of the sushi counter.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 15
If your job disappeared, the world might be fine. So why do we keep pretending every day that it matters?
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 14
From a grandfather who flew his own plane to Maye Musk: how wild this family of origin really was.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 13
The 300 at Thermopylae: the real history is colder and more brutal than the movie.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 12
From a string of explosions to reusable rockets: what SpaceX gambled on along the way.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 11
What it takes to get to Mars: rockets, life support, and whether anyone would choose to stay.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 10
Apollo was not just about courage. It was a pile of hardcore engineering, forced out of one problem after another on the ground.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 9
How sand turns into glass, and why transparency is anything but ordinary.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 8
Why grilled meat smells so good, why the calorie model falls short, and insulin and weight gain in winter.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 7
Gunpowder went from the alchemists' furnace to the battlefield, and then into the fireworks lighting up the New Year sky.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 6
Where QR codes come from, why lychees and oranges 'heat you up', and why your skin itches in winter.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 5
The Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer's entrance: how the first atomic bomb came to be.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 4
From the mass-energy equation to the laboratory: how the first atomic bomb was built.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 3
Before refrigerators, how people stored and transported ice to get through the summer.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 2
Air conditioning was not invented for people. Carrier went from drying a print shop to modern refrigeration.
Cold-Knowledge Blind BoxEpisode 1
Where the idea that carrots are good for your eyes came from: sea voyages, the Dutch royal family, and wartime Britain.
