As we close out 2025, the IPO market is already heating up. And it’s going to get hotter next year, with some major tech IPOs on the horizon. WSJ reporter Corrie Driebusch shares what’s ahead. Plus, WSJ Heard on the Street columnist Dan Gallagher explains why Micron’s blowout results could mean higher prices for anyone buying a new phone or PC next year.
Watch the interview on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/eyS-eokvP-U
Everyone laughed when Jesse and Emily Cole said they were going to save baseball by turning it into a circus. The traditionalists said it was a mockery. The investors said it wouldn't scale. Babe Ruth woulda blushed.
But today, while the Red Sox and Yankees yawn in the dugout, the Savannah Bananas are selling out those very same stadiums… while on stilts.
In this episode, we sit down with the husband-and-wife co-founders to uncover how they turned a struggling startup - with so much debt they had to sell their house - into a viral phenomenon with a waitlist of over 1 million people.
We dive deep into their "Fans First" business model, why they refuse to take VCmoney, and how "burning the boring" let them create a new sport and disrupt a 100-year-old industry.
They even got engaged in the middle of a (rainy) baseball game.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
The "Anti-Business" Model: Why they refuse to take investors, sell advertising, charge for hot dogs, or collect sales taxes.
Burn The Boring: How they audited every second of a baseball game to eliminate friction (goodbye, bunts and walks).
The "Do The Opposite" Strategy: How a philosophy inspired by P.T. Barnum & Walt Disney helped them win in the attention economy.
Metrics vs. Magic: Why Jesse and Emily ignore traditional ROI data to focus on "Return on Fan".
(And why you should check the weather before proposing)
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro: The "Cirque du Soleil" of Baseball
2:05 - The Meet Cute: How Jesse & Emily Met
5:20 - Why They Refused VC Money (Owning 100% Equity)
6:48 - The Walt Disney Lesson on Control
8:45 - Leaving $50 Million on the Table
12:55 - Burning the Boring: Inventing Banana Ball
19:00 - Failures: The "Human Pinata" Disaster
24:00 - The Strategy: "Whatever is Normal, Do The Opposite"
31:00 - Making Decisions on Intuition vs. Spreadsheets
Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/
About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell.
While the A.I. boom has created a data center boom, rich guys are turning their computing dreams to the skies. With its impending IPO, SpaceX stands to lead the extraterrestrial data center boom. Will it work out for Elon and company?
Guest: Eric Berger, space reporter at Ars Technica
Want more What Next TBD? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplusto get access wherever you listen.
Podcast production by Evan Campbell, and Patrick Fort.
You may have heard of Ozempic, and other GLP-1 drugs. They’re everywhere. And they typically involve weekly injections — which can have a sticker price of over a thousand dollars a month. And insurance coverage has been tricky to navigate for a lot of people. That’s why there’s a lot of excitement around a new pill form of the drug. NPR Pharmaceuticals Correspondent Sydney Lupkin chats about these experimental pills with host Emily Kwong.
2025 was a wild year for the U.S. economy. Tariffs transformed the global economy, consumer sentiment hit near-historic lows, and the stock market hit scary, spooky, blood-curdling new heights! So … which of these economic stories defined the year?
Our hosts from Planet Money and The Indicator duke it out during our annual … Family Feud!
Tell us who you think has THE indicator of the year by emailing us at indicator@npr.org. Put “Family Feud” in the subject line.
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Corey Bridges. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.
Two new memoirs zoom in on important moments in music history. First, Paul McCartney’s new book Wings reflects on the life of his post-Beatles band, which he formed in London in 1971. In today’s episode, McCartney speaks with NPR’s A Martínez about establishing a distinct identity in The Beatles’ shadow. Then, Rob Miller founded Bloodshot Records in the 1990s when a new sound – “insurgent country” or “alt-country” – was just emerging. Miller joined NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about his memoir The Hours Are Long, But the Pay Is Low, which tells the story behind the label.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
OA1217 - Well, we recorded a bit late to make sure we caught Trump's "announcement" thingy and it was... nothing. But that's good!
Matt also takes us through more travel bans that are going into effect and have been way underreported on. But The Federalist has a piece saying not only is this all great, but Trump should proudly adopt 1920s immigration policy. There is no quiet part anymore.
But fortunately, Matt has a fun footnote for us to bring us back up!
Ryan sits down with Corey Quinn, Chief Cloud Economist at Duckbill, at AWS re:Invent to get Corey’s patented snarky take on all the happenings from the conference. They discuss whether the AI agent hype is supported by actual buyers, how startups are faring as AWS focuses on large enterprises, and how many of the new technologies coming out this year will actually be transformative.