Film stars, tech bros, shipping magnates and online retail giants... BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng introduce the latest batch of billionaires whose stories they will uncover in their new season, starting 6 October.
Good Bad Billionaire is the podcast that explores the lives of the super-rich and famous, tracking their wealth, philanthropy, business ethics and success. There are leaders who made their money in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and in high street fashion. From iconic celebrities and CEOs to titans of technology, the podcast unravels tales of fortune, power, economics, ambition and moral responsibility, before asking the audience to decide if they are good, bad, or just billionaires.
To contact the team, email goodbadbillionaire@bbc.com or send a text or WhatsApp to +1 (917) 686-1176. Find out more about the show and read our privacy notice at www.bbcworldservice.com/goodbadbillionaire
In December of 1978, New Zealand's Kaikōura mountain ranges gained international attention as a series of unidentified glowing objects appeared to follow multiple planes in the area. Pilots, journalists, radar techs and air traffic control all confirmed the events -- along with numerous witnesses on the ground. Almost fifty years after the initial sightings, people still can't explain the Kaikōura Lights... and every December, locals look to the sky, just in case the lights return. Join Ben, Matt and Noel as they dive into one of the most bizarre UFO stories in New Zealand history.
The best-selling science journalist Mary Roach has written about sex and death and the digestive system — basically, all of the topics that children are taught to avoid in polite company. In her latest, “Replaceable You,” she examines prosthetics, robotics and other ways that technology can interact with human anatomy.
On this week’s episode of the podcast, Roach tells host Gilbert Cruz how she comes up with her ideas and what keeps drawing her back to the bizarre, hilarious bits of trivia that the human body offers up.
Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover: 1) OpenAI tells us how people use ChatGPT 2) Practical guidance is the top use of ChatGPT 3) Is generative AI actually a threat to search given the use cases? 4) OpenAI has a very broad definition of 'doing' or agent work 5) The hidden impact of AI 'decision support' in the economy 6) People trust AI bots massively - is that bad? 7) ChatGPT's massive growth 8) Anthropic shares Claude's economic uses 9) Automation is surpassing augmentation for AI in work 10) Will Meta's AI glasses hit? 11) Can Jimmy Kimmel build an audience off-ABC? 12) Will the next Jimmy Kimmel be a youtube/rpodcaster?
---
Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.
Plus: The House passed a stopgap measure ahead of government shutdown. Blackstone names a new CEO for its real-estate megafund after the fatal shooting of their previous Chief Executive. Zoe Kuhlkin hosts.
An artificial-intelligence tool assisted in the making of this episode by creating summaries that were based on Wall Street Journal reporting and reviewed and adapted by an editor.
Episode overview:
April Long spent two years fighting reality. The co-founder and CEO of "Afro-Asia Cross-border payment infrastructure" startup Pyxis was so determined to serve Africa's small merchants - the "bottom of the pyramid" she'd read about in Harvard Business Review - that she nearly bankrupted her fintech ignoring the bulk traders actually driving Africa-China trade.
In conversation with Andile Masuku, Long delivers uncomfortable truths about impact theatre versus impact reality. Her journey from receiving President Xi Jinping in Tanzania at 23 to finally accepting who actually moves goods between Africa and China at 35 offers a masterclass in entrepreneurial humility.
Key insights:
-On impact delusions: "I used to defend, I was like, 'No, no, no, no, no. It's that you don't get to this market.'" Long admits she lived in a bubble, desperately wanting to believe SMEs were ready for direct China trade. The truth? "90% of African trade is still happening in a more traditional way" - through the aggregators she'd dismissed as insufficiently mission-driven.
- On the cost of stubbornness: Despite zero demand after six months embedded in Nairobi's wholesale markets, Long refused to pivot. "I was quite stubborn. I was like, no, we have to work with SMEs." The result: burning 90% of her time on unprofitable small traders whilst the 10% spent on bulk traders kept her company alive.
- On acceptance as strategy: "The future is not here yet. And we need to build the future by serving who is there currently." Long's breakthrough came from accepting that Chinese trading companies scaling from $0 to IPO in a decade were the real infrastructure of Africa-China trade - not the romantic vision of empowered individual merchants.
- On being un-fundable forcing clarity: Without millions to burn on market education, Long had to face reality faster than her funded competitors. "I'm grateful I didn't have money to burn, or else I could have burned myself."
Notable moments:
1. The marketplace wake-up call: Walking through Nairobi's famous Gikomba market as a Chinese woman, traders shouted "China, China, what are you selling?" They wanted products, not payment rails. Long built the wrong solution for the right market.
2. The Eric Simanis paradox: The same Harvard Business Review article that inspired her Africa move warned against oversimplifying "bottom of pyramid" markets. Long spent years learning what she'd initially misread.
3. The three Aprils: Long describes fragmenting into Chinese April, Western April, and African April - "these narratives are so vastly different" that keeping them separate became exhausting. Building Pyxis became about reconciling these selves.
The aggregator revelation:
Long's former Standard Chartered clients - the Chinese trading companies she'd tried to convince to take loans in 2015 - transformed from traders to manufacturers to near-IPO giants in under a decade. They were the real story of Africa-China trade, moving containers whilst she chased individual merchants moving parcels.
"These Chinese trading companies making impacts in Africa, making products super affordable... because of the storytelling, they are not recognised." Her role shifted from trying to bypass them to helping them operate more efficiently.
The present tense:
Long's current focus on settlement infrastructure for bulk traders isn't the sexy SME empowerment story she'd imagined. But with a 12-person team across four countries and actual revenue, she's building what the market needs today whilst preparing for the SME future she still believes will come.
Image credit: Pxyis
Octopuses and their arms are a bit of a mystery. Not because scientists don’t know how they work; they’re boneless hydrostats, made up of groups of muscles working together and capable of bending, twisting, elongating or shortening — like a frog’s tongue, or an elephant’s trunk. But because scientists are still figuring out how most octopuses use those arms in the wild.
Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole and the marine lab at Florida Atlantic University wanted to answer that question. By analyzing videos taken in the wild, they found that octopuses seemed to prefer doing certain tasks with certain arms… and that the majority of the time, they used their front arms to explore and their back arms to get around. Researchers on the project hope that furthering our understanding of octopus behavior and movement will be useful for developing things like soft robotics.
Interested in more science discoveries? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
If you have, you're not alone. American consumers lost more than $1 billion to fraud on social media in the first six months of this year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. That’s almost ten times what it was five years ago. Today, we'll hear how consumers can protect themselves. But first, we know what the Federal Reserve did with short-term interest rates this week. What's driving long-term interest rates right now?
There seems to be an ironic discordance among folks that, let’s just say, didn’t share Charlie Kirk’s points of view. They claim that ‘it’s time to move on’ even when faced with a vigil being held by co-workers. Such was the case of the US House of Representatives minority party leader Hakeem Jeffries who, when asked why he didn’t attend a Congressional vigil quipped; “I had a meeting.” Or take combative positions like Virginia Speaker Don Scott who responded to Governor Youngkin who echoed a question we asked on these pages. “Is Abigail Spanberger going to denounce the ‘Nazi’ comment made by one of her supports, Chesterfield School Board Member ‘Dot’ Heffron. Scott’s social media response has since been edited but the original still exists and reads: “Spare us the sanctimonious selective outrage — you should be ashamed of yourself. You said nothing when a sitting GOP member of the Va House of Delegates said ‘Democrats killed [Charlie] Kirk’ — a blatant lie that was never corrected even after learning a Trump supporter actually killed him. Thank God, this Governor and his hateful politics will be gone in 120 days.”
The edited version now reads; “…. a blatant lie that was never corrected even after learning he was shot by a man from a family of Trump supporters.” Certainly much better. The member of the House he was referring to was Delegate Nick Freitas who posted “the other side murdered him” Delegate Freitas joins us to take us much further into this and what needs to happen next.
Guineans will vote in a referendum on a new constitution on Sunday, that would permit junta leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president, despite his promise not to do so when he seized power four years ago. Political analyst Renna Hawili explains the other major proposals.
Also, will a new World Trade Organisation agreement help protect the livelihoods of fishing communities off the coast of Africa?
And hear why an Ivorian musician's performance at a festival in Paris, was cancelled.
Presenter: Charles Gitonga
Producers: Makuochi Okafor, Yvette Twagiramariya, Ayuba Iliya, Madina Maishanu and Stefania Okereke
Technical Producer: Chris Kouzaris
Senior Journalist: Karnie Sharp
Editors: Alice Muthengi, Samuel Murunga, Maryam Abdalla and Andre Lombard
