All Episodes

#215 Nithya Raman: Hollywood's Socialist Is Leading the Mayor's Race

#214 David Ellison: Hollywood's New Landlord

#213 Larry Ellison: Winning by Buying

#210 Mongolia: How to Stay Yourself Between Russia and China

#209 Pompeii: The City That Didn't Know It Was Ending

#208 New Hollywood: The Decade the Directors Took Over

#207 Iran-Contra: The Scandal That Pardoned Itself

#206 The Ten Percent: CAA, WME, and the Invention of the Agent

#205 1920s Harlem: How to Spot a Renaissance

#204 Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: The Film That Watched Itself

#203 Local Natives and the Last Indie Band of the 2000s

#202 The Polygraph: The Machine That Never Detected a Lie

#201 Smoke Shops & Dispensaries: How Cannabis Got Its Storefront

#199 The Chakras: Blocked and Unblocked

#198 Seinfeld: Who Was Really the Brains?

#197 Spirit Halloween: The Business of the Pop-Up

#196 Charlie Sheen: The Truth Behind "Winning"

#195 Ari Emanuel: The Agent Who Ate Hollywood

#194 Obama's Shadow Wars: Drones, Raids, and the Power Vacuums They Left Behind

#193 Why Cuba Is Where People Go to Vanish

#192 Marriage: The Business Behind "I Do"

#191 Diamonds: Love, Scarcity, and the Most Engineered Symbol in Romance

#190 Church Hierarchy: From Apostles and Bishops to Pastors and Popes

#189 DC's Identity Crisis: How the Original Superhero Empire Lost Hollywood to Marvel

#188 Marvel's Dark Years: How the MCU Lost Its Magic

#187 Philippines: How a Nation Remade What Empires Left Behind

#186 The Five Percent Nation: From Supreme Mathematics to the Power of Knowledge in Hip-Hop

#185 Erykah Badu: Music, Mysticism, and the Black Cosmic Tradition

#184 Mellody Hobson: The Power of Ownership

#183 Kamasi Washington Live at USC: Beyond Category

#182 Editing Humanity: CRISPR, Embryos, and the Future of DNA

#181 When a Rap Beef Became a Conspiracy Investigation

#180 Hello Kitty: The Strange Power of Cuteness

#179 Elizabeth Holmes: How Theranos Fooled Silicon Valley

#178 Taiwan: The Island at the Center of the 21st Century

#177 Dieter Rams: Why “Less, but Better” Still Shapes Everything

#176 Islam: How Faith Organizes Everyday Life

#175 Chris Hansen: When Investigative Journalism Became a Spectacle

#174 Aliko Dangote: How Africa’s Richest Man Built an Industrial Empire

#173 Apartheid: The System That Divided South Africa

#172 Benito Mussolini: How Fascism Took Over Italy

#171 Asha Sharma: The Tech Outsider Reinventing Xbox

#170 Hong Kong Under Japan: The Three Years and Eight Months That Changed the City

#169 Twice in Flames: Why Los Angeles Erupted in 1965 and 1992

#168 Anime: How Japan Built a Global Storytelling Language

#167 Julian Assange: WikiLeaks and the War Over Secrets

#166 Big Ben: How the Clock Changed the Way We Live

#165 Bruce Lee: How a Martial Artist Became a Way of Thinking

#164 Kamasi Washington: South LA, Spiritual Jazz, and the Sound of the Infinite

#163 Mr. Robot: The TV Show That Understood the Internet Too Well

#162 The Equity of Intoxication: Engineering the Celebrity Spirits Boom

#161 How Pokémon Cards Became a Billion Dollar Asset Class

#160 Brazil’s Next Century: The Making of a Global Power

#159 Santa Teresa: Rio’s Hilltop Bohemia and the Fight to Preserve It

#158 Gonzaguinha: The Music That Defied The Brazilian Dictatorship

#157 Operation Car Wash: The Scandal That Shook Brazil

#156 Two Brazils: Worker Rights, Street Hustles, and the Labor Divide

#155 Pix: Brazil’s Instant Payment Revolution and the Rise of Sovereign Fintech

#154 Salvador: Black Brazil, Colonial Power, and the Fractured City

#153 Rio de Janeiro: Beyond the Postcard

#152 São Paulo: The Machine of South America

#151 The Epic History of Brazil

#150 The Eclectic Polymath Goes To Brazil! 🇧🇷

#149 Dolly Parton: Dollywood, IP, and the Smoky Mountain Strategist

#148 The German Migration to South Carolina: How 18th-Century Pioneers Shaped the American South

#147 American Barbecue: Indigenous Roots, Black Pitmasters, and the Secret History of Southern Smokehouse Culture

#146 The Rothschilds: Sovereign Debt, Global Infrastructure, and the Making of Modern Banking

#145 Nanotechnology: The Race to Build the World at Atomic Scale

#144 The 2011 NBA Lockout: How Money Remade Player Power

#143 Ancient Egypt: Africa, Identity, and Who Gets to Claim the Past

#142 The Unabomber: Genius, Terror, and the Revolt Against Technology

#141 George Farmer: British Wealth, American Media, and Transatlantic Conservative Power

#140 British India: Capital, Conquest, and the Making of The East India Company

#139 Buddhist Parables: Why Stories Can Teach What Arguments Can’t

#138 George Clinton: Funk, Mythology, and the Black Imagination

#137 Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Architecture of Self-Reliance

#136 Systems Thinking: Why Problems Are Usually Bigger Than the Parts

#135 Next Gen Humor: Memes, Absurdity, and Why the Joke Is Never Just the Joke

#134 The Silent Twins: Language, Trauma, and the World They Built Together

#133 Lauren Halsey: South Central, Afrofuturism, and the Architecture of Community

#132 The Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion: Growth, Infrastructure, and the Making of "Charlanta"

#131 The Day the Dinosaurs Died: Impact, Collapse, and the Rise of Mammals

#130 Eczema: The Immune System, Skin Barrier, and the Rise of Precision Treatment

#129 The Yom Kippur War: Israel, Egypt, and the Shock That Changed the Middle East

#128 The Oslo Accords: Israel, Palestine, and the Architecture of a Failed Peace

#127 Quilombos: Black Resistance, Sovereignty, and Freedom in Brazil

#126 Josh Kushner: Thrive Capital, OpenAI, and the Quiet Architecture of Power

#125 Bob Iger: Disney, Acquisitions, and the Architecture of Corporate Power

#124 The PATRIOT Act: 9/11, Surveillance, and the Expansion of American Power

#123 Huey Long: Populism, Power, and the Making of an American Autocrat

#122 SeaWorld: Shamu, Captivity, and the Business of Reinvention

#121 The New York Times: How a Newspaper Became a Digital Empire

#120 Lélia Gonzalez and Angela Davis: Black Feminism Across the Americas

#119 Holy Wars: Prophecy, Geopolitics, and the Return of Sacred Conflict

#118 Satya Nadella: Microsoft, AI, and the Reinvention of a Tech Giant

#117 The Fall of Rome: Money, Military, and the Slow Collapse of an Empire

#116 The State of Crypto: What Changed, What Survived, and Where It’s Going

#115 Travel Trends: How Destinations Become Famous, Crowded, and Reinvented

#114 Jack Dorsey: Twitter, Bitcoin, and the Architecture of Flow

#113 The Invention of Taste: Class, Culture, and the Social Power of Knowing What’s “Good”