Business Wars

To compete with Netscape, Bill Gates is forced to do the one thing he hates most: give tech away for free. He bundles Internet Explorer with Windows, effectively making his browser ubiquitous--and Netscape’s redundant. Suddenly, Netscape, the company that launched the dot-com boom and shattered records with its IPO, finds itself on life support. But the battle isn’t over...

It’s summer 1995, and Bill Gates is worried about the sudden rise of the Internet. In the world of computers, Gates is used to being in the driver’s seat. Now it seems he’s not even in the car.  Marc Andreessen has just launched the latest version of Netscape Navigator. It’s faster and more stable than the last version, and still, inexplicably, free...

It’s 1974, and a young programmer named Paul Allen has just caught a glimpse of the world’s first personal computer, the Altair 8800. It has the potential to change the computing landscape forever — but it doesn’t yet have an operating system. Altair’s developers sank every dollar they had into its hardware, banking that someone else would figure out how to make their machine run...

Two disgruntled tech whizzes, Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen, join forces to exact revenge on the companies that wronged them, building a browser so fast and powerful that it wipes their competitors off the face of the web. In private, they call it a “Mosaic Killer,” but in public, it’s called “Netscape Navigator.” The launch of their new browser will mark the beginning of a new era in computing, the birth of a new economy based on the web, and the moment Microsoft put a target on their backs...

As editor in chief at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Tina Brown has had opportunity to sit down with the world’s most important people to hear their thoughts on the zeitgeist and on her new Podcast, “TBD with Tina Brown,” she invites you to hear her candid conversations with writers, politicals, crime sleuths, journalist and the newsmakers of tomorrow’s social debates. Subscribe to TBD with Tina Brown on Apple Podcasts or by visiting wondery.fm/tbd

It’s 1992, and in the basement of the chemistry building at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, two computer science students are working on a new web browser. Up to this point, browsing has made up less than one percent of all internet traffic, but Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina are about to change all that...

As the extreme marketing battle between Red Bull and Monster reaches unprecedented heights (128,000 feet above sea level, to be precise), a new challenger steps onto the scene. 5-hour Energy, the tiny titan in the two ounce can, quickly plows through the energy drink market, generating hundreds of millions of dollars each year and leaving a trail of failed imitators in its wake. But for the moment, Red Bull and Monster have bigger issues on their hands...

As Red Bull plans its U.S. invasion, an unlikely upstart vies to beat it to market. Led by branding guru Mark Hall, the wholesome Hansen Beverage Company launches Monster, a grungy, all-American alternative to its yuppie European competitor. Not only does Hall intend to pull Hansen back from the verge of bankruptcy, his plans will position Monster to take a massive bite out of Red Bull’s multi-billion dollar industry...

It’s the early 1980s, and in Bangkok, Thailand, a jet-lagged toothpaste marketing exec named Dietrich Mateschitz has just tasted Krating Daeng, an energy tonic popular with rickshaw drivers. The flavor is repellant—it’s sickly sweet—but to Mateschitz’s surprise, it completely cures his jetlag. Suddenly, he sees a business opportunity. Energy drinks like these are huge in East Asia, but virtually unheard of in Europe...

Host David Brown sits down with L.A. Times pop music critic Mikael Wood to talk about how Napster changed not only the music business, but music itself. It turns out digital music downloads paved the way for a lot of trends we see in music today… Justin Bieber joining the remix of Despacito? Beyoncé’s surprise album drops? The countless list of songs featuring Nicki Minaj? It all started here...