Business Wars

While the U.S. government pushed automakers to make low-emission vehicles in the 1990s, consumers loved their gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. But in 2003, Elon Musk's Tesla Motors arrives with environmentally friendly, high-performance cars that people actually want. Motor City smirks as Musk pilots Tesla through crushing financial crises, spectacular quality control disasters and his own shocking public displays of bad behavior. But his pricey cars are catching on. Detroit is taking notice...

First there was Weight Watchers, then there was Noom, and now there’s…Wegovy? Bloomberg health reporter Emma Court helps us understand the evolution of dieting programs and where they’re going next. Later, Matthew Schnier of New York Magazine and The Cut walks us through his article “Life After Food,” which explores the latest wave of weight loss drugs, like Ozempic, that are sweeping through the nation’s elite.  Binge all episodes early and ad-free with Wondery+...

It's the 2010s and the weight-loss industry's battling intensifying headwinds. Calorie-counting smartphone apps are attracting millions of users and the diet backlash is getting louder by the day. As the pressure mounts, Weight Watchers realizes it needs to move with the times and reinvent itself...

It's the early 1990s and the diet boom is over. Weight Watchers is now a millstone around Heinz's neck, Jenny Craig's advance has stalled, and Nutri/System's bankrupt and broken. Faced with tanking sales, the diet giants home need new tricks to get people back on their weight-loss plans. And soon all three are homing in on the same answer – paying celebrities big bucks to convince the public that they're just a diet away from happiness...

It's 1983 and civil war's broken out within Nutri/System. But while CEO Harold Katz fights his franchisees, his former colleague Jenny Craig has grand designs on Australia. Craig wants to use Australia as a staging post on the way to becoming a U.S. heavyweight, but first she's got to convince women Down Under to diet like Americans. And that's going to be anything but easy. This episode was originally released as a Wondery+ exclusive Binge all episodes early and ad-free with Wondery+...

We're celebrating the five-year anniversary of Business Wars with a special episode that takes you behind the scenes. We'll delve into how we chose our host and how the first season got off the ground (time code: 1:19). Then we'll explore how we bring the story to life with sound (time code: 17:26). And comedian Josh Gondelman will give David Brown a bit of a grilling (time code: 32:45). Binge all episodes early and ad-free with Wondery+...

It's 1961 and in a supermarket, housewife Jean Nidetch is about to get a shock that will send her on desperate quest to get thin. But when her new diet gets tough, she turns to friends for help and inadvertently starts what will become Weight Watchers. And as Weight Watchers rakes in big bucks from weight-loss, a street-tough Philadelphia businessman grabs his chance to become a millionaire...

We’re going behind the scenes of your favorite Disney animated movies with Andrew Millstein, former president of Disney Animation. He helped lead the company’s transition to 3D computer animation, working on some of Disney’s biggest hits of the 2010s — Frozen, Tangled, and Zootopia, to name a few. Later, Polygon reporter Petrana Radulovic dissects DreamWorks, whose edgy animated films have become cult classics. Petrana also shares what’s new in animation online and around the world...

It’s 2006 and with Pixar part of Disney, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter now face the task of fixing Disney Animation Studios. And they need to fix it fast, because DreamWorks is winning at the box office. But while they strive to turn Disney Animation from has-been to hero, Hollywood’s other big studios are gearing up to take a bite out of the animated movie pie and that’s only going to dial up the competitive pressure on DreamWorks and Disney-Pixar...

It’s the 2000s and Disney and Pixar are locked in a high-stakes game of chicken. Disney’s deal with Pixar is about to end and renewal talks are snarled up. The dream team that introduced the world to computer animated movies is careening towards divorce. And with neither Disney CEO Michael Eisner nor Pixar boss Steve Jobs willing to cede ground, DreamWorks boss Jeffrey Katzenberg is about to forget tradition and go all out to become Hollywood’s new animation champ...