The Story of Money

Every year, the Financial Times selects the most outstanding business book of the year. For 2023, the top pick is a book about failure. The FT’s senior business writer Andrew Hill sits down with the winner, Amy Edmondson, the author of Right Kind of Wrong and “the world’s most influential organisational psychologist”. Edmondson’s book explores the value in failure, what we can learn from it and wh...

For years, Riad Salameh was praised for his revolutionary financial policies as head of Lebanon’s central bank. But suddenly, the country plunged into an economic crisis. And Salameh left the central bank with a disgraced reputation and, investigators believe, a massive personal fortune. So what happened? The FT’s Middle East correspondent Raya Jalabi walks us through the storm of allegations Sala...

The UN climate conference COP28 is in full swing, and officials from around the world are discussing ways to combat climate change. The agenda includes questions around how to regulate a market that could soon take off — carbon credits. Right now, these credits serve as a way for private buyers, such as companies and individuals, to offset their emissions. But countries may be able to start using...

In 2007, when Dan Och took his hedge fund public, he was making a bet that his company would stand the test of time. More than 15 years, a bribery scandal, and a feud with his protégé later, things have not worked out as planned. The FT’s Ortenca Aliaj and Sujeet Indap go inside the saga that lost shareholders more than $10bn.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  For fur...

This week we’re revisiting an episode from earlier this year about the London Stock Exchange’s decline. The exchange once held the top spot in global financial markets, but that’s changed completely in recent years. The FT’s Harriet Agnew and Katie Martin explain how a yacht floating off the Canary Islands 30 years ago played a critical role in changing the stock market. Clips from CBS, Thames New...

Introducing Life and Art, from FT Weekend. It's a new twice-weekly culture podcast from the Financial Times. On Monday, we talk about life, and how to live a good one, in a one-on-one conversation that explores everything from food and travel to philosophy and creativity. On Friday, we talk about “art” – in a chat show! Three FT journalists come together to discuss a new cultural release across fi...

In its early days Citigroup styled itself as a “financial supermarket”, a one-stop shop for all kinds of banking services around the world. But that plan has backfired in recent years. Stepping up to the challenge of repairing the bank is chief executive Jane Fraser, who announced her restructuring plan in September. The FT’s US banking correspondent Stephen Gandel and US banking editor Joshua Fra...

 In a new series of Tech Tonic, FT journalists Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill look at the concerns around the rise of artificial intelligence. Will superintelligent AI bring existential risk, or a new renaissance? Would it be ethical to build conscious AI? How intelligent are these machines anyway? The new season of Tech Tonic from the Financial Times, drops mid-November. Presented by Ma...

In the US, nearly half a million people have gone on strike this year demanding better pay, working conditions and job security. With the FT’s US labour and equality correspondent Taylor Nicole Rogers, we’re zooming in on the strategies that three major labour movements have used in recent months to try and secure new contracts, and whether their efforts could signal a new era of power for un...

In October two US oil and gas giants announced massive deals: Chevron bought Hess, and ExxonMobil acquired Pioneer Natural Resources. These deals expand each company’s operations and secure their access to more oil for decades to come. But recent forecasts say global demand for fossil fuels will soon reach its peak. The FT’s Myles McCormick looks at why these companies are betting oil demand will...

In the 1990s, Microsoft was seen as a tech industry bully. Once viewed as combative and ruthless in the eyes of regulators, the company underwent an image makeover in the decades since. Now, the FT’s Richard Waters explains how Microsoft’s transformation pushed their $75bn acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard over the line earlier this month.  Clips from Activision Blizzard...

It has been more than two years since GameStop’s stock caught fire on social media, at one point rising 135% in one day. The new film Dumb Money chronicles how the GameStop saga played out. The FT’s Ethan Wu sits down with the movie’s writers, Rebecca Angelo and Lauren Schuker Blum, to get a behind-the-scenes look at everything that went into the film.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -...

This week, we have a bonus episode for you, live from the FT Due Diligence Forum in London. FT chief features writer Henry Mance sits down with author Michael Lewis to discuss his new book, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, an all-access account of Sam Bankman-Fried before his crypto exchange FTX collapsed. This conversation was recorded on October 11 2023.  - - - - - - - - -...

In its latest fight to curb the power of Big Tech, the US Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon. The regulator says the e-commerce giant has become such a big monopoly that its practices are hurting consumers and the third-party sellers that rely on its services. The FT’s San Francisco correspondent Camilla Hodgson explains what this case could mean for the company’s future. - - - - - - - - - -...

When Argentina’s president announced plans to nationalise an oil company in 2012, it was presented as a way to grow the country’s wealth. Eleven years on, a court in New York City decided that the country owes some of the oil company shareholders $16bn. The FT’s Joe Miller and Ciara Nugent explain why this has happened. And, we look at what this means for Argentina, as it grapples with skyrocketin...

This week, we’re revisiting an episode from earlier this year. Apple has spent two decades and billions of dollars building a massive supply chain for its products. At the centre of that operation is China. But as Beijing has become more authoritarian and relations with the US sour, it has become harder for Apple to do business there. The company has been signalling recently that it will diversify...

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels and the electric vehicle market grows, competition to control a piece of a new source of energy is brewing. From rival carmakers to raw materials miners, different groups are racing to carve out their spots in the supply chain of one important technology: lithium-ion batteries. How will it shake out? The FT’s commodities correspondent Harry Dempsey e...

Subscribe now to the FT's Tech Tonic podcast: Some scientists believe that rapid advances in artificial intelligence may also hold the key to decoding animal sounds, allowing us to ‘translate’ them into human language. In a new season of Tech Tonic, FT innovation editor John Thornhill and series producer Persis Love explore how the same technology that powers ChatGPT is being applied to research i...

Critics argue Russia has a playbook for people who become its targets. On the final episode of the Russian Banker, we explore how Sergei Leontiev saw his fights with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a full-blown war in which seeking US asylum would become just another battle. But how does the US decide who deserves asylum? Note: This episode was updated to clarify that Russia is responsible for...

This week, we have a bonus episode for you, live from the FT Weekend Festival in London. Michela sat down with two experts on Arm, the British chip designer, to discuss its imminent initial public offering. Tim Bradshaw, the FT’s global tech correspondent and James Ashton, author of The Everything Blueprint , talk about where Arm stands as a company, and what its chances for growth are when it goe...

Sergei Leontiev says he was a political victim of the Putin regime. But when we tracked down other people who used to work at the bank they had a different story about Leontiev  —  and the extent of his ties to Alexei Navalny. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2015, Sergei Leontiev's life's work — a Russian banking business — was taken away from him overnight. Why were he and the bank being targeted? This is the first episode of The Russian Banker, a new three-part series from the Financial Times. The remaining episodes will air the following two Wednesdays on Behind the Money. Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com Hosted on Acast. See aca...

Who is Sergei Leontiev? To the US asylum system, he’s an exiled Russian banker who was persecuted by the state and forced to flee. To Russia, he’s said to be responsible for massive fraud. On The Russian Banker, a new series from the Financial Times, reporters Courtney Weaver and Stefania Palma try to uncover the truth, and find a story that tells us about Russia today and how people in the west b...

The collapse of FTX sent shockwaves through the crypto ecosystem last year. But it gave rival crypto exchange Binance, the biggest in the world, a chance to dominate the markets. The FT’s digital assets correspondent Scott Chipolina explains why Binance has struggled to capitalise on that moment.  Clips from CNBC, CBS News and Good Morning America - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -...

Share buybacks are a strategy companies use to return excess cash to their shareholders. But recently, they’ve exploded in popularity, and that’s sparked strong discussions inside financial circles. The FT’s US financial editor Brooke Masters explains why share buybacks have become so hotly debated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  For further reading: If companies are goi...