Good Bad Billionaire

LeBron James was selling out basketball arenas while still in high school. At just 18, he said he was offered a $10 million cheque from Reebok - on the spot - if he agreed not to meet any other brands. It was a life-changing sum for a teenager living with his mum in the projects.

But LeBron turned it down. He was willing to hedge his bets.

He’s won four NBA championships, four Most Valuable Player titles, three Olympic golds, and s...

Investor Masayoshi Son became notorious for making huge bets on technology companies. He once lost 96% of his fortune, but he’s still a billionaire thanks to successes like Yahoo! and Alibaba. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng tell the tale of the billionaire who founded the conglomerate SoftBank and was once, very briefly, the richest person in the world. As the child of Korean immigrants in Japan, Son’s...

Telecoms magnate Strive Masiyiwa escaped kidnap to become Zimbabwe’s first billionaire.

BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng tell Masiyiwa’s story from a youth fleeing post-colonial conflict, through education in the UK, to enormous wealth delivering mobile phone and internet technology across Africa.

The podcast that tells tales of titans of technology, Wall Street moguls, pop stars, sporting legends, CEOs and e...

Former Marvel CEO & Chairman Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter brought Marvel back from the brink of ruin and helped launch the Marvel cinematic universe. He brought Iron Man, The Hulk and The Avengers to our screens, and arguably changed the future of cinema, with a fixation on franchises. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng delve into Ike Perlmutter’s backstory, from arriving in the US with only $250 in his pocket ...

Selena Gomez is one of the youngest newly minted billionaires, thanks to her Rare Beauty brand. But you likely know her from her Disney kid days on The Wizards of Waverly Place, award-winning turn in Only Murders in the Building, or as the chart-topping singer of Lose You to Love Me.

BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng take us back to Selena’s early days on Barney & Friends, through her meteoric rise to fam...

Orlando Bravo failed to become a tennis pro, but became richer than any tennis player in history by pivoting to the world of finance. He’s the first billionaire from Puerto Rico and earned his fortune with private equity investments in technology. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng tell the story of an investor who says that forgetting to buy diapers changed the whole way he does business. He provided aid ...

Vince McMahon made stars out of wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, John Cena and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. He turned professional wrestling into a $6.8 billion industry with his company World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Vince capitalised on cross-promotion and the spectacle of what he called "sports entertainment" to reach huge audiences before he stepped into the ring himself playing the character Mr. McMahon: a ruthless, bullying, se...

Minecraft is the most successful computer game ever. It's sold 300 million copies, built an active community of fans and there's now even a Minecraft movie. So how did one man - Markus Persson - create it all by himself, before selling it for billions?

BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng find out how a high school dropout, obsessed with Lego and gaming, became a computer game hero. The Swedish programmer, known...

By reinventing reality TV, John de Mol changed television history and made a billion dollars. He’s the father of Big Brother and the man behind The Voice, Deal or No Deal and Fear Factor. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng explain how the Dutch TV producer became a media tycoon, after using his showbiz connections to break into pirate radio, then TV. He went on to found one of the biggest production companies...

A blocked vacuum cleaner led to a billion-dollar idea for British inventor Sir James Dyson. After studying art, then reinventing the wheelbarrow, Dyson struck gold with his iconic bagless vacuum, but only after years of effort.

BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng take us back to the entrepreneur’s youth in post-War Norfolk and discover a childhood marked by tragedy. From his years as a jobless inventor, frustra...

Martha Stewart revolutionised home entertaining with her recipes, home decor and TV shows, becoming one of the world's most successful women in business. Known as the ultimate homemaker and the "original lifestyle influencer", she's also the USA’s first ever self-made female billionaire. But while the entrepreneur made her fortune as a domestic goddess, Martha Stewart is no trad wife. It took more than crafts and cookbooks to make ...

When Charles "Chuck" Feeney first appeared on the world's rich lists in the 1980s, he had built a billion-dollar business selling duty free goods to tourists. But he'd also given most of his money to charity. As Good Bad Billionaire takes a short break until March, Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng revisit the story of the billionaire who wasn't. Feeney's journey takes us from Depression-era New Jersey, through the high life of the Jet Ag...

A year after first being declared a billionaire, Taylor Swift’s rarely been out of the headlines or the charts. The pop superstar’s Eras tour finally came to an end, and she’s been continuing to break records. Good Bad Billionaire will be back with a new season in March, but until then, here’s a quick update on what Taylor’s been up to and another chance to hear a classic episode from the archives. Zing Tsjeng and Simon Jack uncove...

What do Airbnb, Facebook, Spotify, and LinkedIn all have in common? Peter Thiel. They made his fortune, but he’s since rejected Silicon Valley for being too "woke". He’s a contradictory character: a libertarian who made billions from big state surveillance; an intellectual who purports to hate politics, but who’s poured millions into political campaigns, including Donald Trump’s 2020 bid. Some call him a free-thinking genius, while...

The woman behind the brand that revolutionised the way the world shopped and dressed. Doris Fisher and her husband Don founded The Gap together and made basics cool – their pocket t-shirt was worn by both Mick Jagger at Live Aid and Marty McFly in Back to the Future, while Sharon Stone donned a $25 Gap black turtleneck for the Oscars. Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng follow Doris Fisher and The Gap’s rollercoaster story, from its birth i...

Carlos Slim Helú's financial might has led some people to nickname his native Mexico ‘Slimlandia’. He dominates the country’s businesses, from telecoms to construction. But how did a man whose hero happens to be the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan get to be the richest person in the world? Many have blamed his monopolist business empire for Mexico’s slow economic development. Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng tell the story of a baseball fan ...

Roman Abramovich was known as the "stealth oligarch" before he stepped into the limelight as Chelsea football club’s sugar daddy owner. The man loves a yacht: his largest cost $427m, and has bullet-proof windows and an escape submarine. Abramovich made his fortune from post-Soviet privatisation, aided by a man known as the “Godfather of the Kremlin”, Boris Berezovsky, and close ties to Vladimir Putin in the early years of his presi...

Mukesh Ambani caught the world’s attention when he forked out $600m on his son’s wedding, including a performance by Rihanna – but how did he become Asia’s richest person?

Mukesh grew his father’s polyester trading company, Reliance Industries, into a conglomerate. But when he died without a will, Mukesh had to fight his brother for control of the family business. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng follow Muk...

Metal man and football fan Patrice Motsepe rose out of post-apartheid South Africa to become the country’s first black billionaire. Under apartheid, Patrice had to get a special permit to study at an ‘whites-only’ university - the same that Nelson Mandela attended in the 1940s - becoming a lawyer before following the gold into the mines. When the racist regime finally crumbled, he benefited from Black Economic Empowerment initiativ...