Failure - the Podcast

Fintech intelligentsia light up when they hear about new payment processing platforms, sometimes referred to as "rails." It's an allusion to moving goods via railway with tracks, switches, sidings and all those other things grandpa used to reminisce about but that you've never actually seen in person — save for that one harrowing flight out of Midway Int'l in January 2015, when you sw...

Some things just take a long time.  The campaigning.  The lawsuits.  The voting.  The lawsuits.  The counting.  The lawsuits.  The re-counting.  The lawsuits.  The certifications.  The lawsuits.  It’s a process.  And, after all, nobody said democracy was easy.  In fact, had the 19th-century German statesman Otto von Bismarck h...

It certainly seemed that the team from Failure - the Podcast went into Covid-induced hibernation these past few months. We might say that we spent them on a promotional tour to shore up flagging subscriptions in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, with Joe Rogan putting the last few bricks into his “blue wall” of podcast fame in those hotly-contested markets — a wall, we will note, is rumored to have be...

Before starring as the criminal mastermind, Wo Fat, in the CBS television series Hawaii Five-O, Mark Dacascos emceed the Food Network hit, Iron Chef America. Though he probably never uttered the words himself, Dacascos will forever be associated with the iconic opening line “if memory serves me correctly …” that launched the Iron Chef brand into camp TV lore.

If memory serves us correctly, it was a sage podca...

Have you ever looked out over the Midwest farmlands while taking a cross country flight? Just another pretty view, you ask? The guests of today’s podcast think not.

Whether the swamp lands in our nation’s capital or a cornfield in the Midwest, a picture can be worth a whole lot. Sure, a satellite photo might give you some insight into the corruption that is Washington DC, but a cornfield from on high is the r...

It takes a lot to rile the team from Failure - the Podcast — especially, when they’re recording an episode. So much so that one wonders whether they spend more time listening to themselves than to their guests. (Yeah, we get it. It’s a process, and at Mark’s age, a slow ship to turn.)

But riled they were. In fact, Dave almost had a conniption arguing the benefits of angel investing over, what, equity crowdfun...

We were curious. Just what is a skeeter? In the midwest it’s slang for mosquito. Perhaps, everywhere. Wikipedia thinks so. It lists “skeeter” as one of the top off-book expressions for the little disease-carrying buggers. Regardless, nobody seems to like them. Nobody, except the birds and the bats. Fish and frogs, too —- though, the latter might not be with us much longer, if the chytrid fungus has its way. So, forget t...

Jennie Nigrosh’s epic failure on ABC’s “Shark Tank” in 2013 is the stuff of legends. The rising entrepreneur and founder/CEO of eco-friendly laundry-bag maker The Green Garmento got her legs cut out from under her during taping of the ABC reality show. Though she walked away without a penny from “the sharks,” her business took off. The Green Garmento, a multi-use alternative to plastic dry cleaning bags, is used by dry-...

This episode has nothing to do with Amy Cooper. In fact, it doesn’t mention any Karens or their victims. Amy’s dog was named Henry. He’s not in this podcast. Last we heard, he was back with the cocker spaniel rescue league. They are not mentioned in today’s episode, either. This episode has nothing to do with coronavirus. Nor, vaccines, anti-vaxxers or Betsy DeVos. In fact, although the episode was recorded at socially-...

So, let’s talk Internet. For sure, it had a beginning. Conventional wisdom says Al Gore gets the credit. The facts say otherwise — but who listens to them anymore. Haven’t you ever wondered how the Internet got started? The team from Failure - the Podcast hasn’t either. Given the number of times we repeat that old saw about Veep Gore, we really should, though. Our guest, for today’s travesty … er, episode ...

Abby Hoffman would not be pleased. The Vietnam War-era activist and author of the iconic work, Steal this Book, had values after all. So why might today’s episode of Failure - the Podcast have Hoffman rolling in his grave? Perhaps, it’s because Hoffman was anti-establishment, whereas our guest, Jason Kraus, is an investor and author of Prepare 4 VC. He is a capitalist. Worse yet — we’re channeling Hoffman, here — he’s a...