Crash Course
Episodes
Introducing: Everybody's Business
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A smart and fun chat show about all things business. Hosted by award-winning business and economics journalists Max Chafkin (author of The Contrarian:...
Evolving Money: Building Bridges with Bitcoin (Sponsored Content)
26 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just as mobile banking revolutionized our relationship with our money and led to a plethora of new tools for management and investing, the proliferati...
Listen Now: Beak Capitalism from Odd Lots
24 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this limited series, Odd Lots explains some of the thorniest issues facing the US economy through the medium of … chicken. Chicken occupies a uni...
Taylor Swift vs. The World
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Taylor Swift embodies a rare cultural presence and moment – and she’s everywhere. She inhabits her presence (amid an unusual amount of glare) with...
Black Voters vs. The 2024 Election
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Joe Biden secured a victory in the Democratic primary in 2020 after Rep. Jim Clyburn threw his support, and that of his Black constituents in South Ca...
Latinos vs. The 2024 Election
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Latinos represent the US electorate’s second fastest-growing voting group, with about 36.2 million Latinos expected to vote in the 2024 presidential...
Biden, Trump, and a Presidency in Play
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The first act in the Republican Party’s presidential primary season, the Iowa caucuses, has come and gone. Other contests in New Hampshire, South Ca...
Putin vs. Ukraine’s Forgotten War
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In early 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a sprawling, brutal follow-up to his land-grab of Crimea in...
Our Year in Review
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been one year since Crash Course launched, and what a year it’s been! From Trump to Putin, Climate Change to Artificial Intelligence, SVB to ...
Conservatives vs. ESG
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Netzly is an Evangelical Christian trying to realize his values and stay true to his own beliefs while working in investing – and he personif...
Small Businesses vs. The Pandemic
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Remember the early days of COVID-19 lockdowns when, practically overnight, it seemed that every shop closed its doors? Do you remember how all of thos...
Trump vs. His First Big Fraud Verdict
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York is drawing to a close – testimony recently ended – and sometime in early 2024 a state judge will ru...
Introducing: Bloomberg News Now
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Bloomberg News Now is a comprehensive audio report on today's top stories. Listen for the latest news, whenever you want it, covering global business ...
Crime Trends vs. Statistics – and Reality
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After many years of reassuring declines, some crime rates, like homicides and violent assaults, soared nationwide during the Covid-19 pandemic. These ...
OpenAI vs. Sam Altman
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
OpenAI, which you may have heard a lot about lately, is the company that developed ChatGPT, a wildly popular AI bot which you most certainly have hear...
Artificial Intelligence vs. The Music Industry
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Digital disruption is knock knock knockin’ at the music industry’s door, 20 years after the MP3 and Napster made CD collections obsolete. Artifici...
Trump vs. Democracy
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Donald Trump’s political speeches of late are chock full of warnings about “the threat from within” posed by his myriad opponents – those he d...
Free Speech vs. Censorship
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Speech has probably never been freer in the world than it is today: Multiple venues – especially social media – allow people’s perspectives to t...
Introducing: Elon, Inc.
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At Bloomberg, we’re always talking about the biggest business stories, and no one is bigger than Elon Musk. In this new chat weekly show, host David...
China Takes on the World – and the US
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
China is home to 1.4 billion people (about 18% of the planet’s total population), it has the world’s second-largest economy, and its geographic fo...
The Race to Control the Arctic
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alaska has been an object of fascination, exploration, and exploitation for nearly two centuries, but its most inhospitable reaches – those that cre...
Israel vs. Hamas
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gaza is now a war zone. In the wake of Hamas’ recent grisly attack that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead and about another 200 taken hostage, Isra...
Polling vs. The 2024 Election
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Polling – the very inexact science that is the lifeblood of political analysis and guesswork – is very much with us. Built upon a series of querie...
The Promised Land vs. White Supremacy
06 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“We White Christians no longer represent the majority of Americans,” writes Robert P. Jones, a White Christian. “We are no longer capable of set...
Rupert Murdoch and Alternative Facts
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There are no such things as alternative facts. We can disagree about how to interpret facts, but there they remain. Stubborn things. When stubborn peo...
Party Politics vs. The 2024 Presidential Race
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Have voters, politicos, analysts, and the media focused before with such intensity on a presidential race in the US more than a year before the actual...
Nukes, Russia, and Our New Cold War
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since Vladimir Putin sent Russian tanks rolling into Ukraine in early 2022, assumptions about the possibility of war in the 21st Century have bee...
Elon and Zuck vs. Grown-Up Management
12 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Silicon Valley is the centerpiece of a very specific kind of bro culture – a culture that has had a certain winner-take-all mojo over the years, but...
Mother Nature vs. Life As We Know It
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Weather is fickle and climate-related catastrophes have become all too common – in the US and around the globe. Deadly, rain-induced flooding, inter...
The First GOP Debate vs. The Guy Who Wasn’t There
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Any time Tim O’Brien sees a Republican presidential candidate (other than Donald Trump) on television, he’s reminded that they and their party loo...
Barbie vs. The Men, and The Real World
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“Barbie,” the summer blockbuster about the world’s most famous doll, has a lot to say about the intersection of art, commerce, gender, identity,...
Donald Trump Owns the GOP - And Its Future
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. is now in the unprecedented position of having a man who has thus far been charged with 78 crimes being the clear front-runner for the Republ...
Kenya vs. Climate Change
08 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kenya is home to some of the planet’s most glorious – and most threatened – wildlife. Like everything else on Earth, the animals that once thriv...
Sports Gambling vs. Match Fixing
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Americans bet about $165 billion a year, but here’s something Tim O’Brien worries about: When there’s billions of dollars on the line, how likel...
Women vs. Wall Street
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Wall Street can be a minefield for any competitive or ambitious person seeking a rewarding career, a name for themselves, and handsome paydays. They q...
Chip Wars and The Most Important Company You’ve Never Heard Of
18 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Semiconductors allow for massive, accessible, and ubiquitous computing and they are such stuff as dreams are made on. They’re pivotal components of ...
Sam Bankman-Fried vs. the Crypto Grift
11 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Every generation produces a financier or businessperson who personifies how easy it can be to part fools from their money, part smart people from thei...
Winemaking vs. Mother Nature
04 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Winemaking may seem entirely glamorous but it’s really just another version of farming: It’s hard, unpredictable work, and farmers everywhere are ...
Britain vs. Brexit
27 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When British voters decided back in June 2016 to end their 43-year membership in the European Union, it seemed the most surreal political and economic...
What Happens When the Lights Go Out?
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We all take for granted that nifty little miracle that happens when we flip a switch on our walls or lamps – the lights go on. Electricity is a mode...
Presidential Crimes and United States vs. Donald Trump
13 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Former President Donald Trump will walk into a federal courtroom in Miami today and face criminal charges for the second time in as many months. The i...
Conservatives vs. ESG
06 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Netzly is an Evangelical Christian trying to realize his values and stay true to his own beliefs while working in investing – and he personif...
BuzzFeed and the Education of Ben Smith
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The media business has been home to experiments ever since the invention of paper. It’s hard to make money from those experiments, fuel the experime...
Sandy Hook and a Reckoning for Gunmakers
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Last year – ten years after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut – one of the country’s biggest gunmakers, Remington...
AI vs. Money Managers
16 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence has arrived courtesy of ChatGPT, the large language model software that already has more than 100 million users. ChatGPT’s d...
Introducing - Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Coming soon: When nerdy gamer Sam Bankman-Fried rocketed to fame as the world’s richest 29-year-old, he pledged to donate his billions to good cause...
Florida vs. Young Minds
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Name a flashpoint in the US culture wars – and then think about how it intersects with education – and you’re sure to find Florida. The state’...
Pity City vs. The Workplace
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Andi Owen, the CEO of MillerKnoll, recently went viral for telling employees not to ask about bonuses during a company-wide meeting, adding, “You ca...
The Supreme Court vs. Greed
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court justices get lucrative book deals, luxe travel junkets, and the freedom to invest in almost anything they want – all with limited ...
Fox News vs. The Big Lie
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Fox News – at least the part represented by the network’s powerhouse evening talk shows – is often an unfettered disinformation machine. It has ...
Trump vs. The Law
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg recently charged former president Donald Trump with crimes related to multiple acts of fraudulent bookkeeping....
Authoritarianism vs. Democracy
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Berlin is the epicenter of one of the most grotesque authoritarian moments in world history: the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, and all of ...
Silicon Valley Bank vs. the Fed
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine you couldn’t take another breath because oxygen disappeared. You gasp for air until your body shuts down. Money provides oxygen to our econo...
Putin’s Russia vs. Ukraine
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he intended to quickly subjugate the entire country. That, of course,...
Small Businesses vs. The Pandemic
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Remember the early days of COVID-19 lockdowns when, practically overnight, it seemed that every shop closed its doors? Do you remember how all of thos...
Artificial Intelligence vs. Humanity
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence, or “AI” – the foundation of decades of science fiction and movies – has gone mainstream. It’s here. ChatGPT, a chat...
Cryptocurrencies vs. Reality
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Winklevoss twins are known for walking away from Facebook with tens of millions in stock and other payments. More recently, they’re known for a ...
Oatly vs. Big Milk
21 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s hard for little companies to take on huge competitors – especially an industry like Big Milk, which has a longstanding grip on consumers’ d...
Warrior Cops vs. Responsible Policing
14 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
U.S. police officers shoot and kill more than 1,000 people annually. According to a Washington Post study, half of those people are White, but Blacks ...
Part 3: Tribal Casinos vs. Digital Sports Gambling
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Native Americans now run about half of the national gambling market – or about $40 billion in casino revenue – but the threat the digital boom pos...
Part 2: Sports Gambling vs. Match Fixing
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Americans bet about $165 billion a year, but here’s something Tim O’Brien worries about: When there’s billions of dollars on the line, how likel...
Inside the Digital Sports Betting Boom: Part 1
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If it hasn’t already, sports gambling is coming to your town, your living room, and your cell phone. Americans bet about $450 million on sports ever...
Donald Trump vs. the Republican Party
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Crash Course is all about disruption and Tim O’Brien can’t imagine a more disruptive politician than Donald Trump. After rolling down a Trump Towe...
Disney vs. the Battle of the Bobs
24 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine you’re Bob Iger. You relinquish Disney’s CEO suite in 2020 with a sterling legacy intact. Smart, game-changing acquisitions. A good cultur...
Covid-19 Vaccines vs. The Bottom Line
17 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tim O’Brien is not a scientist. But he is a user of Covid-19 vaccines. He thinks they’re miracles, and the single biggest reason the pandemic wasn...
Elon Musk vs. the Twitterverse
10 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twitter was a pivotal force in debates about information, disinformation, the media, celebrity, politics, and all sorts of other issues. Then along ca...
Introducing: Crash Course
03 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hosted by Bloomberg Opinion senior executive editor Tim O'Brien, Crash Course will bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic business and so...