The Enterprise guide to podcasts

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The Beginning

Your Wealth is a custom Enterprise briefing for people just like you: Executives, entrepreneurs and builders who know that time isn’t money, but that time and money are feedstock for the one thing that matters most in life: Your family, however you define it.

Once a month, in partnership with our friends at CIB Wealth, we’ll bring you a hand-picked selection of ideas, tips and inspirational stories that will help you make the most of your time, enhance our wealth, and build a better life with the people you love.

As always, we love hearing from readers. Send us story ideas, hints, tips or interview suggestions to editorial@enterprise.press.

Podcasts are finally starting to catch on

It only took 15 years but podcasts are finally beginning to catch on. The past two years have been something of a turning point for the podcast industry. The medium has existed in some form since the early years of the millennium but only recently has it made a decisive entrance into the mainstream.

The industry has changed a lot since 2005, when Apple first introduced more than 3k unpaid podcasts onto iTunes. As of January this year there were more than 850k podcasts (that’s around 30 mn episodes) listed on iTunes. Much of this growth has occurred in the past couple of years: Back in February 2018 there were around 500k active podcasts, meaning the number of podcasts has expanded by 70% in just 23 months. The expansion of the industry has been accompanied by a surge in listener growth. The number of weekly listeners in the US more than tripled to 62 mn between 2013 and 2019.

The rise of the celebrity podcast: Part of this growth can be put down to an influx of celebrities hopping on the podcasting bandwagon. Back in 2017, just 15% of the 20 most-downloaded podcasts on Apple featured celebrity hosts. One year later this had grown to 32%, with almost half of the top 25 new podcasts being celebrity-hosted.

All of this means that the industry is set to keep growing: As the number of podcasts continues to expand and the number of listeners grows, the commercial viability of the sector will only increase. Ad revenues in the US, which totaled USD 479 mn in 2018, are expected to surpass USD 1 bn by 2021 (pdf).

We couldn’t publish an issue about podcasts without a shameless plug: Of course, one of our favorite podcasts has to be Making It: The brand new Enterprise show that quizzes the CEOs and founders of some of Egypt’s most promising businesses on how they made it big. Mixing serious business talk with personal stories, Making It’s first eight-episode season is available via our website, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Why businesses can benefit tremendously from podcasting

Why should businesses care about podcasting? As a form of marketing, podcasts are an effective way to tell stories. Take Greene Financial and Insurance Services, an advisory firm that found podcasting a fun and inexpensive tool to attract more valuable clients. The company’s podcast, The Engineer of Finance, now has 106 episodes under its belt, tackling everything from consumer finance and business management to global trends that are moving the markets. According to company founder Ken Greene, the podcast has succeeded in attracting new clients from across the country, telling Forbes that “It might be one of the best things I’ve done marketing wise.” Simply put, podcasts can be a relatively inexpensive way of marketing your company to a rapidly expanding pool of listeners.

Podcasts we love: This American Life

This American Life: Finding humanity in the everyday. Ira Glass, the creator and host of This American Life podcast, could be described as the godfather of all podcasts, kickstarting the field in 1995. Glass started off on the radio, but tailored his show when the internet made on-demand audio possible. Glass always had a knack and a passion for one thing: Storytelling. Across almost 700 episodes, he tells stories to amaze, stories to drift by you on your morning commute, stories that come from as little as a soup can and as big as a cloned bull.

Your top 5 pieces of business and economic news in February

Your top 5 pieces of business and economic news in February:

The EGP reached new three-year highs against the greenback during the second week of February.
The Egyptian Competition Authority raised questions about two of Egypt’s largest ever M&As, forcing Saudi Telecom to submit an MTO for 100% of Vodafone Egypt and is considering an intervention to block merger talks between Cleopatra Hospitals and Alameda Healthcare.
Non-oil business activity sank to three-year lows in January amid falling demand and production.
The Egyptian economy grew at a 5.6% clip in 1H2019-2020.
Heliopolis for Housing and Development suspended plans to offer a 10% stake + management rights to private investors amid conflicting accounts of whether the expected bidders actually submitted offers.

Podcasts we love: The Knowledge Project

Collective wisdom, broken down into topics discussed by the wisest people: The Knowledge Project by Farnam Street is billed as a podcast that helps listeners “master the best of what other people have already figured out” by running thematic episodes with “knowledge experts” on each theme / subject area. The episodes don’t focus on any single topic or issue, which is exactly what makes it so appealing: This podcast has content that is as diverse as any person’s life is expected to be. There’s also something to be said about the fact that the podcast doesn’t abide by a certain structure or time limit — each episode is given the time and space it needs for the full conversation to be fleshed out. For example, one of our favorite episodes (Cracking the Code of Love with Dr. Sue Johnson) is over two hours long (but worth every minute), while another (Thinking in Algorithms with Ali Mossawi) runs just under 20 minutes. Just as there is a topic for everyone, there is also an episode length for every occasion.

Podcasts we love: Planet Money and How to Money

Planet Money: For those who hated economics growing up. Born out of a 2008 episode of This American Life that delved into the financial crisis, the biweekly show tackles a range of economic topics from land ownership in Barbuda and maximizing revenues from restaurants to how a mafia boss and a garbage boat introduced the world to recycling.

Another show that is almost equally as interesting is How to Money. The show features two friends talking about money the same way you would talk about it with your friends. The two usually dive into real-life applications of economics such as hacks to cut down your grocery bills, strategies to pay off your debt, and advice on what to do when markets decline.

Podcasts we love: Bill Burr’s Monday Morning podcast

Comedian Bill Burr is a dying breed. He’s just crossed the half century mark and is immovably stuck in his ways. Every Monday and Thursday he entertains you for an hour just rattling on about whatever’s on his mind. Occasionally, rarely, he’ll have a guest on, but usually it’s just him and a microphone. The format is basic: He’ll talk about whatever happened over the past few days, read advertising, then answer questions sent in by fans. His ability to draw humor out of the mundane, in riffs and rants, is unmatched. He’s irreverent, cranky, and refreshingly politically incorrect.

Podcasts we love: The Rewatchables

The darling of tech, culture and sport website The Ringer, the premise of TheRewatchables is simple and inspired. Podcast hosting veterans Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan bring on a guest, usually a film director, and they chat about that one movie they never tire of watching. The volume and range they’ve amassed in under a year is impressive. Whether it’s Quentin Tarantino selling you on Tony Scott’s train-off-the-tracks flick “Unstoppable,” a deep-dive analysis to find out if “Good Will Hunting” is the best Boston movie ever, or Aaron Sorkin singing the praises of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” there’s something for everyone.

Podcasts we love: Recode Decode

If you live and breathe tech, you probably already listen to Vox’s Recode Decode(or, at the very least, know its host: Prominent Silicon Valley journalist Kara Swisher). And if you’re not a tech aficionado, you should still be listening to Recode Decode, because of the way it uses themes, issues and developments in tech to unpack big ideas central to our social and political lives, business, media and — occasionally — humanity.

Through one-on-one interviews, Swisher poses tough questions to a host of tech movers and shakers, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and author Tim Ferriss. The discussions don’t merely delve into the technology itself; much of Swisher’s focus is on how the ethics of how we use it. This is where her particular brand of hard-hitting, often intense journalistic acuity comes into its own as she keeps pushing to discover the motivation powering many of tech’s biggest names. It makes for riveting listening.

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