The Boardroom Tapes

In summer 2006, Yahoo's CEO put a billion dollars in front of a 22-year-old Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg's own board wanted him to take it. This episode reconstructs the decision moment, the dissent inside and outside the boardroom, Yahoo's financial collapse in the years that followed, and a disciplined counterfactual grounded in Yahoo's own acquisition record.

In early 1999, Larry Page and Sergey Brin walked into Excite's offices willing to sell Google for less than a million dollars. CEO George Bell said no — not over price, but because Page demanded that Excite tear out its own search technology. This episode reconstructs that exact moment: who was in the room, why Bell refused, the one dissenter who tried to change his mind, what happened to Excite in the thirty months that followed, and whether Bell's decision actually stopped Google at all.

In September 2000, Netflix walked into Blockbuster HQ and offered to sell for $50 million. The CEO struggled not to laugh. Eleven years later, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. This episode reconstructs the boardroom moment — the decision, the dissent, the numbers, and the counterfactual.