Vox And Epic Launch New Podcast About Dotcom Bubble

What goes up must come down. Or at least in the world of physics and economics. A new Vox podcast (in collaboration with Epic Little America) Go For Broke is a joint project that explores the dotcom bubble of 2000, in which the rise of venture capital money and stock market speculation, combined with the beginnings of Internet commerce, led to trillions of dollars created and lost — seemingly overnight. 

Telling the stories of people who bought into and contributed to the dotcom bubble, the series will thread a line between the meteoric rise of Netscape and the stunning fall of Pets.com to the ills that still plague the tech industry today.

 "Go For Broke examines historical moments of irrational confidence — when large groups of people get caught up in a moment that, because of their enthusiasm, expands into a bubble that eventually pops, observes podcast consultant George Witt. "The series details the causes of these expansions and their ensuing crashes, and the lessons we can learn from them."

 

The podcast's the first six-episode season will debut on October 8. The trailer is out and available to listen to here.

Go For Broke will be hosted by Julia Furlan, who is an independent podcasting consultant, podcast host and a professor at The New School. Most recently, she hosted a series of podcasts for NPR and before that she was the head of the BuzzFeed News PodSquad. She has a M.A. from NYU in Journalism and Latin American Studies and has written and produced audio for places like WNYC, Latino USA and Slate. All of her work is rooted in a belief in uplifting underrepresented voices.

Go For Broke podcast host Julia Furlan.

 
Vox has collaborated with Epic, which recently developed the new Apple TV Plus anthology series created by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon (the husband-wife duo behind “The Big Sick”), and by Lee Eisenberg.

Across eight episodes, the series, which debuts Friday on Apple TV Plus, traverses the country and the globe, each installment tracking a different immigrant’s journey to or within the United States. A young Indian boy runs his family’s motel in Utah after his parents are deported; a gay Syrian man flees from home and searches for safety; a Ugandan woman sells cookies after her original American dream fails.

The show, which has already been renewed for a second season, is based on true stories adapted from the profiles of various real-life immigrants featured in Epic magazine.

Go For Broke is especially timely now when the United States is suffering through a pandemic that has killed more than 210,000 people and hospitalized more than 400,000 Americans. Despite a high unemployment rate of over 10 percent and significant decrease in the GDP, the stock market continues, for the most part, to flourish seemingly unconnected to weakness in the main street economy.

The podcast will remind listeners that the stock market can indeed plummet with catastrophic consequences for investors, employees and the community.

"It's been nearly a generation since we saw the stock market buffeted by an asset bubble," says financial expert Jason Simmons. "This podcast can be a wake up call for millennials and Gen Z people that irrational exuberance in the pursuit of money can often lead to disaster."