Back in the 1970s, Venezuelans became famous for their glamorous one-day shopping trips to Miami. "Ta barato, dame dos," the saying went. "That's cheap. I'll take two." Nowadays, the bolivar has lost practically all its value. Max and Stacey are joined by David Papadopoulos to understand what exactly went wrong with the Venezuelan economy. How did the country go from being stable and wealthy to experiencing runaway inflation and rampant poverty? Papadopoulos traces it back to fluctuating oil prices, too much spending and the difficulty of adjusting to a new way of life.

Also, Deena Shanker sits down in the studio to discuss her new story on weight loss drugs and their impact on the food industry. To get with the times, some restaurant are offering up small, high-protein meals. But are they any good? The trio digs in to find out.

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Businessweek editor Brad Stone joins Max and Stacey to talk about what we could expect from the new year. Leaving such a banner year for odd stories in the rearview mirror, 2026 is bound to include a lot of surprises.

Will the imperial presidency continue or fizzle out? Will the AI bubble keep growing or pop? What economic indicators are worth watching? Is there a hot new office trend on the horizon? The agenda is packed.

In addition, Stacey attempts to predict the future using mad libs, and Max presents an updated feud ranking for the new year.

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How does one recap 2025? A herculean task by all accounts. In this episode, Max and Stacey collects the best and brightest in business podcasting to see if they can help make sense of yet another norm breaking year. Joining in the studio are Odd Lots' Tracy Alloway, Slate Money's Felix Salmon and Planet Money's Robert Smith. Together, the quintet covers a year full of feuds, CEO tweets, flubs, big personalities and, of course, numbers.

They also play a high stakes game called Who is Donal Trump Talking About?

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This week, we talk about two of the biggest economic stories of 2025: Buy Now Pay Later and $Trump.

First, Amanda Mull stops by to discuss BNPL: why its on the rise, how people use it, potential pitfalls and how it's different than just paying with a credit card.

Then, Zeke Faux goes through the implausible story of $Trump - the Donald Trump meme coin launched just a few days before the 2025 inauguration. Faux tells Max and Stacey how the Trump team made an estimated $350 million on the coin, while many investors lost money.

Also: tepid jobs numbers and new opportunities in sports for the older parts of the population.

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This week we take a look at Trump's latest AI gambit: letting Nvidia sell their AI chips to China. Will this move help feed AI's growth or is it just another step towards making the bubble all the more explosive when it pops? The Verge's Nilay Patel joins Max and Stacey to get to the bottom of this.

Also on this show, Lucas Shaw goes through the ins-and-outs of the complicated fight over Warner Bros. Will Netflix succeed in their bid for the storied media giant, or will it be Paramount with its attempt at a hostile takeover?

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We here at Everybody’s Business are big fans of our colleagues and friends over at Big Take, Bloomberg’s daily news podcast. So when they released an episode with our very own Max Chafkin, we can’t resist to share it. Please enjoy, and hop on over to subscribe to their feed if you like what you hear!
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Excel. If you work in corporate America, that word either inspires laser-focused productivity or pure dread. Over the last 40 years, the spreadsheet software has become synonymous with the best — and worst — of late-stage capitalism. It’s seeped into popular culture and, along the way, made Microsoft one of the world’s most valuable companies.But in a world of AI and new competition where Excel=Sum(39+1), can it stay on top? On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg’s Dina Bass and Businessweek’s Max Chafkin join host Sarah Holder to track the rise and challenges ahead for one of the most ubiquitous programs around.

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Live from the stage at our Dec. 4 event at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York, Ellen Huet joins Max and Stacey to talk about her recent story on chatbot delusion. As people’s lives get increasingly entangled with AI, cases of intense human-bot connections breaking up families, businesses, and even pushing people to question their own sanity is raising with an alarming rate. They also discuss Huet's recent book Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult.

Also, back in the studio, Max and Stacey take a look at puzzlingly positive Black Friday sales.

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To celebrate Black Friday, this week’s Everybody’s Business is all about two staples of this unofficial US holiday: commerce and football. First, New York Times’ Ken Belson sits down with Max and Stacey to discuss his new book Every Day Is Sunday: How Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, and Roger Goodell Turned the NFL into a Cultural & Economic Juggernaut. Belson explains how the National Football League has managed to grow into the most valuable sports league in the world and why the game is so perfectly suited for television.

Also paying a visit to the studio is Wirecutter’s Annemarie Conte. She breaks down how the popular site manages to dig out and organize such a barrage of deals, and previews what jaded consumers can expect this Black Friday, amid tariffs and trade wars.

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