Good Bad Billionaire BBC Podcasts

There are now even more billionaires. How did the super-rich become so rich? Good, Bad Billionaire is coming back with season 2 to find out. New episodes released on Mondays from 29 July.
We’ll discover more about the lives of the people on the planet who have the most money, then Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng will decide if they think they are good, bad, or just another billionaire. Learn how the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Peter Jackson, Doris Fisher and George Soros came to join the billionaires' club. Explore how Tiger Woods went from a child golfing prodigy to the world’s highest paid athlete, how a communist mime artist became the boss of fashion house Prada, and how the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought an English football club. Find out how Mukesh Ambani became Asia’s richest person, and how Patrice Motsepe became the first black billionaire in a post-apartheid South Africa. Plus, hear about some of the biggest names behind the technology shaping our world – the founders of TikTok, Google, ChatGPT, Alibaba and Bumble.
It’s a global journey through huge amounts of cash - on our list are billionaires in the US, the UK, Italy, Mexico, China, New Zealand, India, South Africa Nigeria, and elsewhere around the world.
Join Simon Jack, business editor for BBC News, and journalist, author and podcaster Zing Tsjeng as Good, Bad Billionaire unravels tales of fortune, power, ambition and moral responsibility, and invites you to make up your own mind: are they good, bad, or just another billionaire?

How one social media site birthed an empire. The story of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.
BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng take us from his childhood to joining the billionaires club soon after, at just 23, then on to his current status as one of the four richest people on the planet. He dropped out of Harvard to mix with other founders in Silicon Valley and still retains absolute control over his company, now called Meta.
From buying up Instagram and WhatsApp, getting investments from Peter Thiel and Bill Gates, they trace Zuckerberg's spectacular rise. Plus discover what was true and what was made up in David Fincher's film about him, The Social Network.

From The Exorcist to owning 400 companies, how music sent the Virgin entrepreneur into space. He's an island owning adventurer, but he's incredibly shy. He's the record label owner who doesn't even like music. Journalist Zing Tsjeng and BBC business editor Simon Jack try to understand a man of many paradoxes and ask whether he's good, bad, or just another billionaire?

He's spent a billion on Manchester United, but how did Jim Ratcliffe become a billionaire?
BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng learn how the Premier League club's new co-owner got rich via some daring investments and impressive acquisitions. They learn how he made his name in petrochemicals before founding one of the industry's biggest conglomerates.
Simon and Zing also discover that he mortgaged his own house to fund a business, as well as uncovering his investments in cycling, sailing and, of course, football. Then they decide if he's good, bad, or just another billionaire.

How the Formula One supremo won control of a sport, and how it all came crashing down. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng trace Bernie Ecclestone's unique rise and fall. From modest beginnings selling second hand cars, he built Formula One into a one man empire worth billions. How did he go from the very top to tax fraud, and is good, bad, or just another billionaire?

How mining magnate Gina Rinehart amassed a $30 billion fortune to become Australia's richest person and earn a reputation for being highly litigious.
BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng uncover a woman who has taken legal action against her father's widow, her own biographer and the biggest mining company in the world, and who has been sued by her own children, twice.
They follow Rinehart's story from her outspoken father's discovery of huge deposits of iron ore in Western Australia to inheriting the business and turning it into a multi-billion dollar powerhouse. It's a story that takes in secessionist politics, indigenous land rights and lots and lots of family feuds.