Empire Builders: Then and Now

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What if one wrong turn started World War One? What if one man — alone in a submarine, running out of oxygen — was the only thing standing between the world and nuclear war? These are the stories history forgot to simplify. Empire Builders: Then and Now goes deeper than the textbook — into the decisions, the leaders, and the human beings who changed the world. D-Day. Pearl Harbor. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Somme. Apollo. Two hosts. A historian and an analyst. Genuine disagreements. No easy answers. New episode every week.

Episodes

  1. 6d ago

    The Treaty of Versailles — The Peace That Made the Next War Inevitable

    June 28th, 1919. Exactly five years to the day since the assassination in Sarajevo. The war is over. Twenty million dead. Four empires gone. And in the most opulent room in Europe, a man who can barely hold a pen is about to sign a document he knows is wrong. Woodrow Wilson came to Paris promising a new kind of peace. No punishment. No humiliation. A League of Nations that would make war obsolete. Crowds wept in the streets when he arrived. They called him the savior of the world. That was six months ago. This week we get into the room where the peace actually gets made. Clemenceau — who has watched Germany invade France twice in his lifetime and is not interested in Wilson's idealism. Keynes — the economist who does the math and resigns in protest. And the moment Churchill calls the most shocking of the entire war, when he asks where the strategic reserve is and gets an answer nobody expected. The man who won the war predicts the sequel before the ink is dry. He's off by less than a year. Empire Builders: Then and Now. The stories history forgot to simplify.

  2. Aug 18

    Episode #9: The Somme — The Day 57,000 Men Fell Before Breakfast

    July 1st, 1916. The British artillery has been firing for seven days straight. One and a half million shells. The plan is simple — by the time the infantry goes over the top, the wire will be cut, the guns will be gone, and the men can walk across no man's land. Walk. Not run. Walk. The wire is not cut. By the end of that single morning, 57,470 British casualties. Almost 20,000 dead. The worst day in the history of the British Army. And General Haig's diary entry that evening reads — the day went well for England and France. Just me today. No co-host. Because some stories need one voice, a little quiet, and the space to actually feel what happened. We talk about Haig — the wrong kind of intelligent. The 801 men of the Newfoundland Regiment and the 68 who answered roll call the next morning. The towns in England still mourning a hundred years later. The poet who spent two years trying to make people back home understand what the men in those trenches already knew. And the gap — between the people making decisions and the people paying for them — that is the real story of the Somme. Empire Builders: Then and Now. The stories history forgot to simplify.

  3. Aug 11

    Episode 8: The Assassination at Sarajevo — The 37 Days That Ended the Old World

    What if one wrong turn started World War One? June 28th 1914. Sarajevo. An assassin fails, gives up, and stops for a sandwich. Then history parks five feet away from him. What follows is 37 days of ultimatums, blank cheques, and military machines that nobody could stop — ending in a war that killed twenty million people and destroyed four empires. In this episode we go inside the decision that nobody made and the catastrophe that nobody wanted. The blank cheque that made war likely. The trains that couldn't be stopped. And the leaders who built a machine they couldn't turn off. Empire Builders: Then and Now. The stories history forgot to simplify.

  4. Aug 5

    Episode #7- Pearl Harbor — The Day America Entered World War II

    On the morning of December 7, 1941, the world changed forever. In a meticulously planned surprise attack, Japan struck the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, drawing America into World War II and setting the stage for one of history's greatest global conflicts. But how did the attack happen? Could it have been prevented? And why did a stunning tactical victory ultimately become a strategic disaster for Japan? In this episode of Empire Builders: Then and Now, we explore the intelligence failures, leadership decisions, and strategic lessons behind Pearl Harbor—and what they can teach us about preparation, risk, and the unintended consequences of bold decisions.

  5. Jul 29

    Episode #6- The Cuban Missile Crisis — 13 Days from Nuclear War

    October 16th, 1962. A photograph lands on the President's desk. Soviet nuclear missiles. In Cuba. Ninety miles from Florida. What follows is thirteen days that brought the world closer to nuclear annihilation than it has ever been — three separate moments where one decision, made by one person, stood between civilization and everything after it. One of those people was a submarine commander at the bottom of the Atlantic. Out of oxygen. Being shaken by explosions. Convinced the war had already started. Most people have never heard of him.

  6. Jul 21

    Episode #5- Henry Ford: The System That Built the Modern World

    In 1900, a 40-mile trip could eat your whole day. Then a farm kid obsessed with taking apart watches set out to build a car for everyone, not just the rich — and changed the world in the process. Will and Mike dig into Henry Ford's real story: the obsession that drove him, the years of failure investors thought would sink him, the assembly line that cut production time from 12 hours to 90 minutes, and the $5-a-day announcement that shocked America and helped build the middle class. Plus: a debate over whether inventors get too much credit, and what today's "Model T" might be. Empire Builders: Then and Now — the leaders who built the world, and what their playbooks still teach us.

  7. Jul 15

    Episode #4- Churchill in 1940: Leadership When Collapse Felt Inevitable

    Britain stood alone. France had fallen. Nazi Germany seemed unstoppable. In this episode of Empire Builders: Then & Now, we explore how Winston Churchill rallied a nation on the brink of defeat through vision, resilience, and unwavering leadership. Discover the pivotal decisions, iconic speeches, and strategic thinking that helped change the course of World War II—and the timeless lessons they offer for today's leaders facing uncertainty and impossible odds.

  8. Jul 1

    D-Day — The Most Complicated Invasion Ever Attempted

    D-Day wasn't just the largest amphibious invasion in history — it was one of the greatest logistics, leadership, and risk-management operations ever executed. In this episode, we unpack June 6, 1944 through both a historical and strategic lens: the planning, the deception, the human cost — and the decision-making lessons still studied in boardrooms today.

  9. Jun 24

    The Marshall Plan: The bet that rebuilt a continent

    After World War II, Europe was in ruins. Instead of walking away, the United States made one of the boldest strategic bets in modern history: invest billions to rebuild an entire continent. In this episode, we explore how the Marshall Plan reshaped Europe, slowed Soviet influence, and became one of the greatest examples of long-term thinking ever executed. Was it generosity, strategy, or both? More importantly, what can leaders, businesses, and organizations today learn from it? History isn't just about the past—it's a playbook for the future.

  10. Jun 16

    The Manhattan Project: The Ultimate Government Startup

    The Manhattan Project wasn't just a race to build the atomic bomb—it was one of the greatest feats of leadership, innovation, and urgency in history. Join us as we explore the people, impossible decisions, and strategic lessons behind the secret program that changed the world forever

  • 10 Episodes

About

What if one wrong turn started World War One? What if one man — alone in a submarine, running out of oxygen — was the only thing standing between the world and nuclear war? These are the stories history forgot to simplify. Empire Builders: Then and Now goes deeper than the textbook — into the decisions, the leaders, and the human beings who changed the world. D-Day. Pearl Harbor. The Cuban Missile Crisis. The Somme. Apollo. Two hosts. A historian and an analyst. Genuine disagreements. No easy answers. New episode every week.

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