Unicorn Graveyard: Tech's Rises & Falls

Talking Labs

Tech's greatest rises and falls: startups that burned, formats that lost, inventions buried by their own makers. Reed Ashford narrates. New episodes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Episodes are produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. A Talking Labs production.

Episodes

  1. Oct 2

    DeLorean: The Car, the Factory and the Failed Promise

    DeLorean's stainless-steel sports car reached production in Northern Ireland, but its manufacturer entered receivership about a year later. We trace the public funding, the Dunmurry workforce, the car's design and the audit trail, then separate the later drug-trial acquittal and Back to the Future fame from the business failure that came first. Sources checked 2 October 2026: Northern Ireland Audit Office: https://www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/files/niauditoffice/media-files/de_lorean_-_the_recovery_of_public_funds.pdf UK Parliament, 1978 debate: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1978/nov/09/de-lorean-motor-company DeLorean Museum: https://www.deloreanmuseum.org/news Motor Trend, May 1981: https://www.deloreantech.com/mags/motortrendmay1981.pdf Washington Post, 1984 trial result: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/08/17/delorean-acquitted-of-all-eight-charges-in-drug-scheme-trial/3a2de886-9c81-468f-80ff-386f4e527201/ This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. This episode includes AI-generated content.

  2. Sep 29

    Quibi: $1.75 Billion for Ten-Minute TV

    Quibi launched in April 2020 with short premium shows, phone-first viewing and a reported $1.75 billion raised. Six months later, its founders chose to wind down the standalone service. Unicorn Graveyard follows the product bet, the pandemic launch, and the later move of its programming to Roku. The fundraising total is not a loss figure; the episode separates documented events from possible causes. Next: DeLorean. This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. This episode includes AI-generated content.

  3. Sep 27

    Pets.com: The Price of Being Known

    Pets.com built a famous brand, a broad online catalogue and real warehouses. Its own filings show growing sales alongside a negative gross margin, followed by a failed search for new capital or a buyer. Unicorn Graveyard follows the sock puppet, the shipping costs and the short path from IPO to liquidation. This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. This episode includes AI-generated content.

  4. Sep 22

    The Morris Worm, 1988: When the Early Internet Stalled

    On 2 November 1988, a self-spreading program written by Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris reached computers across the early internet. We trace the reinfection rule that overloaded systems, the administrators who coordinated a repair, the court's findings on unauthorised access, and the response teams formed afterward. Reach figures are estimates; the evidence does not establish that Morris intended the crashes. Next: Pets.com and the costs behind its famous mascot. This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. This episode includes AI-generated content.

  5. Sep 16

    Betamax vs VHS: How the Better Picture Lost

    Betamax had picture quality and an iconic inventor. VHS built the larger ecosystem. Follow recording-time trade-offs, licensing, rentals, network effects and the legal ruling that remade home video. This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. This episode includes AI-generated content.

  6. Sep 12

    Theranos, Part 1: The Voice

    Part one of two. A founder in a black turtleneck promised a full panel of blood tests from a single fingerprick, on a box the size of a desktop printer, in a pharmacy near you. Reed Ashford on why the pitch was genuinely excellent, why the physics of small-volume testing says no, what was actually running in the company's laboratory, and how a board of former secretaries of state with no clinical expertise functioned as diligence that nobody had performed. Plus the regulatory gap the whole company lived inside, and the two junior scientists who worked out the truth from the quality-control bench. Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors and Ramesh Balwani was convicted on all counts; those are court record. Reports that her speaking voice was adopted are flagged as recollection, not a finding of any court. Part two covers the trial. This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review.

  • 6 Episodes

About

Tech's greatest rises and falls: startups that burned, formats that lost, inventions buried by their own makers. Reed Ashford narrates. New episodes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Episodes are produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review. A Talking Labs production.

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