Human Capital

Joshua Lee
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  • Entrepreneurship

Every business has a story worth telling. Human Capital explores how the world's most interesting businesses, brands and organisations started, grew and became what they are today. Discover the people, decisions and stories behind their success.

Episodes

  1. Oct 25

    Shangri-La: From Rice Trader To Hotel Empire

    This is the story of Robert Kuok and how he built Shangri-La. We cover: How a stock of cigarette paper, bought with worthless war money, gave his family its first capitalThe Thai banker who backed him when the British banks wouldn’tThe sugar refinery deal, and how he used the government to rewrite a bad contractThe 1963 trade that nearly wiped him out, until a hurricane in the Caribbean saved himHow he got into hotels with a 10 percent stake in land meant for terrace houses, then took control in a stock market crashWhy he went into China before almost anyone else, and stayed when others ran

  2. Oct 19

    De Beers Playbook: Control the Supply

    How De Beers Took Over the World’s Diamonds “A diamond is forever.” “Two months’ salary.” The four Cs. None of it is tradition. It all came out of one company. In this episode we go back to the start of De Beers. It begins with a sickly vicar’s son from Hertfordshire who was shipped off to South Africa at 17. Twenty years later he controlled 90% of the world’s diamonds. We break down how Cecil Rhodes went from pumping water out of flooded mines to writing the biggest cheque in history. Then we cover how a German clerk on £500 a year, Ernest Oppenheimer, quietly took the company over and turned it into the most powerful monopoly the world has seen. In this episode: How the diamond rush worked, and why you could only dig straight downThe pump deal that taught Rhodes “every man has his price”Using shares as money to buy up a whole mineLosing an auction on purpose to win a rival’s companyThe £5.3 million cheque, worth about £890 million todayHow Oppenheimer built a business with no cash of his ownSurrounding De Beers: the supply, the sales, then the boardroomSurviving the Great Depression without cutting pricesThe marketing that turned a stone into a symbol of lovePlus Rhodes’s 11 rules for building an empire, and why lab-grown diamonds now threaten the one thing De Beers was built on. If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show and leave a review. It really helps.

  • 2 Episodes

About

Every business has a story worth telling. Human Capital explores how the world's most interesting businesses, brands and organisations started, grew and became what they are today. Discover the people, decisions and stories behind their success.

Information

  • Creator
    Joshua Lee
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Human Capital