Open Books

Episodes

  • 013
    Cars · 25 minute read

    The Car So Good It Killed Hudson

    In 1929 only Ford and Chevrolet sold more cars than Hudson and its Essex. In 1952 its Hornets won 27 of NASCAR's 34 races. Five decisions later, in 1957, the name was gone, and the merger that ended it created the company that bought Jeep.

    A long low black sedan on a show stand under a large HUDSON sign, with other makers signs behind it
  • 011
    Food · 8 minute read

    The Secret History of Heinz Ketchup

    In 1903 cheap American ketchup fermented in the bottle and was kept from spoiling with chemicals. Henry John Heinz sold a ketchup with no preservative, backed the 1906 pure food law, and in the year the President's own experts found the main preservative harmless in small doses, he advertised against it. He lost the science and won the market.

    A drawn girl in an apron flinches as a ketchup bottle bursts in her hands, beside a photographed Heinz ketchup bottle and the word PURE with a question mark
  • 010
    Antitrust · 8 minute read

    NASCAR Had to Approve His $28 Million. He Sued Anyway

    Michael Jordan's racing team refused NASCAR's take-it-or-leave-it charter contract and sued. NASCAR denied abusing its control of the sport, and the case settled on the ninth day of the trial.

    Michael Jordan in a red 23XI cap, sunglasses and a white zip top sits on his team's pit box at a race, watching the track
  • 009
    Lotteries · 10 minute read

    MIT Grads Bought 700,000 Lottery Tickets for One Draw

    On certain nights, a Massachusetts lottery game's $2 tickets won back at least $2.30 each, on average. Four betting teams, among them one run by two MIT graduates and one led by a former shopkeeper from Michigan, bet more than $40 million on it, and the people running the Lottery knew. The state's Inspector General found the buying legal, and the game a financial success for the Lottery.

    Two young men stand behind a shop counter buried in a heap of orange lottery slips, one printing tickets at a terminal
  • 008
    Monopoly · 14 minute read

    What Ticketmaster Didn't Want the Jury to See

    In April 2026 a New York jury found that Ticketmaster had overcharged concert fans $1.72 a ticket. The Justice Department, which brought the case, had settled with Live Nation and left in the trial's second week. Thirty-three states and Washington DC carried on alone with a lawyer who had eight days to prepare. Live Nation has asked for a new trial, and the judge has not ruled.

    Drawing of a parking attendant on a grass lot taking a bank note from a woman beside her car, a white canopy behind them
  • 005
    Prediction markets · 12 minute read

    He Helped Plan the Maduro Raid, Then Bet $32,538 on It

    Prosecutors say a Special Forces master sergeant bet on Polymarket that Nicolás Maduro would fall, hours before the raid he had helped plan. The charges are allegations; he has not been convicted.

    A soldier in uniform leans over a map table in a dim planning room while two others study a wall map
  • 004
    NFTs · 10 minute read

    He Stole $5.7 Million in One Night, Then Got Thanked

    A Yuga Labs executive took 23,155 NFTs out of strangers' wallets to save them from thieves exploiting the old permissions of a closed marketplace.

    A man sits at a desk facing three monitors in a quiet office as the first light of morning reaches the blind
  • 003
    Trading cards · 9 minute read

    The Armored Car Robber Who Sold the FBI a Pokémon Card

    A former armoured car robber printed his own grades onto genuine PSA labels, in a market where one point on a label could be worth nearly half a million dollars.

    A man lies on an inner tube and paddles away down a rain-swept wooded creek
  • 002
    Weight loss · 13 minute read

    Ozempic Didn't Kill Weight Watchers. It Might Save It.

    In one February, Weight Watchers borrowed $1.5 billion and paid $779 million of it to a single shareholder. The drug arrived nine years later.

    A coach sets out a circle of folding chairs in a hired hall before a meeting
  • 001
    Car washes · 10 minute read

    The Quiet Collapse of the American Car Wash Boom

    Driven Brands sold 382 car washes for $385 million. The rent that came with them was $812 million.

    Cars queue into an express car wash tunnel