We go back to 1901 where JP Morgan buys Carnegie Steel for $480 million without spending a penny of his own money and creates the world's first billion dollar company. Then to the 60s, where a cockroach extermination company gets killed by a corporate cockroach. Then to Red Lobster, where a private equity firm sells the land under every restaurant for $1.5 billion, charges them rent on their own buildings, and forces them into a $20 bottomless shrimp deal that loses $11 million in a single quarter. The papers said competitive eaters killed it. They didn't.

Also: why there are no crazy inventors anymore, why Bluetooth is still rubbish in 2026, dentists as the new big pharma, French mustard crisps, and the Creature of Kelham.