#63 The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

The spot market for oil was surely one of the most lucrative ideas of the twentieth century. Back when Mark Rich first began to snatch away a part of the global oil trade from the mighty oil corporations, crude oil cost two dollars per barrel. In the summer t of two thousand eight, a barrel went for a record one hundred and forty dollars. Mark Rich's undertaking was revolutionary. And highly successful.

In the nineteen seventies, Rich was a handful w Rich and a handful of trusted partners single handedly managed to break the cartel of big oil. A cartel that dominated every aspect of the oil trade, from the well to the gas pump. They created the first fully functioning competitive market. They invented the spot market. Thanks to the oil trade, Rich, who came to the United States as a poor Jewish refugee boy.

became one of the world's richest and most powerful commodity traders. He had he advanced to become the undisputed king of oil. The high point of rich's power was soon followed by his fall from grace. A fall that cost the billionaire his reputation, his wife And his company.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript, segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

10 free credits is 10 episodes like this one a month. Episodes nobody has transcribed yet cost their length in hours, because we have to actually transcribe them.