Behind the Scenes | 5

0:07Seven years ago, me and some very talented colleagues of mine set out on a journey without an obvious destination. With a lot of ideas and not a lot of time, we started a little podcast called Business Wars. In those five years, we've explored rivalries from the worlds of fast food and video games, the tumultuous automobile industry, the cutting edge of computer technology, and life-saving vaccines that changed the course of a global pandemic. Hopefully, you've learned a little more about the things you buy and the men and women who bring them to you. But today, we wanted to take a moment to lift the curtain to explore how we make our show and why we love it so much.

0:48We hope you'll stick around as we take you behind the scenes of Business Wars. So, you just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. See, when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. Indeed's Sponsored Jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With Sponsored Jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And that makes a huge difference. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45 % more applications than non-sponsored jobs.

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3:20From Wondery, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. You know, I smile every single time I get to say that. On our show, we like to take you into the origin story of the companies we cover. Well, now we wanted to bring you in on our own origin story. Tell the truth, I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for my guest, producer Karen Lowe. Karen helped develop the original concept for Business Wars, and she's been here since day one. Karen, welcome to Business Wars. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. You know, after all these years, you're finally on the show. So I never asked you this, but why did you pick me to host Business Wars?

4:01I think that sort of came out of the blue when you called me up that day. Well, I was working with Wondery to develop Business Wars, and we wanted to create a show that wasn't just another peek inside a corner office with CEOs giving us their words of wisdom or talking heads. We wanted a show that told the real drama behind some of these business rivalries, the characters that drove these businesses and the strategies and the things they did to take each other down or push each other out of the way. And I wanted a storyteller. I wanted a host who could make that come alive. So after working with you on Marketplace for a few years, I knew that you weren't just a host, you were a storyteller.

4:42So there was really only one choice for me, and that was you. It was so much fun to be a part of that program at the time, and you were such a big part of that. When you called up, I thought, and this is true, I thought maybe this was a chance to work with you again on a one-off, that we'd be doing like maybe, you know, a show. I didn't even realize that you had in mind like a podcast series. That's how clueless I was. And so that it was like, okay, so can we, we'll talk next week and we'll be, it's like, what, really? And off we went. Well, let's back up just a second, because when I called you, you didn't actually say yes right away.

5:22Because in addition to your law degree, you were in the process of writing your dissertation to get a PhD in journalism. Like, who does that, really? But anyway, you, of course, were doing this. You didn't use your law degree. I'm pretty sure you're not using your PhD. But anyway, you had to get it. And you had a deadline to write your dissertation. And you said you couldn't do it. And so I was kind of bummed about it. And I kind of sat with it for a minute. And then I called you back and I said, when is your dissertation due? And you told me, and I think it was like mid-April or something. Yeah, that's right.

5:56That's right. Yeah. And so I said, okay, let's start after your dissertation is due. And so we did. That's so funny. It's all coming back to me now. It's amazing. Well, it's been one wonderful ride. That's for absolute sure. And I got to tell you, I am so glad that I said yes. I mean, looking back on it, you know, you think about those moments in your life where like, you know, the sliding doors thing. That was one of those moments, you know, where I felt like, wow, what if I had just like, you know, walked away from it? I mean, you know, once upon a time when I was working on my studies, I actually wrote a paper that was accepted at a conference on how podcasts would never take off.

6:38So that shows you what I know, right? But in fact, Business Wars did just absolutely get picked up right from the get-go. And getting to work with you, Karen, I have to say, and all the other people who work on the show, has been maybe the biggest joy of it all. Because this really is that team where everyone is such a delight to work with. And they work so hard on it. There's almost like a passion without being corny about it, you know. There really is something special going on, and you got it started. Well, thank you. And I agree. It's the team that makes it special. It really is. And everyone brings a different strength to the show, and the show is the beneficiary of all that.

7:22So we had a concept. We had a host. We had a senior producer. We had a network. Karen, how did you land on Netflix versus Blockbuster as the first series? We put together a list of business stories. There were maybe 15, 20 business stories that we'd like to tell. And we knew coming out of the gate, it had to be really great if this was going to have legs. And so I was talking about it with my husband, Steve, who was working at Reuters at the time. And Netflix versus Blockbuster was on the list. And he reminded me, you know, Gina Keating, who used to work with him at Reuters, wrote a book on this.

8:00And I was like, oh, that's right. She did. So I called up Gina and I explained to her what we were doing. And lo and behold, she said, yeah, she'll do it. I'm like, whoa. OK, so we're going to have our first series. Gina Keating, are your ears burning right about now? Yes, they are. So, Gina, looking back, how did the process of writing that season about Netflix versus blockbuster compare to, say, writing the book about it? It was a whole lot faster, if you remember, and really intense. because I had no idea what I was doing. I was in graduate school at the time, and I thought, oh, this is going to be great.

8:42My purpose of going to graduate school was to try to actually learn how to write something besides journalism, which I've been doing for 20, 30 years. And I wanted to do more books. I wanted to do movies and things like that. So when she called me, I thought, oh, this will be perfect. I'll learn how to write a podcast. But I had no clue how to write for what we were going to do, which was sort of a dramatic, sort of old-fashioned radio show. She had to teach me the entire time, which I'm sure was incredibly irritating. When I look back at some of our emails and some of the script notes, I realized I was driving her crazy.

9:20And then you got edits from Karen and she tore everything apart. Ouch. Tell us about that process. What'd you learn about writing for a podcast? Well, when you write for a company like Reuters and it's about business and the people who are reading it are CEOs and they get extremely sensitive about everything that you write, you tend to be really exacting and you don't ever want to put anything into a story that you can't support. So you get a little manic and not really creative. So when she would have me try to imagine what a particular scene was like, if you remember the one that we did about the blockbuster people sending spies to stand outside of the Netflix hubs, I knew that that happened because the blockbuster people told me and the Netflix people told me.

10:12But if you remember, we actually had to like invent characters that would show up. I mean, you know, I didn't know anything about these people. So we invented a lot of stuff that we knew happened, but we had to actually illustrate it. And that was incredibly difficult for me. I just felt every time like the sweat pouring down my body, every time I had to do that. So she had to really to get after me to do that. And also I went into the weeds a lot because I spent two years writing that book and I had way too much knowledge about what happened. That's so funny because I'm imagining yourself as that journalist sort of moving into this new area and you're sort of at war with yourself and you're watching the Google Doc where Karen is doing the edits.

11:03You're almost like trying to get into her head, too, because that's part of the editing process, right? It seriously was like being in each other's head. And it was great because I've never experienced anything like watching what I consider her kind of like a professor correcting your work. And it's like simultaneously horrifying and also fascinating. And I understand the team wasn't easy on you, right? Why was that? I mean, we had to finish it. What was it, like eight weeks or something? Yeah, it was a pretty crazy turnaround time. I think it was like, yeah, two months, something like that. Yeah.

11:42And if you remember, I think you were already producing the first ones while we were still writing the last ones. But it was grueling the day that we finished it. I think it was February of 2018. And it was early in the morning. I don't even know why. I walked into my kitchen from my office where my boyfriend was having breakfast. And I looked at him and I said, I have no idea what I'm doing. And pretty soon the whole world is going to know that I don't know what I'm doing. It was such a scary feeling because it felt really out there. You know, it felt like old time radio. I used to love those programs when I was a kid, but I didn't know if anyone was going to go for that.

12:30I love how you're describing it as kind of old time radio, because, yeah, you're right. I mean, we were using a lot of the techniques that come out of that tradition and kind of reinventing it for modern listeners. So finally, the series airs. You know, it's off of the paper and into the earphones. What did you think, Gina? At first, I was scared to listen to it because I didn't know what it was going to sound like. And I feel that way about almost everything that I write. It took me years to actually read my book. Um, but then people started calling me and emailing me and a lot of people were calling and emailing me and the blockbuster guys who were in the book were calling me and talking about how great it was.

13:17And the fact that they were getting tons of calls from people talking about the show and the story. And they were so happy because finally there was some understanding of what really happened in their battle with Netflix. So, of course, that made me really curious about how it turned out. And then I started listening to it, and I was shocked and really pleased at how you were able to make all those different characters come to life. I couldn't even believe it. Well, a big part of that, I have to say, I have to say, what is the sound design? And we're going to talk about that in a few minutes, I think.

13:54I was also struck by the same things, Gina. And I remember playing it for that first episode, Blockbuster vs. Netflix, for our kids on a long drive to West Texas. And the kids were quiet and listening closely. And I thought, oh, boy, this is going to do well. I mean, this is really cool. We were all listening to this. And I could see them looking out the window thinking about what was being said and all the things that were happening. And then when it was over, they said, what happened next? Let's go to number two. And I don't think it had been released yet, but in any event. Yeah, I kind of had a sense that it was special.

14:31This was a great experience for me because I finished grad school and it gave me the courage to think, well, you know what? I can write a movie. And I did. After we did Business Wars, I really wanted people to see the people who we were talking about because they're very special. If it hadn't been for Karen, I've never have had the guts to do it. So thank you, Karen. We were both crazy. We had no idea what we were getting into. So it turned out well. And the funny thing about it was when I look back at some of the emails, I mean, you're a very straightforward person. But at the time, I don't think that I realized how stressed you were about this thing because I just, I kind of was like, well, this is kind of interesting and fun.

15:25Blunt. Was I too blunt? No, it's, it's actually kind of funny when we read, you know, when I read the emails now. And the thing that was kind of amazing is, I mean, like, when are we ever going to have the founder of a company weighing in every single day on the way that we wrote the scripts? And I felt very well taken care of. David, do you remember that first season? Oh, man. Yeah, I remember that first season, too. And I have to tell you, Karen, if you listen back to it, that first season is really quite different from what Business Wars has sort of evolved to today. How would you describe the changes and how do you think that helped the series as the years went by?

16:09Right. Well, we went through the most iconic battles, the Coke versus Pepsi battles and those kind of things. But as business wars became more successful, I think we had more resources. We started hiring more people. Since the kinds of big rivalries were diminishing, we had to find other kinds of business stories and different ways to tell those stories, which took us, I think, from the public arena where people saw it play out to much more behind the scenes, where we got into the characters themselves inside the company and the struggles maybe they had within the organization before they even battled their rivals kind of thing.

16:50When we decided to go that route, it took us down different avenues of less obvious kind of business stories. I think, too, the way that, as you described, we started to sort of, as a team, started rethinking, okay, what does that mean, the Business Wars concept? And is it always the sort of Nike versus Adidas or Coke versus Pepsi or the obvious ones, you know, because there are so many other things that are happening out there. So I think that in a way it gave us more latitude and brought in more talent and more ideas. And so that's, I think, been reflected in the show. And I'm so grateful that you are still a part of all of this, Karen, because this has just been a marvelous experience for me and I think for a lot of listeners.

17:39Stay tuned as we speak to writer Tristan Donovan and sound designer Kyle Randall, who'll tell us how they take an episode from humble start to thrilling finish.

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20:01Hey, welcome back to Business Wars. One of our most popular fan questions we've received over the years is simply, how do you do it? How does a Business Wars story go from conception to reality? Well, as with most things, it starts with the word. Writer Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ant Media has been with our show since the very early days, crafting unforgettable stories with countless memorable moments. We sat down with Tristan to find out how he created some of the most harrowing scenes in Business Wars history, including the opening moments of the North Face versus Patagonia. Patagonia and North Face was a really different kind of flavor of competition compared to what Business Wars usually does.

20:47And that made it a really compelling series to do. So, you know, Coke versus Pepsi is very direct competition, for example. But Patagonia North Face, they were almost like brothers in a way. They kind of came from the same place. The founders knew each other and were friends. They shared the same kind of values. It was almost like this brotherly competition where they're trying to kind of outdo each other slightly, kind of, you know, who can push their ideals the furthest. So it wasn't your natural kind of market share clash, big fight of the titans kind of thing. It was almost this we're friends, but we kind of want to be the greatest of the two.

21:22So it was really interesting from that point of view. Another really interesting thing about Patagonia and the North Face is they really were hobby companies, you know, little pocket money businesses for two climbers who just wanted money to spend climbing. You know, they do their business and then shut it down for a few months to go off climbing. and it turned into these global mega brands, not just because of their passion, but also because of wider trends in society. So it's kind of a very interesting model. It wasn't someone sitting down going, oh, I'm going to make a billion dollar company called North Face.

21:54It really didn't start like that. The opening scene of a Business Wars episode, the cold open, as we call it, is crucial storytelling real estate. To kick off North Face versus Patagonia, Tristan crafted a scene exploring the genesis of both companies. The North Face founder, Doug Tompkins, and Patagonia founder, Yvonne Chouinard, are climbing the North Face of Mount Temple in the Canadian Rockies. But back in 1962, they're just climbing buddies, not business rivals. The opening scene of any Business Wars episode, and especially the first one of the season, is about persuading people to invest their time in the show.

22:31You know, we have to capture listeners and prove to them that we're worth spending their time on. and there are three main things we kind of want out of a cold open. We want to hint or show the business competition that's central to the story. We want to introduce the main characters and that could be people or it could be the companies that the show's about. But we also kind of want action, some kind of drama with some stakes and ideally sound effect possibilities. So with North Face Patagonia, when choosing this opening scene for the series, I knew episode one would really be telling about the founding of the two companies and how they came across the ideals they were founded upon.

23:13I kind of knew the ending had to be Yvonne Chouinard and Doug Tompkins going on their trip to Patagonia. And that meant we had to have a scene that predated that. I chose this scene to start North Face vs Patagonia because I wanted something with a lot of action and the climb up Mount Temple had it all. You had kind of life-bettering peril. You had a storm coming in, rocks falling down, thunder in the distance. So there was immediate danger, lots of sound effect potential. But for the story kind of side of it, you had the two founders of the company. You saw their relationship and how they were friends and what drove them, you know, the desire to climb these impossible peaks.

23:54So this was a great way to introduce the two lead characters, a great way to have an engaging, dramatic opening with the Challenger climbing Mount Temple, and also a way to foreshadow kind of the competition that would be coming between their companies. Writer Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ant Media. For a business war story to truly come alive, those stirring words have to be molded into thundering immersive audio. A business war scene needs to be engrossing. And to do that, it's not enough to just drop sound effects in and call it a day. The design is dense, filled with small touches that create an environment that puts you in the center of the action.

24:35Well, our sound designer is Kyle Randall. He is a magician, a wizard. For the North Face versus Patagonia, Kyle had to dramatize a life or death moment that would lead to the creation of the two companies duking it out for outdoor apparel supremacy. Two men clinging to the side of a mountain, one slip up and it could all be over. To realize this gripping scene, Kyle used all the tools at his disposal to make it feel like you, too, are clinging to the side of a treacherous freezing mountain. We asked Kyle to break down this moment piece by piece to show how the magic of business wars is conjured up.

25:12I found Tristan's writing at the beginning of this episode super compelling, in large part because of the tone that he sets. It's so lonely and desolate up at this beautiful high-altitude location. Here's a bit of what that script sounded like before any sound and music were added. It's 1962, and in the Canadian Rockies, American climbers Yvonne Chouinard and Doug Tompkins are taking on a formidable challenge. The north face of Mount Temple. At 11 ,600 feet, the mountain towers over Lake Louise. So my thinking when I started in on the sound design was, how can I enhance this and make it something that draws the listeners in even more?

25:50To do that, I started thinking about what kind of music would be right, added in some howling winds that kind of give the tone of the high altitude. And for both the music and the sound design, the goal is to give us information as listeners that we might not know yet. So even though we don't know that we're high up on a cliff face, we want to feel that way and kind of maybe we don't know exactly what we're feeling, but we have that sense. So I chose something that was kind of beautiful, but had some tension to it. And then also for each season of the show, I try to incorporate the time period and the setting into the styles of the music chosen.

26:27So in this case, the guitar helps to hint at the South American setting and to give us a sense of the tension right from the start. Then also since it's 1962, anything electronic might feel out of place. So it's kind of hitting that sweet spot. It's 1962, and in the Canadian Rockies, American climbers Yvonne Chouinard and Doug Tompkins are taking on a formidable challenge. The north face of Mount Temple. At 11 ,600 feet, the mountain towers over Lake Louise. The north face is its coldest, iciest, and most unforgiving side. And that's exactly why Chouinard and Tompkins want to conquer it. So we open with music and wind together, and then the next sounds that come in underneath David's narration are the sounds of the climbing team in the background.

27:18So this is an example of where Tristan suggested something in the script, just to kind of put in some sounds of them climbing. And so I decided to put them in before David actually mentions the climbing team, so that we have a chance to hear the mountain and notice the climbers in the scene for ourselves. Before we learn exactly what's going on. The reason why we bring the sound in before David's narration mentions it, first of all, it's more engaging and interesting. It's really a best practice in sound design, so that we have a chance to hear the thing and kind of engage with it as an unknown, and then we get filled in on what exactly it is.