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Stuff You Missed in Business Class

Stuff You Missed in Business Class

By: Nathan Pali
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About this listen

Stuff You Missed in Business Class is a business and history podcast about the real lessons they don’t teach in school.

While business classes focus on case studies with clean endings and heroic CEOs, this podcast digs into the messy reality of leadership, bad management, and disastrous business decisions that shaped companies, industries, and entire economies.

Each episode explores real historical cases of business failures, leadership mistakes, corporate collapse, and decision-making under pressure. From bankrupt empires and toxic CEOs to failed strategies and organizational dysfunction, the show breaks down what actually went wrong—and why it made sense to the people making the decisions at the time.

This isn’t a podcast about hustle culture, productivity hacks, or inspirational business stories. It’s a narrative-driven look at business history, management failure, power dynamics, and the uncomfortable truth that most business disasters start with reasonable-sounding ideas.

If you’re interested in business lessons, leadership history, management mistakes, corporate scandals, organizational failure, and understanding how smart people keep making the same bad decisions—this podcast is for you.

Stuff You Missed in Business Class Because real business lessons are written in failures, not slideshows.

© 2026 Stuff You Missed in Business Class All rights reserved.
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Episodes
  • Nikolai Vavilov: Science vs. Ideology and Starvation
    Feb 15 2026
    In this episode, we explore the compelling story of Nikolai Vavilov, a botanist and geneticist who risked everything to collect seeds and prevent famine in the Soviet Union. We examine his conflict with Trofim Lysenko and illustrate how ideology and the pursuit of certainty can lead to devastating consequences when prioritized over scientific truth and reality.          Chapters    00:00 Introduction to Vavilov    00:37 Vavilov's Vision and Work    03:33 The Rise of Lysenkoism    08:21 Vavilov's Arrest and Legacy
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    8 mins
  • Why Calm Leaders Sometimes Create Chaos
    Jan 19 2026

    James Buchanan valued calm, order, and restraint above all else. In this episode, we explore how those virtues—when applied without courage—can accelerate instability and empower the very forces they’re meant to contain.

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    10 mins
  • The Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg's Mary's Heights
    Feb 14 2026
    In this episode, we explore the devastating leadership failure during the Battle of Fredericksburg, focusing on the Irish Brigade's doomed advance at Mary's Heights. We discuss the strategic missteps, the immense casualties, and the lingering questions about why the brigade was sent forward into an unwinnable battle.          Chapters    00:00 Introduction to Fredericksburg    00:43 Burnside's Ill-Fated Plan    04:44 The Irish Brigade's Advance    10:55 Lessons in Leadership Failure
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    9 mins
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