Good Bad Billionaire

Roman Abramovich: Premier League oligarch

Roman Abramovich was known as the "stealth oligarch" before he stepped into the limelight as Chelsea football club’s sugar daddy owner. The man loves a yacht: his largest cost $427m, and has bullet-proof windows and an escape submarine. Abramovich made his fortune from post-Soviet privatisation, aided by a man known as the “Godfather of the Kremlin”, Boris Berezovsky, and close ties to Vladimir Putin in the early years of his presidency. But with recent reports of a suspected poisoning and sanctions against him in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, Abramovich’s luck might be changing. BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng track Abramovich’s meteoric rise from being a hard-up orphan to making billions from oil and aluminium. Then they decide if they think he’s good, bad, or just another billionaire.

How did the planet's richest people make their billions? From celebrities and secretive CEOs to sporting legends and tech titans, Simon Jack and Zing Tsjeng find out, and then decide whether they think they’re good, bad, or just another billionaire.Ever wondered how Taylor Swift went from country singer to money-spinner? How Amazon boss Jeff Bezos came to launch one of the biggest corporations of the internet age? And how six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan made his fortune with Nike? Good Bad Billionaire is here to analyse the minds, motives and money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals. No detail is too small and no story too wild to uncover. Join us on a global journey, discovering all we can about some of the richest people on the planet. We hear about billionaires in Russia, China, New Zealand, India, Nigeria and the UK. In the United States, there are those who made their money in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and high street fashion.Exploring the lives of Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, El Chapo, Narayana Murthy and Kim Kardashian, this podcast paints a vivid picture of business, entrepreneurship, capitalism and how our world really works. In season two, we learn how the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Peter Jackson, Doris Fisher and George Soros came to join the billionaires' club. We explore how Tiger Woods went from a child golfing prodigy to the world’s highest paid athlete, how a communist mime artist became the boss of fashion house Prada and how Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich bought an English football club. Find out how Mukesh Ambani became Asia’s richest person, and how Patrice Motsepe became the first black billionaire in a post-apartheid South Africa.Plus, we examine some of the biggest names behind the technology shaping our world – the founders of TikTok, Google, ChatGPT, Alibaba and Bumble.
 
But it's not just how these billionaires made their money; it's what they did with it next. Ultimately, Simon and Zing consider whether they think these people are a force for “good”, the opposite, or somewhere in between.Join Simon Jack, business editor for BBC News, and journalist, author and podcaster Zing Tsjeng as this podcast unravels tales of fortune, power, ambition and moral responsibility, and invites you to make up your own mind: are they Good, Bad, or Just Another Billionaire?New episodes released on Mondays.