How to win a penalty shootout (with game theory)
⏱ 17 min listen · ~2 min read
🎙 The Soccernomics team
The rare economics episode with a genuine thriller in the middle — and the rock-paper-scissors detour will change how you play it.
Key takeaways
- 01Lionel Messi is the top World Cup scorer of all time and only an average penalty taker, because a penalty is a guessing game rather than a test of finishing.
- 02Stefan Szymanski's rule for penalty takers: aim at your weaker side part of the time, at random, because a predictable shooter is a stopped shooter.
- 03Goalkeepers pick a side before the ball is struck, running the same calculation in mirror image — the symmetry that lets Soccernomics treat a penalty as a game.
- 04Ignacio Palacios-Huerta built the world's best penalty database from videos his wife and mother mailed from Spain, out-scouting clubs that tracked nothing.
Chapters
0:00 · Messi's below-average penalty record1:20 · Mixed strategy: shooting to your weaker side2:37 · The goalkeeper is playing the same mind game in mirror image3:55 · How penalty data rescued a controversial economic theory5:11 · Rock-paper-scissors, ESPN, and everyday mixed strategies6:31 · Palacios-Huerta's homemade penalty database+4 more
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Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine
⏱ 25 min listen · ~3 min read
🎙 Jim Gorney
It turns a gross news story into a clear explanation of how salad became an industrial product and why the FDA still can't reliably keep parasites out of it.
Key takeaways
- 01The cyclospora outbreak has infected more than 1,600 people, traced by the FDA to shredded lettuce from Taylor Farms and a recall across 27 states.
- 02Breathable film made bagged salad possible in the 1990s, but mixing many farms' produce into one bag turns a single contaminated field into a national outbreak.
- 03Salad-factory capital costs concentrated the market into about three processors, with Taylor Farms the biggest, supplying McDonald's, Costco and Whole Foods.
- 04Until the 2010 food-safety law the FDA had no authority over farms at all, and routine farm inspections did not begin until 2019.
Chapters
0:00 · Diarrhea Summer: the cyclospora outbreak2:32 · America eats 25 pounds of lettuce a year5:06 · Iceberg defies the seasons by rail6:26 · Breathable film and the bagged-salad revolution9:01 · Taylor Farms becomes the biggest processor10:20 · Outbreaks double as salad industrializes+7 more
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Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal
⏱ 25 min listen · ~2 min read
🎙 Graham Wetzbarger
It's the clearest explanation you'll hear of who actually gets to declare a $6,600 bag real — told through the lawsuit that could remake the entire resale market.
Key takeaways
- 01A mini red Chanel flap bag is $6,600 in a Soho window and $1,325 on The RealReal, and that gap is the whole secondhand luxury market.
- 02The RealReal authenticates blind because Chanel keeps its serial-number database private, leaving materials, construction, hardware and brand identifiers.
- 03Graham Wetzbarger's tell is execution: counterfeit serial tabs use wrong fonts, wrong placement and craft-store glitter, while genuine ones are always perfect.
- 04Chanel's 2018 suit rests on seven allegedly fake bags but argues only Chanel can know what is genuine Chanel, which attacks the whole resale model.
Chapters
0:00 · Window-shopping Soho with Hana Chop2:33 · $6,600 in store, $1,325 on The RealReal3:49 · Chanel sues The RealReal5:05 · Julie Wainwright and the authenticity problem6:26 · Graham Wetzbarger, first chief authenticator7:42 · The four pillars of authentication+8 more
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Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?
⏱ 26 min listen · ~3 min read
🎙 Becky Sullivan
It catches a marketing natural experiment mid-run, with league and club executives explaining their actual budgets and bets before anyone knows which one worked.
Key takeaways
- 01The 1994 World Cup was awarded to the U.S. on the condition that it launch a top-tier men's professional league, which became MLS in 1996.
- 02MLS already has 30 teams and every game televised, so the obvious growth moves are used up and each club is inventing its own conversion play.
- 03The Chicago Fire budgeted $2-3 million, rejected flying 25 CEOs to the final, and rented a city block for one of the biggest watch parties outside a host city.
- 04New England's Brian Bilello lobbied for years and landed seven matches including a quarterfinal, betting that a World Cup crowd converts into MLS season tickets.
Chapters
0:00 · A watch party on a barge in Seattle2:46 · A World Cup on home soil5:20 · 1994, the World Cup that launched MLS6:37 · New England's field-of-dreams strategy9:12 · Brian Bilello in the Maradona photo11:51 · Chicago: no matches, millions to spend+6 more
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Can the Trump administration make college cheaper?
⏱ 28 min listen · ~3 min read
🎙 Corey Turner
It compresses twenty years of actual research on a policy that started hitting grad students the day it aired, and is honest about where the evidence cuts both ways.
Key takeaways
- 01From July 1, 2026 federal loans for most graduate programs are capped near $21,000 a year, ending the unlimited Grad PLUS borrowing that began in 2006.
- 02Undergraduate net price — what families actually pay after aid — has been flat for about 10 years, while graduate tuition is where costs ballooned.
- 03Education Secretary Linda McMahon's premise is the Bennett hypothesis: federal aid lets colleges raise tuition, so lending less should force prices down.
- 04Jeff Denning's study of Texas graduate programs found prices rose 64 cents for every extra dollar students could borrow, the strongest evidence for that.
Chapters
0:00 · McMahon's plan: less loan money, lower tuition?3:55 · The surprise: undergrad net price is flat7:50 · From 1960s caps to unlimited Grad PLUS in 200610:26 · Bennett and the Our Greedy Colleges op-ed11:50 · Grad PLUS as the perfect natural experiment13:12 · Texas study: 64 cents on the dollar+8 more
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Our mission: Find the world’s best economic ideas (Summer School World Tour)
⏱ 37 min listen · ~3 min read
🎙 Justin Wolfers
Two well-told case studies — water traded like a stock and the origin story of the 2% inflation target — with Wolfers supplying the actual economics between them, including who wins, who loses, and why.
Key takeaways
- 01Anyone in Australia can buy and sell water on an exchange from a phone, unlike US water rights, which are generally tied to the land they sit under.
- 02Neil Hughes's modelling puts the southern basin's gains from water trading at about 12% of the value of water rights, roughly $117 million a year.
- 03Water went from $100 to $1,000 a megalitre in 2019 as investors bought allocations instantly, and farmer Carly Marriott drove five hours to protest in Canberra.
- 04The Australian review answered the backlash with three rules: regulate water like finance, write rules for a changing climate, and share forecasts with farmers.
Chapters
0:00 · Series premiere: seven continents, eight weeks2:34 · Justin Wolfers on countries as economic laboratories5:10 · Case study one: Australia's water market9:10 · Neil Hughes on $117 million a year in trading gains10:27 · Prices spike from $100 to $1,000 a megalitre11:43 · Farmers storm Canberra; the review's three lessons+7 more
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Autobiography of a Yogi49
The Daily7
Crime Junkie6
Huberman Lab6
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories6
My First Million6
Rotten Mango6
The Mel Robbins Podcast6
The Rest Is History6
The Why Files: Operation Podcast6
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg5
SmartLess5
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von3
The Shawn Ryan Show1