Ventureology

The stories of funders and builders who forged markets. Ventureology is a deep-format podcast covering how venture capital markets outside Silicon Valley and New York originated, grew, and scaled. Each season traces a single city's entrepreneurial history from its earliest foundations to its modern ecosystem — the founders who built companies from nothing, the capital that funded them, and the infrastructure decisions that compounded into billion-dollar industries. Season One: Chicago. From 82 grain merchants who founded the Chicago Board of Trade in 1848 to the $106 billion exchange conglomerate, $184 billion private equity firms, and high-frequency trading empires that define the city today — this is the definitive history of how Chicago became the backbone of global finance. The full written episodes — with source citations, maps, and data the podcast can't fully unpack — are available at ventureology.co. New episodes drop every 1-2 weeks during each season.