Unicorn Graveyard: Tech's Rises & Falls
Unicorn Graveyard: Tech's Rises & Falls examines the biggest successes and failures in technology. It covers startups that flamed out, formats that lost their way, and inventions that were buried by their own creators. Reed Ashford narrates the weekly show. Episodes use AI narration and scripting with human editorial review, and the podcast is a Talking Labs production.
Episodes
DeLorean: The Car, the Factory and the Failed Promise
DeLorean's stainless-steel sports car reached production in Northern Ireland, but its manufacturer entered receivership about a year later. We trace the public funding, the Dunmurry workforce, the car's design and the audit trail, then separate the later drug-trial acquittal and Back to the Future fame from the business failure that came first.Sources checked 2 October 2026:Northern Ireland Audit
Quibi: $1.75 Billion for Ten-Minute TV
Quibi launched in April 2020 with short premium shows, phone-first viewing and a reported $1.75 billion raised. Six months later, its founders chose to wind down the standalone service. Unicorn Graveyard follows the product bet, the pandemic launch, and the later move of its programming to Roku. The fundraising total is not a loss figure; the episode separates documented events from possible cause
Pets.com: The Price of Being Known
Pets.com built a famous brand, a broad online catalogue and real warehouses. Its own filings show growing sales alongside a negative gross margin, followed by a failed search for new capital or a buyer. Unicorn Graveyard follows the sock puppet, the shipping costs and the short path from IPO to liquidation.This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review.This
The Morris Worm, 1988: When the Early Internet Stalled
On 2 November 1988, a self-spreading program written by Cornell graduate student Robert Tappan Morris reached computers across the early internet. We trace the reinfection rule that overloaded systems, the administrators who coordinated a repair, the court's findings on unauthorised access, and the response teams formed afterward. Reach figures are estimates; the evidence does not establish that M
Betamax vs VHS: How the Better Picture Lost
Betamax had picture quality and an iconic inventor. VHS built the larger ecosystem. Follow recording-time trade-offs, licensing, rentals, network effects and the legal ruling that remade home video.This episode was produced with AI narration and scripting, with human editorial review.This episode includes AI-generated content.
Theranos, Part 1: The Voice
Part one of two. A founder in a black turtleneck promised a full panel of blood tests from a single fingerprick, on a box the size of a desktop printer, in a pharmacy near you. Reed Ashford on why the pitch was genuinely excellent, why the physics of small-volume testing says no, what was actually running in the company's laboratory, and how a board of former secretaries of state with no clinical
