The story of Klarna, founded in 2005 before BNPL was a category

The story of Klarna's IPO

BNPY company Klarna went public on the NYSE in September 2025, roughly 20 years after it was founded. At the time, Klarna made roughly three-quarters of its revenue via merchant fees, charging a small premium for each purchase.

The BNPL industry boomed amid a surge in online shopping during pandemic-era lockdowns

The buy now, pay later industry allows consumers to buy something immediately and pay in installments without the need for lengthy application and approval processes or high credit scores—and fintech companies Affirm, Klarna, and Afterpay are leading the charge by targeting young adults.

The story of Apple Pay Later, a short-lived BNPL service

Apple rolled out its own buy now, pay later service in 2023, but Apple shut it down the following year. Instead, Apple made changes to let its Apple Pay users make purchases and access installment loans through BNPL company Affirm.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking closely at BNPL

Given the lack of data around BNPL services in comparison to other financial products such as credit cards, the CFPB has conducted research to better understand BNPL products and how they could harm and benefit consumers.

Gap and Sephora now accept BNPL, despite paying up to 8% per sale

Despite these merchants paying roughly 2% to 8% of each sale's cost (more than they pay for most credit card processing fees), they're signing on, in part, because BNPL can help them improve their conversion rates at checkout.

Many startup founders pull out-of-the-box stunts to get their businesses off the ground

Do you know Airbnb’s founders used cereal (yes, as in the breakfast food) to secure their initial round of funding? Or that PayPal’s founders once gave out free money to get people to sign up for the platform? These stories might be crazy, but they’re not uncommon.

Explore a visual timeline of fintech’s history and growth

From the debut of the world’s first ATM in 1967, to Apple Pay launching in 2014, financial technologies have come a very long way in a relatively short historical period. A colorful visual timeline highlights some of the most important milestones along the way.

Listen to a podcast episode from 1440's editor in chief that explains how a credit card transaction works behind the scenes.

When you buy even something as small as a $5 latte, a global relay between banks and networks like Visa and Mastercard is triggered. It all started with a 1958 campaign from Bank of America that jump-started the credit card revolution.

WeWork, once a unicorn, declared bankruptcy in 2023

This podcast episode chronicles the complete rise and fall of WeWork—from its founding in 2010 to its eventual 2023 bankruptcy.

The concept for Palantir's key software came from PayPal's anti-fraud protocol

PayPal, which, like Palantir, was cofounded by Peter Thiel, developed the initial framework for Palantir's data-mining service to prevent financial crime. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Thiel realized the software could also enable government agencies to connect data and prevent similar terrorist attacks from occurring in the future.

Scroll through a Sears historical timeline, starting in the year 1886

The Sears story starts with railroad worker Richard Sears purchasing a declined shipment of watches for a discounted price. An interactive historical timeline chronicles the history of Sears from then onwards.

Groupon was a digital coupon platform popular in the 2010s

Remember when everyone you knew seemed to have a Groupon for something? In August 2010, Forbes called the digital coupon platform the “fastest growing company ever.” However, the business model had some flaws: One analysis found that only an estimated 20% of Groupon buyers returned for full-price purchases.

The payments tool Zelle was created by big banks to compete with apps like Venmo

Zelle is an alternative to Venmo, where people can pay each other back for expenses like apartment utilities or dinner. But its origin story has more to do with big finance than small transactions.

Netflix started in 1997 as a mail-order DVD rental service

The first Netflix customers selected DVDs from the company’s website and received and returned them through regular mail. The approach included no late fees and quickly added the ability to rent an unlimited number of DVDs for a flat monthly fee, with the company passing 1 million subscribers in 2003.

Read Paul Graham’s initial post announcing YC’s first batch

In March 2005, Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham announced the program that would become Y Combinator on his website.

Peloton raised more than $300K in 30 days during its Kickstarter campaign

Peloton ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2013, hoping to raise $250K and ended the campaign with $307K. Peloton sold its first bikes during that campaign for $1.5K. Foley later said that most of the bike purchases came from investors, not necessarily new customers.

Spotify took 18 years to reach profitability; 70% of revenue goes to rights-holders

The music streaming company lost revenue for years as it sought to grow, but once it went public, investors pushed the company to expand into podcasts, cut costs, and prefer passive mood listening via algorithmic curation to increase value. Users have mixed feelings about using it.

A chat with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan

In a conversation with Bloomberg, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan maps out how the company is taking what it’s learned thus far and embedding itself into the “lean-back” TV viewing experience.

A post-game interview with Sophia Amoruso directly after her 2016 Forbes cover

This article from 2016 is a time capsule of sorts. It includes an interview with the person who coined the term “girlboss,” Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso, that took place just after she appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine. We now know that her company would go on to file for bankruptcy the next year.

Nvidia entered its AI era after learning that its chips could be used in industries beyond gaming

Its semiconductor chips were used in the automotive industry, for data centers, and by crypto miners. And starting in 2006, Nvidia took steps that would ultimately transform it into the AI company it’s known as today. This podcast is the second part of a three-part series diving deep into Nvidia’s company evolution.

The business plan for Blue Ribbon Sports came from a Stanford assignment

Nike cofounder Phil Knight’s original idea was to begin selling Japanese shoes, which were cheaper and just as light and durable as the leading German shoes from Adidas and Puma, at a lower price in the American market. His last assignment in business school at Stanford became the original business plan for Blue Ribbon Sports.

Securitization has become common practice in home financing

When a homebuyer finances with a lender, they aren’t necessarily the one footing the bill. After a buyer secures a home loan, the lender can sell the loan to another financial institution or a private institution. That group can later sell that mortgage to investors. This is called securitization.

Plastic's history began with an inventor seeking a $10,000 prize offer

In 1869, the first synthetic polymer—celluloid—was created as a substitute for ivory in billiard balls. It became the historical catalyst for the eventual manufacturing of plastics everywhere as an alternative to the depletion of other natural resources, including tortoiseshell and horns.

Uncrustables' reinvention of the PB&J

In the 1990s, David Geske and Len Kretchman came up with the ingenious idea to package and mass-produce a crustless version of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This makeover to an American childhood staple resulted in a $1B business. Read this article in Mental Floss to learn more about the origins of the brand Uncrustables and its extraordinary success.

Elon Musk's will to launch: the early days of SpaceX

Radically reducing the cost of rockets and innovating totally new space vehicles originated in the singular force of Elon Musk's vision. In this podcast, Founders creator David Senra shares what he learned reading a book about SpaceX's beginnings, highlighting Musk's audacious refusal to follow industry conventions and promotion of a culture of action and speed. Learn more insights from the founder here.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.