Ventureology

In April 1848, 82 merchants climbed the stairs above a flour store attic and signed a charter that would become the foundation of an $846 trillion global derivatives market. This is that story.

📧 Full written episode with source citations, maps, and data: https://ventureology.co

The first 100 paid subscribers get founding member pricing for life:
- https://ventureology.co/founding-partner

🎧 YouTube: https://youtu.be/U2MHUx8UpBQ
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2Rvt9GARG2mXRM1apLWQVj

CHAPTERS:
0:00 — $846 Trillion from a Flour Store Attic
1:10 — What Is Ventureology?
1:43 — Gurdon Hubbard: The 75-Mile Walk That Built Chicago
5:41 — The Richmond-Whiting Meeting
7:31 — The 82 Merchants Sign the Charter
9:31 — How Fungibility Created Modern Finance
14:16 — The April 1848 Convergence
17:09 — Why Chicago Beat St. Louis
18:59 — The Chicago Pragmatism Cycle
20:32 — The Great Fire Test
23:53 — CME Group Today: $106B Market Cap
26:23 — Next Episode: The Great Rebuilding

What is 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.