Podcasts · Business
Top Business Podcasts to Follow in 2026
25 business podcasts, from founder interviews and startup shows to marketing, leadership and business news, each still publishing and checked from its own feed.
Short answer
The top business podcasts to follow in 2026 are the most-followed shows that are still publishing, not the ones with the biggest reputations. This list has 25 of them, grouped by what they’re for: founder stories and interviews (4), startups and venture (5), marketing and growth (4), leadership and management (4), business news (4), and small-business operators and their money (4). Every entry links the show on Apple Podcasts and one recent episode to start with.
This list is for anyone who wants business podcasts worth the commute, whether you’re starting a company, running a small one, marketing for someone else’s or just trying to follow the news without a finance degree. Every show was checked the same way: we looked it up on Apple Podcasts, fetched its own RSS feed, and read the show notes of a recent episode before writing a word about it.
“Top” means the most-followed business shows that are still publishing, judged by Apple’s public chart and search results on the day we researched, not an order of merit. The entries are alphabetical, because a daily news show, a weekly leadership lesson and a founder-interview series serve different listeners, and ranking them against each other would say nothing useful.
Which business podcast should you follow?
Start with what you want from the time. Every show in the table is on the list below, and within each row they’re alphabetical.
| If you want… | Podcasts to start with | What you’ll get |
|---|---|---|
| Founder stories and long interviews | Founders, How I Built This with Guy Raz, The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett, Young and Profiting | Biographies mined for ideas, founders on the production run that went wrong, and long conversations with people who built companies |
| Startups and venture | My First Million, Startups For the Rest of Us, The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), This Week in Startups, Y Combinator Startup Podcast | Business ideas, bootstrapped SaaS pivots, venture capitalists on funding and sales teams, and YC partners on the state of startups |
| Marketing and growth | Marketing Against The Grain, Marketing School, Social Media Marketing Podcast, The Marketing Millennials | SEO and comparison pages, zero-click search, YouTube retention, and in-house marketers on creator programmes |
| Leadership and management | Coaching for Leaders, HBR IdeaCast, Maxwell Leadership Podcast, No Bullsh!t Leadership | Weekly lessons on prioritising, blind spots and decisions, plus research-led interviews on what new CEOs get wrong |
| Business news and analysis | Bloomberg Businessweek, Business Daily, Morning Brew Daily, Planet Money | Several Bloomberg episodes a day, the BBC’s daily programme, two or three stories explained each morning, and reported stories about the economy |
| Running a small business | EntreLeadership, Small Business Tax Savings Podcast, The Home Service Expert Podcast, The How of Business | Buying versus starting a business, due diligence, a reasonable S corp salary, and the KPIs and pricing of a trades company |
If you’re new to business podcasts, the news row is the easiest to try, because a single episode stands on its own. The interview and leadership shows reward picking episodes by guest or topic rather than listening in order.
The 25 podcasts, A to Z
Bloomberg Businessweek
- Covers
- Daily business, markets and tech reporting
- Why they’re here
- Bloomberg’s magazine show, hosted by Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec, publishes several episodes a day on money, power and technology, from the jobs report and Fed minutes to Apple’s product plans. The episode to start with comes from Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, where industry guests debate the future of studios, live sports, podcasting and music, and what AI means for the creative industries.
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- Covers
- The BBC’s daily programme on money and work
- Why they’re here
- The BBC World Service’s daily business programme, “the daily drama of money and work” in its feed’s words, runs in strands: Follow the Money on why diesel or chocolate costs what it does, Taking Stock, Power Players and a Founders series. The episode to start with is a Founders interview with Canva co-founder Cameron Adams on the setbacks that led from blogging about web design to Canva, and why he doesn’t fear AI in design.
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- Covers
- Weekly interviews on the skills of managing
- Why they’re here
- Dave Stachowiak’s Monday interview show for managers, independently produced since 2011 according to its feed. The episode to start with has Sebastian Wernicke on using data without being fooled by it: why better data doesn’t mean better decisions, why more data makes uncertain people more uncertain, and a line to borrow (“I’m looking for data to tell me where I am wrong”). The host runs a paid leadership academy and says so in the feed.
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- Covers
- Running and scaling a small business
- Why they’re here
- The Ramsey Network’s small-business show, with Dave Ramsey and head coach John Felkins, publishes almost daily: listener calls about hiring and family businesses, and business-history episodes on Myspace and Blockbuster. The episode to start with has John Felkins on when buying an existing business beats starting one, and when you’d be inheriting someone else’s problems. The notes list sponsors and promote Ramsey’s own coaching and events.
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- Covers
- One entrepreneur’s biography a week, mined for ideas
- Why they’re here
- David Senra reads one entrepreneur’s biography a week and pulls out ideas you can use; recent episodes cover Sam Walton, Michael Bloomberg, Henry Singleton and Ari Emanuel. The episode to start with works through Vance Trimble’s Sam Walton biography, with timestamped quotes in the notes on buying cheap and selling low, owning the building and starting again after losing a first store. Sponsors are named at the top of the notes.
- Start with
- #434 Sam Walton
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- Covers
- Business and management thinking, weekly
- Why they’re here
- Harvard Business Review’s weekly conversation with researchers and executives, lately running a series on how AI is changing strategy, innovation and talent. The episode to start with has Nitin Nohria, former dean of Harvard Business School, on why new CEOs shouldn’t try to run the company themselves, how to build the leadership team and manage the board, and which emerging issues deserve a CEO’s time.
- Start with
- What New CEOs Get Wrong About the Job
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- Covers
- Founder stories and listener advice lines
- Why they’re here
- Guy Raz’s Monday founder interviews alternate with Thursday Advice Line episodes, in which founders such as Danny Meyer and Daymond John take questions from listeners building their own businesses. The episode to start with follows Banza’s Brian Rudolph from a chickpea pasta made in a Detroit apartment, through a first production run that turned to mush and a food-safety scare that cut sales by 30%, to the orange box that became a growth engine.
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Marketing Against The Grain
- Covers
- AI-era marketing tactics from HubSpot’s marketers
- Why they’re here
- HubSpot’s marketing show, hosted by its CMO Kipp Bodnar and SVP of marketing Kieran Flanagan, leans on live demos of AI tools and interviews with HubSpot executives. The episode to start with brings in Amanda Natividad on zero-click marketing: what to do when most Google searches end without a click, and how to rethink SEO when search no longer sends the traffic. The notes say it’s a HubSpot Original and link HubSpot’s free resources.
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- Covers
- Daily SEO and digital marketing lessons
- Why they’re here
- Neil Patel and Eric Siu’s daily show of short marketing lessons, mostly SEO, content and the AI tools now shaping search. The episode to start with argues for “versus” and best-for comparison pages over listicles, using a founder who shipped 19 SEO pages for a small Mac app and had sales within days, then reads an AI-agent startup’s growth numbers and a backlinks study. The hosts’ own agencies are linked in every set of notes.
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- Covers
- Weekly leadership lessons with free worksheets
- Why they’re here
- John Maxwell’s weekly leadership lesson, usually in two parts, followed by a discussion with Mark Cole and Traci Morrow and a free worksheet. The episode to start with is on leadership blind spots: why they’re inevitable, why the first person to examine is yourself, and how followers look inward while leaders look outward. The notes also sell Maxwell’s certification programme and courses, so expect that pitch.
- Start with
- Be Aware of Your Blind Spots (Part 1)
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- Covers
- The day’s business news, explained plainly
- Why they’re here
- Morning Brew’s daily news show with Neal Freyman and Toby Howell takes two or three business stories a day and explains them plainly, from bond yields to a possible fast-food merger. The episode to start with weighs whether a Starbucks takeover of Chipotle could work, then covers Hollywood’s turn against Big Tech, a pause on H-1B visas and Spotify’s renewed bet on Joe Rogan. A sponsor link sits in the notes.
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- Covers
- Business ideas and founder brainstorms
- Why they’re here
- Sam Parr and Shaan Puri trade business ideas drawn from trends they see, and bring in founders to brainstorm with them. The episode to start with walks Whatnot founder Grant Lafontaine through the live-shopping marketplace’s growth, from its first thousand users and the tactics behind them to going deep on a single problem. The notes are candid about money: HubSpot produces the show, sponsors are listed, and the hosts link their own paid community and newsletter.
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- Covers
- Practical leadership from a former CEO
- Why they’re here
- Martin G Moore, a former CEO, gives one practical leadership lesson a week plus short “Moment” clips; a recent run diagnosed teams that are frozen, merely busy or waiting on their leader. The episode to start with takes an Economist piece on how bad people are at prioritisation, argues the problem is behaviour rather than process, and gives seven fixes, starting with getting clear on value. Every set of notes promotes his paid nine-week programme.
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- Covers
- Reported stories about how the economy works
- Why they’re here
- NPR’s economics show turns one question an episode into a reported story; recent ones cover tariff refunds, the loan behind a foreclosure crisis, branded fruit and Charles Ponzi. The episode to start with goes inside a beverage lab whose food scientists have designed many of the new drinks on the shelves, to explain why the aisle keeps multiplying. Sponsor-free listening is offered through NPR+, which the notes mention.
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- Covers
- Tax planning for US small-business owners
- Why they’re here
- A weekly tax show for US small-business owners from CPA Mike Jesowshek, with recent episodes on the home-office deduction, vehicle write-offs, audit documentation and S corporations. The episode to start with explains how to set a reasonable S corp salary from your role, hours, local market wages, profit and cash flow, and why the lowest possible salary can cost you later. The notes link his own tax-planning service.
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- Covers
- Social media marketing for businesses, weekly
- Why they’re here
- Social Media Examiner’s weekly interview show, running since 2012 with founder Michael Stelzner and co-host Jerry Potter, on what’s working on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok for businesses. The episode to start with has Adam Ivy on a YouTube scripting framework for retention: the opening hook, the nudge that keeps viewers watching, generating engagement and ending in momentum.
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- Covers
- Bootstrapped SaaS founders and their pivots
- Why they’re here
- Rob Walling’s weekly show for bootstrapped SaaS founders mixes listener questions, solo episodes and founder interviews. The episode to start with follows BlinkMetrics founder Nathan Tyler through a pivot in progress: why the original scorecard idea didn’t work, how more than a hundred coffee chats led to a done-for-you reporting business, and how to tell market pull from a shiny object. The notes promote the host’s MicroConf conference.
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- Covers
- Long interviews with founders and experts
- Why they’re here
- Steven Bartlett’s long interviews come twice a week, with “Most Replayed Moment” clips in between; business leaders share the feed with scientists, musicians and an AI debate, so pick episodes by guest. The episode to start with has WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann on the $4.2 billion offer made in the back of a taxi that he says derailed the company’s mission, and on judging investors and partners by how they treat you on your worst day.
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- Covers
- Scaling plumbing, HVAC and other trades businesses
- Why they’re here
- Tommy Mello’s show for owners of plumbing, HVAC and other home-service companies, with guests on sales systems, KPIs, pricing and hiring. The episode to start with has marketer Dan Kuschell on setting a company up to run six months without its owner: answering every lead within a minute, fixing pricing first, asking for introductions rather than referrals, and being the chairman rather than the technician. The notes sell tickets to the host’s own event.
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- Covers
- Starting, buying and running a small business
- Why they’re here
- Henry Lopez’s weekly show for people starting, buying, running or selling a small business alternates topic episodes with owner interviews and replays. The episode to start with is his buyer due-diligence checklist: how to verify the financials of a business you’re buying, the risks that aren’t obvious when a business looks busy, and why verification is your job and your advisers’, not the seller’s. The checklist is a free download from the notes.
- Start with
- 618 - Buyer Due Diligence
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The Marketing Millennials
- Covers
- In-house marketing leaders on their playbooks
- Why they’re here
- Daniel Murray interviews in-house marketing leaders (PepsiCo and Goop Kitchen in recent weeks) and fills the gaps with short “Bathroom Break” episodes on tactics. The episode to start with has Creatorbuzz founder Vin Matano on B2B creator programmes: why who follows a creator matters more than how many, how to build a full-funnel strategy, what a good creator brief looks like and how to fold in events.
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- Covers
- Venture capitalists, founders and funding news
- Why they’re here
- Harry Stebbings interviews venture capitalists and founders several times a week, with news roundups on funding rounds and a 20Sales series on building sales teams. The episode to start with has Ramp’s first sales hire, Max Freeman, on how he built the sales organisation: finding exceptional sellers, scaling outbound beyond the SDR team, shortening cycles without cutting price, paying early reps and setting quotas.
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- Covers
- Startup news, pitches and founder interviews
- Why they’re here
- Jason Calacanis’s near-daily startup show mixes news, founder pitches and interviews. The episode to start with has Lon Harris and Alex Wilhelm revisiting the show’s interviews with Twitch’s Justin Kan and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky: the Google acquisition that fell through, the seven investors who passed on 10% of Airbnb, and the cereal boxes that got Airbnb into Y Combinator. Sponsors are listed at the top of the notes.
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- Covers
- YC partners and founders on building companies
- Why they’re here
- Y Combinator’s own show, where its partners and founders talk about building companies; recent episodes include Paul Graham on ambition, Waymo’s co-CEO and a session on outbound sales. The episode to start with is a Lightcone roundtable on the state of startups in 2026: the shift from bits to atoms, nearly one in five YC companies having a solo founder, and why knowing what to build now matters more than knowing how.
- Start with
- The State of Startups in 2026
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- Covers
- Entrepreneur interviews on sales, growth and leadership
- Why they’re here
- Hala Taha’s interview show for entrepreneurs runs three episodes a week, from sales psychology and AI to the occasional mindset or health episode, so pick by title. The episode to start with has Ron Johnson on building the Apple Store and the Genius Bar with Steve Jobs, what Target taught him about design, and why his JCPenney turnaround failed. Sponsors are listed under their own heading in the notes.
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How we checked each podcast
We started with about ninety candidates, found through Apple’s public US top-100 chart feed, Apple’s search results for business terms (business, entrepreneurship, startups, venture capital, marketing, leadership, management, small business, founders and business news) and the show descriptions themselves. For each one that made the list we:
- Checked reach ourselves. A show had to appear in Apple’s top-100 chart or near the top of Apple’s search results for at least one of those terms on the day we researched. The floor exists, but it’s a one-day snapshot, so we don’t print positions as figures.
- Checked they’re still publishing. Every show released at least three episodes in the last 90 days, counted from its own RSS feed. That rule cost the list some famous names: Acquired had two episodes in that window, and HBR On Leadership announced its end in June.
- Read the show notes, not the press. Each “why” comes from the feed’s description, the pattern of its last fifteen episode titles and the notes of the one episode we link. Hosts are named only where the feed names them, and a show’s name is written the way its feed writes it, however long.
- Linked only what we could fetch. The Apple Podcasts page comes from Apple’s lookup; the website is the one the feed gives, kept where it loaded for us over https (three didn’t, so three entries have no website link). We didn’t verify any YouTube channel, so none are linked.
- Applied the never-feature rules. We left out shows pitched on getting rich or on the host’s net worth, shows whose episodes exist to sell a programme or membership, and shows whose recent titles are mostly politics or celebrity, however large.
Investing and markets shows, economics-of-everything shows and general-interest interview series were left out for what they are rather than how good they are. Our methodology covers the rules every list follows. There are no download or follower numbers on this page: podcast platforms don’t publish them, and we only print audience numbers that come from an official platform API or the creator, dated.
How to listen to business podcasts without getting sold to
Business shows run on sponsors, and many hosts also sell a course, a community, a conference or an agency. None of that makes a show worthless, as long as you can tell what you’re hearing. Five checks, with the rules behind them:
- Know what a host-read ad is. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR Part 255, give a podcast example: when a host reads what is obviously a commercial near the start of an episode, listeners already expect the podcaster was paid, so no extra payment disclosure is needed. The catch follows: if the language makes the audience believe the host is expressing their own views, the host must actually hold them.
- Expect the disclosure in your ears. The Guides say that when a claim is made audibly, the disclosure should be made in at least the audible portion too, and the FTC’s answers to creators’ questions repeat it: “If the representation is made audibly, the disclosure should be made at least audibly.” A sponsor named only in the show notes doesn’t cover a mid-episode endorsement, and the FTC says the responsibility for disclosing rests with the person endorsing.
- Be wary of interviews that are really placements. The Guides define a material connection as one that could affect the weight you give an endorsement and that you wouldn’t reasonably expect, and say it must be disclosed clearly. Some shows charge guests to appear. The signs: every guest has a product and a link in the notes, the feed is daily with no editorial thread, and the site invites you to “apply to be a guest”. None of the shows above showed those signs, but we couldn’t audit their bookings.
- Spot the programme funnel. A funnel show exists to sell one thing: the titles promise income, every episode ends at the same course or membership, and the notes lead with “book a call”. Several entries above note that the host promotes a paid programme, conference or agency; that’s normal and disclosed. The difference is whether the episode teaches something on its own first.
- Check the notes for affiliate and lead-magnet links. Free guides, discount codes and partner links are the podcast version of affiliate links. The FTC’s Disclosures 101 says a disclosure has to be placed so it’s hard to miss, and that it’s the influencer’s responsibility, not the brand’s or the platform’s. The same three questions we use for AI tool reviews on YouTube apply here: what went in, what came out, and who paid.
Our guide to disclosing affiliate links and sponsorships goes through the FTC’s wording in detail, including what it says about audio and about disclosures that only appear in a description.
What to do next
- Choosing shows? Pick the row in the table that matches what you want and try one episode from two different shows in it, ideally one news show and one interview show.
- A brand vetting a show? The checks in how to vet a YouTube creator before a sponsorship translate directly: recent output, real engagement and clean disclosure.
- Prefer video? Our list of AI tool reviewers on YouTube is built the same way, and the rest of our lists are here.
- Know a show that belongs here? Suggest a podcast. Suggestions go through the same checks as everyone else, and we review this list every quarter.
Frequently asked questions
- Who are the best business podcasts to follow in 2026?
- It depends on what you want from them. For founder stories and interviews: The Diary Of A CEO, Founders, How I Built This and Young and Profiting. For startups and venture: My First Million, Startups For the Rest of Us, The Twenty Minute VC, This Week in Startups and the Y Combinator Startup Podcast. For marketing: Marketing Against The Grain, Marketing School, Social Media Marketing Podcast and The Marketing Millennials. For leadership: Coaching for Leaders, HBR IdeaCast, Maxwell Leadership Podcast and No Bullsh!t Leadership. For business news: Bloomberg Businessweek, Business Daily, Morning Brew Daily and Planet Money. For running a small business: EntreLeadership, Small Business Tax Savings Podcast, The Home Service Expert Podcast and The How of Business.
- Did any of these podcasts pay to be on this list?
- No. Nobody pays to be included, inclusion never depends on using or promoting any product, and nobody on this list was asked to mention one. Each show is here because of its reach, its publishing record over the last 90 days and a recent episode we could describe from its own show notes.
- How did you choose these business podcasts?
- We started from Apple’s public top-100 podcast chart and the top of Apple’s search results for business terms, then checked every candidate’s own RSS feed for at least three episodes in the last 90 days. We left out shows pitched on getting rich, shows whose episodes exist to sell a programme, and shows whose recent feed is mostly politics or celebrity. Our methodology page has the details.
- Why are the podcasts listed alphabetically?
- Because this isn’t a ranking. “Top” here means the most-followed business shows that are still publishing, and a daily news show, a weekly leadership lesson and a founder-interview series serve different listeners, so an order would say nothing useful. Alphabetical order also makes it obvious that no position was bought or traded for anything.
- Why are there no download or follower numbers on this page?
- Podcast platforms don’t publish download counts, and we only publish audience numbers that come from an official platform API or from the creator, dated. The chart and search positions we used are a snapshot from one day, so we used them for selection and don’t print them as figures.
- Do business podcasts disclose their sponsors?
- Most of the shows here name sponsors in their show notes, and several also promote the host’s own course, community, conference or agency; each entry says so where we saw it. The FTC’s Endorsement Guides treat an obvious host-read commercial as something listeners expect, but a host who presents paid praise as their own opinion must actually hold it, and any connection listeners wouldn’t expect has to be disclosed clearly.
About this list
We review every list each quarter. This one was last reviewed on . Every number is dated and says where it came from. How we pick creators.
Spot a mistake? Email corrections@topfluencers.co and we’ll fix it within 48 hours.
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