Billion Dollar Deals and How They Changed Your World (2017 - 2017)

In 2015, for the first time in history, cash payments were overtaken by card and contactless transactions. But why are we turning our backs on cash? And what are we replacing it with? In this episode, Jacques explores the deals which have shaped the way we understand money. From the invention of Paypal in the nineties to the smartphone app economy that followed ten years later, this programme tells the story of how tech giants brought about the digital payment revolution and formulated a plan to one day kill cash. But is this new world of digital, hyper-fast spending in our interests? And what is really going on behind the scenes?

Jacques Peretti investigates how we went from clocking on and off to checking our work email in the middle of the night and working four jobs simultaneously. How did work go from being what we do to who we are? From the creation of shared values in the workplace in the 1980s to the deal that ushered in inflated executive pay and zero job security, Jacques reveals how key decisions over the past decades have revolutionised the workplace and our perception of work itself. He also looks at automation in the workplace. But will the age of the robot make our working lives easier or make us redundant as a species?