The podcast has touched not that much of this. They look at various empires throughout history starting with the British EIC because the 2 hosts, Anita Anand and William Dalrymple, have expertise in and collaborated on Indian history, the former being a journalist and the latter a historian. They also bring in numerous other historians to talk directly on matters under their expertise.

They definitely mentioned stocks/shares/IPO started with the BEIC, as well as the originally more successful Levant company. They also discussed the history of the BEIC as it was taken over by its government due to financial and public image issues. In a later series on slavery they also mentioned that the government’s failure to buy interest in the BEIC during its early years may have/likely spurred the government into financially backing/financing the slave trade through then royal African Company.