The Surprising Business Model Behind Guinness World Records

By Bronson Arcuri,

Tsering Bista

Published September 18, 2020 at 7:00 AM CDT

The people behind the Guinness World Records used to make money by, well, selling books. But with the rise of the Internet came a decline in book sales, and so they had to create a new business model — selling publicity.

This is the story of how Guinness (yeah, like the brewery) got into the business of record-breaking, and how one Planet Money intern broke a world record involving the president of Georgia, the former Soviet republic.

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Economy

Bronson Arcuri

Bronson Arcuri is a video producer at NPR, where he directs the "Planet Money Shorts" video series and helps out with Tiny Desk Concerts from time to time. He also produced "Elise Tries" and "Ron's Office Hours" along with the "Junior Bugler" series, which he still insists was "pretty good for what it was."

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Tsering Bista

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