The catalyst for a nationwide crisis that forced the government’s hand watches a $40 billion empire go up in smoke on Netflix’s Top 10

Countless empires have come crashing down throughout history, and a great deal of them have ended up becoming the subject of documentaries. On the surface, a vaping company doesn’t seem like one of the prime candidates for exploration, but that doesn’t mean Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul isn’t fascinating.

It’s noted in the opening stretch of Netflix’s latest docuseries that at the height of its power, the company boasted over 4000 employees and was valued at almost $40 billion, but these days it isn’t even worth five percent of that, which just goes to show how far the mighty have fallen. Obviously, being the catalyst for federal investigation isn’t ideal optics, but that’s only part of the story.

Whether it was convincing teenagers that vaping wasn’t all that harmful – despite the evidence eventually proving otherwise – or the bad publicity that came from kids as young as 12 or 13 using its products, it was inevitable that the FDA would end up getting involved eventually. When that happened, Juul’s market share fell off a cliff, leaving the brand a shell of what it once was.

The power of the Netflix machine can often turn subjects that don’t seem all that interesting on paper into on-demand powerhouses, so regardless of whether you’ve ever looked in the direction of a vape and/or cigarette in your life, The Rise and Fall of Juul was always a sure bet to find a home at the upper reaches of the most-watched rankings.

Sure enough, Big Vape can be found as the sixth most-watched episodic original at the streamer’s disposal, having inhaled a Top 10 spot in almost 80 countries globally per FlixPatrol, with the exhale still to come.