How All Our Tech Heroes Turned Into Tech Villains
Tech giants and their leaders have come to dominate public discourse in a way that few other industries have. They’ve unleashed products that are basically indispensable in modern life. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elizabeth Holmes all promised game-changing improvements on American life. What happened?
The Wealth Detective Who Finds The Hidden Money Of The Super Rich
Thirty-two-year-old French economist Gabriel Zucman scours spreadsheets to find secret offshore accounts. The minimum amount Zucman calculated the wealthy stash in offshore accounts: $7.6 trillion.
The Lie That Helped Build Nintendo
In 1981, a young Swede called Owe Bergsten strolled through Singapore to pass the time before his flight home. Passing a camera shop, he spotted a two-button LCD game called ‘Fire RC-04’ in the window. The story of a man, a lie, a video game handheld, and a business empire.
How Much McDonald’s Franchise Owners Really Make Per Year
The food at McDonald’s has always sold like hotcakes but once the restaurant started franchising, the world began eating up the brand. But being a franchise owner isn’t as easy, or profitable, as you might think. Buying into a McDonald’s franchise is expensive, between $1 million and $2.2 million.
The World’s Biggest Electric Vehicle Company Looks Nothing Like Tesla
BYD Co. is the No. 1 producer of plug-in vehicles globally, attracting a tiny fraction of the attention of Elon Musk’s company while powering, to a significant extent, a transition to electrified mobility that’s moving faster in China than in any other country.
How To Digitize Handwritten Notes
A number of smart devices offer to digitize your scribblings, either as you write or shortly afterward. In addition to storing images of your notebook pages in electronic form, some of these hardware and software packages actually convert your writings into searchable text.
Inside Google’s Civil War
With its “Don’t be evil” mantra, Google was a central player in creating the rosy optimism of the tech boom. Some employees say Google is losing touch with that motto. What happens when an empowered tech workforce rebels?
The Big China Short
Researchers had a hunch that Luckin Coffee, China’s fast-growing challenger to Starbucks and a company traded in the U.S. stock market, was falsifying financial statements to exaggerate its sales. A few months later, an anonymously written 89-page report landed on Wall Street and leveled one of China’s hottest startups.
This Company Hired Anyone Who Applied. Now It’s Starting A Movement
Greyston Bakery uses a practice of open hiring: filling positions on a first-come, first-served basis, no questions asked. Now it wants to teach other companies how to do the same. Open hiring creates a pipeline for careers on the bakery’s manufacturing floor and throughout the rest of the company’s operations.
The Confessions Of Marcus Hutchins, The Hacker Who Saved The Internet
At 22, he saved the internet from what was the worst cyberattack in history: a piece of malware called WannaCry. It was Hutchins who had found and triggered the secret kill switch contained in its code, neutering WannaCry’s global threat immediately. Then he was arrested by the FBI.
Behind The Chinese Internet Wall
What is happening on the other side of the barrier? There we find people who respond to state controls with creativity and spunk. While some spend their days trawling cat videos, others create oases of subversion within the reality that they’ve been dealt.
Google And Amazon Are Now In The Oil Business
Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have been very vocal about their efforts to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. But as The Wall Street Journal has reported, these same companies are currently teaming up with fossil fuel industry to help them squeeze as much oil and gas out of the ground as possible.
The Story Behind An Identify Theft
Lurking behind a simple email in our inbox is a network of fake websites, letterbox companies and more than 100 victims around the world. We untangled a web of fake accounts and followed the digital breadcrumbs back to two Danish fraudsters. This is how we tracked them down, step by step.
How To Work From Home Without Losing Your Mind
Working from home has its perks. You’re always there to accept deliveries. You can play whatever music you want as loudly as you want. You don’t have to abide the loud chewing or ungracious smells of your colleagues. But you also have to contend with the Scylla and Charybdis of isolation and distraction.
What Are Third-Party Internet Cookies, And Why Is Google Killing Them?
Killing the cookie might be a good first step in finally respecting consumer privacy. But when it comes to fixing what ails the modern internet, it’s a drop in the bucket. The effort is belated, murky, and not quite the revolution it’s being portrayed as.
The Secret Rules Of The Internet
Many US-based companies continue to consign their moderators to the margins, shipping their platforms’ digital waste to “special economic zones” in the Global South. The murky history of moderation, and how it’s shaping the future of free speech.
Undercover Reporter Reveals Life In A Polish Troll Farm
Undercover reporter, Katarzyna Pruszkiewicz, spent six months this year working at Cat@Net, which describes itself as an “ePR agency comprising specialists who build a positive image of companies, private individuals and public institutions – mostly in social media.”.
The Soviets’ Unbreakable Code
Created at the end of World War II and introduced in 1956, the Fialka replaced the Albatross, a Soviet cipher machine that was itself more complex than the Enigma. By the 1970s, Fialka encryption machines had been widely adopted by Warsaw Pact and other communist nations, and they remained in use until the early 1990s.
How Netflix Turned Bill Clinton’s Impeachment Into A Growth Hack
The reason we might all be using Netflix today could have a lot to do with a marketing stunt involving the grand jury testimony that got Bill Clinton impeached. Netflix’s wild bet on political scandal succeeded in almost every single way a story like this possibly could.
I Accidentally Uncovered A Nationwide Scam On Airbnb
An undetected scam created by some person or organization that had figured out just how easy it is to exploit Airbnb’s poorly written rules in order to collect thousands of dollars through phony listings, fake reviews, and, when necessary, intimidation.
‘Angels’ In Hell: The Culture Of Misogyny Inside Victoria’s Secret
Victoria’s Secret defined femininity for millions of women. But inside the company, two powerful men presided over an entrenched culture of misogyny, bullying and harassment, according to interviews with more than 30 current and former executives, employees, contractors and models, as well as court filings and other documents.