How The Mast Brothers Fooled The World Into Paying $10 A Bar For Crappy Hipster Chocolate
While customers can’t get enough of the company’s bearded, Brooklyn hipster founders, and their brilliantly marketed, $10 “bean to bar” chocolates, a term reserved for chocolate that has been produced entirely under the maker’s control, from the cocoa bean to the wrapped bar, chocolate experts have shunned them.
The Heart Of Today’s Billion-Dollar Sneaker-Collecting Boom Is 35 Years Old
Nowadays, sneakers aren’t just for wearing. They’re an asset class, on display at museums, and fueling an increasingly profitable resale market. Much of that traces back to Nike putting a superstar rookie’s name on a new pair of kicks in 1985.
The Cab Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps
Were ride-hailing companies doing enough to protect passengers from negligent drivers? Maybe Grab’s growth and its perceived triumph over Uber the day before my accident had come at a cost. Was it possible that, for all the convenience ride-hailing services offered, they were making cities less safe?
The American Restaurant Is On Life Support
The restaurant industry is in a scary place, one that fairly guarantees heartbreak. We’re eating at street-corner stalls and food trucks, in front of the TV and at the grocery—everywhere but restaurants. They might not be here when we get back.
How The Government Came To Decide The Color Of Your Food
Tomatoes are red, margarine is yellow, and oranges, are, well, orange. We expect certain foods to be in certain colors. What we don’t realize is that these colors are not necessarily a product of nature but rather of historical controversies and deliberate decisions by various actors—including the government.
How Volkswagen Plans To Outsell Tesla
Although Tesla reigns as king of the EV market thanks to its Model 3, Volkswagen has a plan in place to outsell them in the next few years. The automaker has set its sights on becoming a major name in the EV game, investing $37 billion in its electric car program.
The Case For More Silent Meetings
Talking meetings have much merit, but can also be subject to a host of problems. Current research supports the benefits of holding a “silent meeting” as one way of better leveraging the ideas, perspectives, and insights of organizational talent.
How The Doomed Masa Son-Adam Neumann Relationship Set WeWork On The Road To Disaster
For Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, Neumann was the prodigal son he never had, with a wild-eyed vision to rival Son’s own. The inside story of how it all went wrong.
Inside The Failure Of Google+, A Very Expensive Attempt To Unseat Facebook
Create a social network or risk everything. That was the original pitch for Google’s Facebook rival, Google+, a refrain hammered over and over by the social network’s chief architect, Vic Gundotra, in meetings with the company’s top brass.
Meet China’s Take On The Classic British Chippie
Architect studio Unknown Works 3D-scanned fish and chip shops across the UK to create the ultimate chippie in China’s Chengdu. The end result isn’t exactly as you might expect, but there are some definite recognizable details – such as the square white tiles, and the engraved salt and pepper pots and fish menu.
The 30 Year-Old Airline That’s Never Flown
Back in 1989, a guy by the name of Igor Dmitrovsky filed the paperwork to incorporate a small little business in the state of New York. This company would enter the metal cylinder organism transport business under the name Baltia Airlines. The airline was to fly from New York, US to St Petersburg, USSR.
Hangover Inc.: The Companies Getting You Over Last Night
Once a hush-hush luxury for the quietly-pampered, banana bags outside the hospital are hitting the mainstream. Nurses stand ready to provide intravenous care to the dehydrated, alcoholically and otherwise, in their homes and hotel rooms, at walk-in centers and on a hangover bus for special events.
The Productivity Paradox
Higher productivity means the expectation of rising wages and abundant job opportunities. In a time of Facebook, smartphones, self-driving cars, and computers that can beat a person at just about any board game, how can the key economic measure of technological progress be so pathetic?
Can Mission-Driven Food Companies Scale Up Without Selling Out?
When just 10 companies—including Nestlé, Unilever, and General Mills—control the vast majority of food brands, it raises serious questions about the ability of mission-driven companies to hold on to their original intentions.
The Truth Behind Brands’ Secret Formulas & Recipes
Why brands are so protective of their signature formula or recipe. Is there really a thing like “secret formula” or it’s just that you are being persuaded into believing that such a thing exists. What would happen if you steal the Coca-Cola secret formula?
How Small Business Owners Survived The Great Recession
Successful business owners employed a variety of strategies to make ends meet, from entering into strategic partnerships to significantly downsizing staff. When small business owners faced dramatic downward shifts in revenue, they had to get creative and, in some cases, make extremely difficult decisions.
The Billion-Dollar Ponzi Scheme That Hooked Warren Buffett And The U.S. Treasury
Jeff Carpoff was a good mechanic but struggled as a businessman. His machine—a solar generator on wheels—was a sun-fueled alternative. He called it the Solar Eclipse. His invention, he thought, was “crazy, harebrained.” But investors saw the makings of a clean-energy revolution.
Start-up Spots Gap In Market For Ethical ‘Chick-Culling Free’ Eggs
Seleggt, a German start-up, is attempting to find a commercial use for its solution to the issue of chick culling in the farming industry. The eggs are marked with a ‘respeggt’ stamp, and customers know they are buying eggs produced free of chick culling.
How Ultra-Processed Food Took Over Your Shopping Basket
Ultra-processed foods now account for more than half of all the calories eaten in the UK and US. These foods are convenient, affordable, highly profitable, strongly flavored, aggressively marketed. But is ultra-processed food making us ill and driving the global obesity crisis?
What Ever Happened To Waterbeds?
After a heyday in the late 1980s in which nearly one out of every four mattresses sold was a waterbed mattress, the industry dried up in the 1990s, leaving behind a sense of unfilled promise and thousands upon thousands of unsold vinyl shells.
The Real Problem With The Cruise Industry
What the novel coronavirus has revealed about the cruise industry is a “hidden in plain sight” problem — an international maritime regulatory structure that obfuscates and often ignores legal and social responsibility, accountability and culpability.