The Case Against Boeing
In the wake of the 737 MAX disasters, caused by a software feature, Boeing and regulators initially placed blame on the planes’ pilots. Since Samya Stumo’s death in a 737 MAX crash, her parents and her great-uncle, Ralph Nader, have devoted themselves to proving that the company put profit over safety.
The Long-Lost Story Of The Longest Book Ever Written
For or a long time, Joe Gould thought he was going blind. This was before he lost his teeth, and years before he lost the history of the world he’d been writing in hundreds of dime-store composition notebooks, their black covers mottled like the pelt of a speckled goat, their white pages lined with thin blue veins.
The Steve Jobs Nobody Knew
How an insecure, acid-dropping hippie kid reinvented himself as a technological visionary – and changed the world. He rewrote the rules of business, combining Sixties idealism with greed-is-good capitalism. He never did anything first, but he did it best.
Inside Kanye West’s Vision For The Future
First he changed the sound of popular music. Then he revolutionized fashion and sneakers. Now, Kanye West is redesigning the very building blocks of family life—food, clothing, and shelter—and he’s claimed thousands of acres in Wyoming as a test site for his ideas.
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?
Pleas Of Insanity: The Mysterious Case Of Anthony Montwheeler
If Anthony Montwheeler does suffer from a mental illness, one that caused him to become extremely violent, how were the hospital staff and the review board so easily fooled? And, if he does not, why, a month after winning release, did he commit a senseless murder in the full view of multiple witnesses?
The Rise And Fall Of Marty Tirrell
From central Iowa radio pioneer to alleged scam artist. Money didn’t always belong to Tirrell, according to numerous court judgments against him. He defrauded eight people out of $1.5 million.
Credit Card Companies Are Tracking Shoppers Like Never Before
Transactions have given rise to a complex data-selling ecosystem. At the heart of it are credit card processing networks, including Visa, American Express, and Mastercard, the latter of which took in $4.1 billion in 2019 for services that include marketing analytics as well as fraud detection.
Diana Nyad Breaks The Waves
In her sixties, a swimmer revives an old dream: to swim from Cuba to Florida, 111 miles, the equivalent of five English Channel crossings, and the longest open-ocean swim in history. Nyad would have to contend with the strong currents and rough waves of the Gulf Stream, and with sharks and jellyfish.
Your Plastic Addiction Is Bankrolling Big Oil
As the world transitions slowly but surely away from fuel-guzzling cars, gas-powered buildings, and coal-fired power plants, fossil fuel company execs must count on growth that comes from somewhere else—and they see their savior as plastics.
Murder And Manifest Destiny On The Mosquito Coast
In 1999, a mysterious Greek entrepreneur bought and resold a series of tiny islands off the coast of Nicaragua, setting off a bizarre and tragic chain of events that included a reality-TV sensation and allegations of an insidious murder plot. The ensuing chaos brought to light a centuries-old question: Who does land really belong to?
‘The Intelligence Coup Of The Century’
For more than half a century, governments all over the world trusted a single company, Crypto AG, to keep the communications of their spies, soldiers and diplomats secret. But what none of its customers ever knew was that Crypto AG was secretly owned by the CIA.
The Curse Of America’s Illogical School-Day Schedule
The average start time for public high schools, 7:59, requires teens to get up earlier than is ideal for their biological clocks, meaning many teens disrupt their natural sleep patterns every school day. The world, apparently, does not revolve around parents either. Their lives also tend to be mismatched with school-day schedules.
Hot Second, The Proto-Flagship For Our Virtual Fashion Futures
On entering the “store” visitors stepped into booths equipped with “magic mirrors,” allowing them to virtually slip into something more (and sometimes less) comfortable: one of four looks rendered by digital fashion pioneers and in some instances their brand partners.
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.
In South-East Asia, Grab And Gojek Bring Banking To The Masses
Both started with ride-hailing and expanded into other logistics businesses, such as deliveries and food-ordering. The story of two South-East Asian “deca-unicorns”—fintechs valued above $10bn—is usually told in terms of their rivalry.
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.
How The “IKEA Effect” Explains Today’s Startups
Having customers do most of the work, feel great about it, and at the same time perceive they have attained value for their money is the Holy Grail in business. Ikea gets it–and so do many of today’s hottest startups.
How Philadelphia Became The One And Only Cream Cheese
There is only one cream cheese, and that is the brick-shaped silver package with the bright blue lettering: Philadelphia. Philadelphia cream cheese’s dominance isn’t a happy accident. Its cult popularity is likely the result of equal parts clever marketing and good timing.
Why We Shouldn’t Bail Out The Airlines And Cruise Companies
Despite the obvious vulnerability of the sector, boards/CEOs of the six largest airlines have spent 96% of their free cash flow on share buybacks, bolstering the share price and compensation of management… who now want a bailout. They should be allowed to fail.
That Wonderful Summer
On July 4, 1988, FIFA awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States. At the time, there was no top-flight professional league in the U.S., and it had been 38 years since the country had participated in a World Cup. As a condition for awarding the tournament, FIFA required the United States to create a new professional league.