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.
How Would Anyone Benefit From Sending Unsolicited Amazon Packages To Random Addresses?
First came a cell phone case that no one had ordered and that didn’t match a phone in the house. The next week brought unusual kitchen supplies. Then a mass of assorted holiday-themed items. All of these deliveries were from Amazon.
How A Volcanic Eruption Helped Create Modern Scotland
Over seven terrible years in the 1690s, crops failed, farming villages emptied, and severe famine killed up to 15% of the entire population of Scotland. Soon after, the formerly independent nation joined Great Britain. Now, researchers suggest volcanic eruptions thousands of kilometers away may have helped spark this political transformation.
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.
The Oddly Autocratic Roots Of Pad Thai
In rice-centric Thailand, then known as Siam, the dish seemed more Chinese. But Thailand’s prime minister, who first rose to power as part of a military coup against the longtime monarchy, had spoken. As part of his strident nationalism, he wanted all Thais to eat pad Thai.
One Woman’s Instagram-Fueled Ascent To ‘Boss Lady Status’
For New Orleans entrepreneur Jesseca Dupart, social media isn’t just a tool for building her business—it’s a platform for inspiring other black women to do the same. She started as a simple hair salon in 2012, now her beauty products are available in stores in every state, as well as Canada, the Caribbean, and the UK.
‘I Would Rather Win A Pulitzer Prize Than Be President’
Margaret Coit uncovered many new details about Kennedy’s literary obsession, including his direct involvement in pursuing a Pulitzer and in using his family’s wealth to keep his ghostwriter quiet. In the end, Kennedy got everything he wanted—the presidency and the Pulitzer both.
The World’s Tallest Water Slide Was a Terrible, Tragic Idea
At nearly 169 feet tall, Verrückt was taller than Niagara Falls. Riders flew down the world’s tallest water slide at 70 miles per hour, challenging the laws of physics. Then, on August 7, 2016, 10-year-old Caleb Schwab was decapitated on the ride. What went wrong to cause such a horrific tragedy?
How Ring Went From ‘Shark Tank’ Reject To America’s Scariest Surveillance Company
Amazon’s Ring started from humble roots as a smart doorbell company called “DoorBot.” Now it’s surveilling the suburbs and partnering with police. Although there’s no credible evidence that Ring actually deters or reduces crime, claiming that its products achieve these things is essential to its marketing model.
I Survived the Warsaw Ghetto. Here Are the Lessons I’d Like to Pass On.
As a Polish Jew born in 1925, who survived the Warsaw ghetto, lost my family in the Holocaust, served in a special operations unit of the Polish underground, the Home Army, and fought in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, I know what it means to be at the sharp end of European history – and I fear that the battle to draw the right lessons from that time is in danger of being lost.
The Way We Work Is Killing Us
In the United States, workers work among the longest, most extreme, and most irregular hours; have no guarantee to paid sick days, paid vacation, or paid family leave; and pay more for health insurance, yet are sicker and more stressed out than workers in other advanced economies.
How One American Citizen Was Forcibly Drafted Into The South Korean Army
Illinois-born Young Chun thought a stint teaching English in Korea would be a quick and easy way to pay off his mounting post-college debt. He could not have been more wrong. Chun became a victim of a collision between unforgiving bureaucracy and the meddling of an unknown family member thousands of miles away.
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.
The Girl In The Box: The Mysterious Crime That Shocked Germany
After class on Tuesday 15 September 1981, the first day of the new school year, a 10-year-old girl named Ursula Herrmann returned to her house in Eching. She never arrived. So began one of Germany’s most notorious postwar criminal cases, which remains contentious to this day.
How The 0.001% Invest
Global finance is being transformed as billionaires get richer and cut out the middlemen by creating their own “family offices”, personal investment firms that roam global markets looking for opportunities.
How McKinsey Destroyed The Middle Class
Consultants seek to legitimate both the job cuts and the explosion of elite pay. Rather than simply improving management, to make American corporations lean and fit, they fostered hierarchy, making management, in David Gordon’s memorable phrase, “fat and mean.”
When The Sahara Was Green
The climate of the Sahara was completely different thousands of years ago. And we’re not talking about just a few years of extra rain. We’re talking about a climate that was so wet for so long that animals and humans alike made themselves at home in the middle of the Sahara.
What Happened To MoviePass?
MoviePass tried to change the moviegoing experience altogether, with a simple idea. For a monthly fee, subscribers could go to the cinema once a day, every day. Ironically, too many subscribers would eventually be a bad thing. MoviePass went from being a hit to entirely collapsing, in just 3 days. How?
The Start-Ups Building ‘Dark Kitchens’ For Uber Eats And Deliveroo
Venture capitalists have all aligned on the best solution: kitchens that only serve delivery customers, known as “cloud”, “ghost” or “dark” kitchens, that use a combination of advanced food preparation, underused real estate and algorithm-driven optimisation to lower overheads and increase output.
The Curse Of The Ship Of Gold
How Tommy Thompson, a brilliant scientist, went from discovering a mother lode of treasure at the bottom of the sea to fleeing from authorities with suitcases full of cash.
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.