Longreads

[Not single-page] A profile of Oliver Samwer and his web copycat factory in Berlin, which specializes in building knockoff websites inspired by growing American startups—then, sometimes, selling them back to the original company:

"The decision to copy a given business generally takes three hours to a couple of days; actually building the first version of the new company's website takes four to six weeks. "The speed at which you can make decisions here is amazing," says Brigitte Wittekind, a former McKinsey consultant who was recruited last year to create a clone of Birchbox, the New York start-up that offers samples of cosmetics to subscribers for $10 a month. Wittekind's company, Glossybox, spent its first year opening websites in 20 countries. It has 400 employees and 200,000 paid subscribers—twice as many as its American counterpart—and just launched in the United States, one of the few instances in which a Rocket clone will go head to head with the company on which it is modeled."

What does it take to get a tech startup funded? Inside the competitive selection process for one incubator in New York City:

"The date is January 24, one day after applications were due for TechStars, a three-month mentorship program that is part boot camp, part investment fund. Some 1,480 young companies have filled out a questionnaire and recorded two short videos for the chance to compete for just 14 spots. That works out to an acceptance rate of less than 1 percent. 'Look to your right; look to your left,' Tisch said at a recruiting event in early January, modifying the Harvard Law School warning to first-year students. 'Probably none of you will get in here.'"

On the day his country exploded, Santiago Bilinkis stayed at home and watched the riots on television with his wife and infant son. It was painful. In Buenos Aires, one of the world's great cities, looters were attacking grocery stores. Bilinkis's bank account—along with every other account in the country—had been frozen by executive decree three weeks earlier. Argentina was out of money. This was December 20, 2001, a Thursday. That afternoon, several people were killed by police in front of the executive office building, known as the Pink House, and President Fernando de la Rúa resigned and fled the capital in a helicopter. In the days that followed, Argentina would cycle through four more presidents and default on debts totaling $155 billion. Unemployment would soar to 25 percent, and local governments, unable to pay their workers, would simply invent and print their own currencies.

"Etsy has made it possible for a lot of small businesses to get off the ground," says Dale Dougherty, co-founder of O'Reilly Media and the publisher of Make magazine, which covers the do-it-yourself economy. "But even the most successful crafters run up against the limits of their own labor. Handmade can be a limited idea." In other words, the very qualities that make Etsy so attractive to new sellers put the most successful Etsy sellers in an awkward position: They must stay small or abandon Etsy. For founder Rob Kalin and his investors, the questions are even tougher: Can a site dedicated to DIY scale? Or is Etsy, despite Kalin's ambition and grandiosity, just a small idea?

We venture to the very heart of the hell that is Scandinavian socialism—and find out that it's not so bad. Pricey, yes, but a good place to start and run a company. What exactly does that suggest about the link between taxes and entrepreneurship? "Whereas most entrepreneurs in Dalmo's position develop a retching distaste for paying taxes, Dalmo doesn't mind them much. 'The tax system is good—it's fair,' he tells me. 'What we're doing when we are paying taxes is buying a product. So the question isn't how you pay for the product; it's the quality of the product.' Dalmo likes the government's services, and he believes that he is paying a fair price."

Tim O'Reilly is Silicon Valley's leading intellectual and the founder of O'Reilly Media, a steadily growing $100 million company. His life is a vivid demonstration that interesting things can happen when you are working for more than money.

Paul Graham's business school and investment fund, Y Combinator, has launched 145 companies -- for a lot less money than you would think

How Tony Hsieh uses relentless innovation, stellar customer service, and a staff of believers to make Zappos.com an e-commerce juggernaut -- and one of the most blissed-out businesses in America