The Couple Who Turned a California Desert Into a Multi-Billion Dollar Snack Empire By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Taxpayers have helped Stewart and Lynda Resnick turn an irrigated desert into a dangerous and lucrative agricultural gamble.
Translation is Messy, Which is Why Google Translate Will Never Be Very Good at It By Ben Huberman Highlight The popular online tool is great at rapid decoding. Extracting meaning? Not so much.
Distraction is the New Censorship By Catherine Cusick Highlight Ideas don’t need to be deleted or redacted to be silenced. They can just be drowned out.
Silicon Valley’s Spin Master By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight After helping shape the public image of numerous tech companies, Margit Wennmachers is now helping shape the story of Silicon Valley itself.
Art in the Age of Blockchain By Michelle Legro Commentary Why a rare Pepe meme is now easier to authenticate than a Leonardo.
White Privilege on Loop By Catherine Cusick Highlight Ann-Derrick Gaillot traces how Vine’s shuttering last year disproportionately affected the careers of Black Viners.
Money For Nothing in the Bitcoin Bubble By Michelle Legro Highlight The cryptocurrency gold rush has made millionaires out of those obsessed with changing the world order.
How the American Meat Industry Exploits Undocumented Laborers By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Meat processing is one of the most dangerous jobs in America, even more so if you’re one of the undocumented immigrants who sanitizes the facilities.
The More We Disrupt, The More Things Are Exactly The Same By Michelle Weber Commentary TL;DR: tech titans have a lot of sex and drug parties at which they disrupt conventional morality by… replicating conventional sexist, heteronormative behaviors.
Longreads Best of 2017: Science, Technology, and Business Writing By Longreads Reading List We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in business, tech, and science writing.
Tearing the Heart from the Music Industry By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Digitization has removed the humanity from the music business, from collaboration to mutual respect.
Is Estonia Leading the Way to the Future Digital World? By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Estonia’s ultimate goal in digitizing its society has less to do with automation than it does with embracing the transient nature of labor in the European marketplace.
The NFL Has Pimped Its Players for Too Long By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The disturbing parallels between professional football and the business of pimping
A Pact Between You, God, and the Dance Floor By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Dancing the nights away with bar and bat mitzvah professionals known as “party motivators.”
Suburbanizing Survivalism By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary Inside the booming business of survival food.
Destroying Music, One Playlist at a Time By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary Spotify’s corporate-branded playlists are not the solution to the music industry’s problems. They’re a new problem.
Second Life: A World that, for Some, Allows Full Participation By Krista Stevens Highlight Second Life offers both escapism and a refuge for its hard-core digital denizens.
Buying Everything You Need at the Dollar Store By Catherine Cusick Highlight You just can’t need greens. Or fruit. Or a higher net income.
The Fight to Escape “A World of Anonymous Abuse” By Em Perper Highlight Online harassment is as serious as offline harassment, and it rarely stays “only” online.
Peter Thiel Makes Sure His Kids Are All Right By Michelle Legro Commentary Why the libertarian billionaire keeps tabs on the magazine he founded at Stanford 30 years ago.
Greece’s Beleaguered Port City By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The violent chipping center of Aspropyrgos, Greece is a microcosm of Europe itself, struggling to benefit from the global economy while protecting its identity.
The Dead Man Fund By Longreads Feature How the world’s worst investor fleeced clients who couldn’t complain.
The Business of Building a Country’s Brand By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A whole sector of the marketing industry shapes stories about nations and cities to shape our opinions about place.
How Cinnabon Perfected Its Recipe By Mike Dang Highlight The story behind a “world famous” cinnamon roll.
What Happened to eBay? By Em Perper Highlight I haven’t peeked at eBay in years, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s forgotten it exists.
Mexico’s Manufacturing Sector Will Survive With or Without America By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Despite president Trump’s desire to build a wall and revise NAFTA, the godfather of Mexico’s manufacturing sector said they will survive.
The Sacred Right of Universal Narcotic Entitlement By Michelle Weber Highlight Inventing maladies and marketing drugs to relieve them isn’t a new m.o. for pharmaceutical companies. OxyContin is its fullest and most terrible expression.
Immature Architects Built the Attention Economy By Catherine Cusick Highlight The creators of addictive smartphone technology admit they were too immature to consider the downsides of persuasive design.
The Creator of Bitcoin Comes Clean, Only to Disappear Again By Longreads Feature The mysterious creator of bitcoin asks a journalist to help reveal his identity.
‘This is the Most Inexplicable Story in Sports of the Last 20 Years’ By Matt Giles Feature An interview with Erik Malinowski, author of ‘Betaball,’ which details the improbable rise of the Golden State Warriors.
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