How to Survive in Vegas

Gary Loveman left a Harvard Business School professorship to join Harrah’s Entertainment. By putting his theories about customer service into practice, he built the world’s biggest gaming company. Then came the crash.

Source: Businessweek
Published: Aug 5, 2010
Length: 17 minutes (4,305 words)

But Will It Make You Happy?

She had so much.

Published: Aug 7, 2010
Length: 12 minutes (3,048 words)

Vanity Fair’s Bryan Burrough on writing narrative: “people are dying to put down your article”

Published: Aug 6, 2010
Length: 9 minutes (2,485 words)

After the Crackdown

Talking to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — and the opposition — about Iran today.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Aug 16, 2010
Length: 29 minutes (7,427 words)

Google Research Dir. Peter Norvig on Being Wrong

Google’s search engine has changed how we conduct research, plan vacations, resolve arguments, find old acquaintances, and check out potential mates. It’s also radically reshaping the way we think about almost every imaginable medium.

Source: Slate
Published: Aug 3, 2010
Length: 16 minutes (4,050 words)

Artisanal America

Exalting the handmade, the painstakingly crafted, the authentic, is not just for hipsters in Portland and Brooklyn anymore.

Author: Adam Sachs
Source: Details
Published: Aug 1, 2010
Length: 8 minutes (2,061 words)

My Life in Therapy

Published: Aug 4, 2010
Length: 36 minutes (9,192 words)

The Savior of Conde Nast

Someday, when they tell the story of how digital magazines saved Conde Nast, it will begin in San Francisco’s Caffé Centro sometime in May 2009. It was there that Wired creative director Scott Dadich asked Wired editor Chris Anderson to meet him to discuss the creation of a prototype for a new digital tablet. Mr. Dadich knew the iPhone screen was far too small to re-create the magazine experience, but it got him thinking about a Minority Report-like touchscreen that could work. Mr. Dadich took out a cocktail napkin and drew an illustration of what Wired could look like on a 13-inch tablet screen.

Published: Aug 3, 2010
Length: 5 minutes (1,463 words)

All The Best Victims

The shocking thing about Kenneth Starr’s alleged Ponzi scheme wasn’t the amount—$59 million, pocket change by Madoff standards—but his client list. How did an accountant from the Bronx pull in the likes of Bunny Mellon, Barbara Walters, Al Pacino, Caroline Kennedy, and Matt Lauer?

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: Aug 1, 2010
Length: 31 minutes (7,880 words)

Seven Years as a Freelance Writer, or, How To Make Vitamin Soup

When people say they want to get into freelancing but don’t know how to do it, what I tell them is: OK, fine, you don’t know how to freelance because you’ve never done it before, but take something you do know how to do-dating-and just use the same rules. Freelancing is basically just courtship, but the freelancer-editor relationship is nothing more than friends with benefits. The editor likes you because you remind the editor of when they had enthusiasm and appetite and vision and so you make the editor feel powerful in the way that nostalgia empowers people.

Source: The Awl
Published: Aug 2, 2010
Length: 17 minutes (4,485 words)