Groupon actually lost $413 million in 2010. Diving into the S-1, it turned out that Groupon only considered itself profitable because it used a peculiar accounting metric of its own creation — adjusted consolidated segment operating income, or ACSOI. Basically, Groupon was taking the money it was spending on advertising to acquire new subscribers to […]
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Groupon actually lost $413 million in 2010. Diving into the S-1, it turned out that Groupon only considered itself profitable because it used a peculiar accounting metric of its own creation — adjusted consolidated segment operating income, or ACSOI. Basically, Groupon was taking the money it was spending on advertising to acquire new subscribers to […]
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Lapham’s Quarterly Editor Michelle Legro: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011
Michelle Legro, longtime Longreader, is an editor at Lapham’s Quarterly. *** “The Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Paul Ford (The Morning News) I doubt there are many people that will remember the December blizzard of 2010 better than Paul Ford, limping through the snow with his wife to their IVF procedure without any form of transportation […]
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Matthias Rascher: My Top 5 Longreads of 2011
Matthias Rascher teaches English and History at a high school in northern Bavaria, Germany. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twitter. He is also a longtime contributor to the #Longreads community and an author for Open Culture. *** • “The Possibilian: David Eagleman and […]
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Lessons from inventor Lenn Rockford Hann’s negotiations with companies over a carbon-fiber shoe he patented in 2004: When it came time to talk price with New Balance, Hann set his offer sky-high. He says he meant it as a starting point, but company executives closed discussions. Hartner remains a supporter of the shoe, but says […]
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How the U.S. lost out on iPhone manufacturing work, and what it means for the future of job creation in the United States: But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Not long ago, Apple […]
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A startup keeps searching for its winning formula: While their neighbors toiled away, building unglamorous businesses, Justin.tv’s March 19, 2007, launch became an immediate sensation. The San Francisco Chronicle did a front-page story. Ann Curry, in an excruciating Today show interview, lectured Kan. “Fame, I have to tell you, Justin, has a price,” she said. […]
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Entrepreneurs continue to reflect on the lessons of Steve Jobs—is his story ultimately a cautionary tale about a person obsessed with the wrong things in life? Soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, he decided that a shipping company wasn’t delivering spare parts fast enough. The shipper said it couldn’t do […]
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“An Intimate Portrait Of Innovation, Risk, And Failure Through Hipstamatic’s Lens.” — Austin Carr, Fast Company More from Fast Company
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An Italian inventor may have created a machine that can generate so much cheap energy, it would put oil companies out of business. Or it all may be a spectacular scam: On the last day of the conference, Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at Langley Research Center, summed up the state of LENR research. Guys like […]
