In 2008 I sold a book-in-progress for $200,000 ($170,000 after commission, to be paid in four installments), which still seems to me like a lot of money. At the time, though, it seemed infinite. The resulting book—a “paperback original,” as they’re called—has sold around 8,000 copies, which is about a fifth of what it needed […]
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A look at WBUK, an organization created in the United Kingdom to provide support for whistleblowers who often lose their jobs, families, reputations and mental health witnessing illicit activity and going public: Beyond them sit about two dozen people whose lives, like those of Foxley and Gardiner, have been transformed because they refused to look […]
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In 2009, Brazil introduced “one of the boldest experiments in policing ever witnessed in the democratic world”—the Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora, or UPP—to rid its poorest neighborhoods from the grip of drug traffickers and violent militias before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics: ‘Everybody in Rio knew – every taxi driver, every senator, every […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Did Goldman Sachs Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?
Programmer Sergey Aleynikov was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for downloading 8 megabytes of code he worked on from Goldman Sachs’s high-frequency stock-trading system. Financial journalist Michael Lewis investigates how Aleynikov was punished for something only a few people understand, and holds a “kind of second trial” for Aleynikov so he can be […]
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The Last Mystery of the Financial Crisis
How corruption inside the ratings agencies played a critical role in the financial crisis: “In incriminating e-mail after incriminating e-mail, executives and analysts from these companies are caught admitting their entire business model is crooked. “‘Lord help our fucking scam . . . this has to be the stupidest place I have worked at,’ writes one Standard & Poor’s […]
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I’m For Sale
A writer looks for a balance between creative ambition and financial security: “I recently asked my dad if he ever regretted not following those early ambitions. No, he told me. Even though he’d toyed with doing a more commercial craft like silversmithing or pottery, he realized how hard a life that would be, always having […]
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The Story Of A Failed Startup And A Founder Driven To Suicide
How financial and personal pressure took a toll on an entrepreneur: “Before the fundraising, Sherman would push himself and others to raise as much money as possible for their businesses. After the financing closed, he began referring to venture capital as a ‘fraud’ and a ‘sham.’ “Employees could tell something was off when Sherman announced […]
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Meet the Man Who Sold His Fate to Investors at $1 a Share
A man decides to divide himself into 100,000 shares and sell himself on the open market, allowing investors to decide what he should do with his life: “Then, on August 10, 2008, Merrill asked the shareholders to decide whether he should get a vasectomy. He didn’t tell McCormick that he was going to bring them […]
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Operation Stolen Treasures
Two California men use conspiracy theories to fuel a massive tax-fraud scheme: “The Old Quest presenters told Trinidad every time he used his social security number as part of a financial transaction, he was ‘creating money,’ and that when he signed a loan document, the bank received nine times the amount he borrowed. They warned […]
