Search Results for: Fortune

[1934] A look back at the wine industry in the United States shortly after the end of Prohibition. Wine consumption was growing, but it was unclear whether American companies could compete: 

Since repeal became imminent the U.S. has been flooded with wine propaganda. In every metropolitan newspaper, experts have conducted daily columns on the art of wine drinking. Makers of the variously shaped glasses from which one drinks hock and Sauternes and Burgundy have done a boom-time business. The Marquise de Polignac, whose husband makes French champagne, has been repeatedly interviewed. The propaganda has been paid for by the French wine interests and by California’s. (The French are now feeling pretty glum about their quota.) But however it started, it has made the drinking and serving of wine, for the moment, as much a fad as was the cross-word puzzle or mah jong. So U.S. wines have a market worth competing for, an opportunity which may not come again for many, many years.

“Can Wine Become an American Habit?” — Staff, Fortune, March 1, 1934

See also: “The Beer Archaeologist.” — Abigail Tucker, June 24, 2011

A brief history of the cruise ship industry—from its early idealism to its evolution into “funships” for “Huggets”:

Arison found a Norwegian called Knut Kloster who had a suitable boat. Kloster also came from an old shipping family. They had made their fortune shipping ice to Europe from Norway, and they now ran a vast fleet of tankers. In 1966 Kloster and Arison set up a company called Norwegian Cruise Lines based in Miami.

Kloster believed that the aim of capitalism was not just to make money but to use its power to improve society. He saw the world as divided between the rich, industrial west – and the ‘third world’ which was struggling to escape from the debilitating legacy of colonialism, and the still vastly unequal distribution of global power.

So his cruise ships were going to remedy that.

“We’re All in the Same Boat—Aren’t We?” — Adam Curtis, BBC

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We’re All in the Same Boat—Aren’t We?

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A brief history of the cruise ship industry—from its early idealism to its evolution into “funships” for “Huggets”:

“Arison found a Norwegian called Knut Kloster who had a suitable boat. Kloster also came from an old shipping family. They had made their fortune shipping ice to Europe from Norway, and they now ran a vast fleet of tankers. In 1966 Kloster and Arison set up a company called Norwegian Cruise Lines based in Miami.

“Kloster believed that the aim of capitalism was not just to make money but to use its power to improve society. He saw the world as divided between the rich, industrial west – and the ‘third world’ which was struggling to escape from the debilitating legacy of colonialism, and the still vastly unequal distribution of global power.

“So his cruise ships were going to remedy that.”

Source: BBC
Published: Jan 30, 2012
Length: 15 minutes (3,871 words)

[Fiction] A marriage and its outside interferences:

When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift response. She was confident that anything touching on her professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to sing David Cannon’s songs under such conditions, presented good fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly.

But his “Why, my dear, South America!” came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: “It’s a wonderful chance, dearest, isn’t it?”

“The Thing They Loved.” — Marice Rutledge, The Century Magazine, 1920

See more Pen/O. Henry Award Winning #Fiction Longreads

Photo: thejourney1972/Flickr

The Thing They Loved

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[Fiction] A marriage and its outside interferences:

“When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift response. She was confident that anything touching on her professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to sing David Cannon’s songs under such conditions, presented good fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly.

“But his ‘Why, my dear, South America!’ came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: ‘It’s a wonderful chance, dearest, isn’t it?'”

Published: May 1, 1920
Length: 35 minutes (8,940 words)

An investigation of the many scams of Minkow—who goes from prison, to church, and then back to prison:

Minkow was the boy-wonder business phenom of the 1980s. In 1982, at age 16, he started ZZZZ Best, a carpet-cleaning company, from his parents’ garage in Reseda, Calif., in the San Fernando Valley. The business expanded rapidly and went public in 1986, making Minkow, at age 20, worth more than $100 million on paper. But it was a giant Ponzi scheme and collapsed in May 1987. Minkow was convicted of 57 federal felonies, sentenced to 25 years, and ordered to pay $26 million in restitution. …

The story of Minkow’s life is comic, tragic, and psychologically perplexing. Minkow is blessed with intelligence, courage, indomitable drive, rhetorical gifts, an apparent desire to do good, and a record of documented beneficent deeds. Yet he also keeps doing ghastly things. His story is hard to read without pondering the question, Is character destiny? More narrowly, can a con man ever be redeemed?

“Barry Minkow: All-American Con Man.” — Roger Parloff, Fortune

See also: “All the Best Victims.” — Vanity Fair, Aug. 1, 2010

Featured Longreader: Front-end developer Carlos Rodriguez. See his story picks from Bloomberg Businessweek, Yield Thought, Fortune Magazine and more on his #longreads page.

The Genius Behind Steve Jobs

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Tim Cook arrived at Apple in 1998 from Compaq Computer. He was a 16-year computer-industry veteran – he’d worked for IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) for 12 of those years – with a mandate to clean up the atrocious state of Apple’s manufacturing, distribution, and supply apparatus. One day back then, he convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia. “This is really bad,” Cook told the group. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, “Why are you still here?”

Source: Fortune
Published: Nov 10, 2008
Length: 16 minutes (4,102 words)

The Querent

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I was 13 at the time of the accident, 16 when my father died of complications related to his injuries. When I look back at why of all the forms of the occult I’d found the one that appealed to me most was fortunetelling, it seems to me the answer came from my father’s accident and death. I wanted to know how to tell the future. I wanted one of those mirrors, the ones positioned so you can see around a corner, but for my whole life. That’s what I believed the Tarot could be.

Published: Aug 10, 2011
Length: 23 minutes (5,971 words)

The Trials of Kaplan Higher Ed and the Education of The Washington Post Co.

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Eleven years ago, one of Washington’s most tradition-bound companies placed a bet that would transform its fortunes. The wager, by The Washington Post Co. and its Kaplan division, took the form of a $165 million purchase of an Atlanta-based chain of for-profit vocational schools that catered to low-income students. The bet was big — the price equal to the profits earned that year by The Post Co.’s print-media pillars: this newspaper and Newsweek magazine. So was the payoff. But what proved a deftly timed business move brought other, less welcome scrutiny to a family-run company that had long prided itself in serving the public interest.

Source: Washington Post
Published: Apr 10, 2011
Length: 20 minutes (5,209 words)