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 […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Man vs. Machine on Wall Street: How Computers Beat the Market
Cliff Asness’s Applied Quantitative Research—which makes its fortune, like other “quants,” by using high-speed computers and financial models of extraordinary complexity—has made a stupendous recovery in the past two years. At the end of 2010, AQR had $33 billion in assets under management. Its funds’ performance was up nearly 20 percent last year, after being […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Inside The Deal That Made Bill Gates $350 Million (1986)
On the 25th anniversary of the company’s IPO, Fortune presents the inside story of Microsoft’s stock issue. For six months, writer Uttal followed around a young Bill Gates, whom he dubbed the “rabid rabbit” as he prepared himself and his company for the public markets.
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Monetizing the Celebrity Meltdown
Tom Barrack, a billionaire investor who made his fortune in real estate, has discovered a market in distressed celebrities. With Neverland Ranch and Miramax under his belt, he’s now on a shopping spree—and bringing along his buddy Rob Lowe.
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The Singularities of Josh Harris
Josh Harris made his fortune, long since lost, by starting two pioneering companies in New York: the first web research firm, Jupiter Communications, in 1986; and Pseudo, the first producer of television shows for the Internet, in 1993. “First of all, I’m flat broke,” he said. “And a guy like me is in New York […]
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Inside the App Economy
Beyond the goofy games is a world of useful programs that’s making fortunes and changing the rules of business
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Mark Zuckerberg: The Temptation of Facebook’s CEO
If not for founder Mark Zuckerberg’s stubborn streak, social-media pioneer Facebook might be just another part of a giant media or tech outfit today. Instead it’s a giant on its own, with close to 500 million users, some $20 billion in market value, and millions of investors eagerly awaiting an IPO. For his new book, […]
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Longreads Best of 2012: Inc. Magazine's Burt Helm
Burt Helm is Senior Writer for Inc. Magazine. His stories, “The Forgotten Founder,” “Turntable.fm: Where Did Our Love Go?” and “Hard Lessons in Modern Lending,” were featured on Longreads in 2012. Best Takedown of an Old, Established Writer by a Young, Hungry Writer in an Awkward Press Junket Setting Sarah Nicole Prickett, “How to Get […]
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Longreads Best of 2012: Michael Hobbes
Michael Hobbes lives in Berlin. His essays from his blog, Rottin’ in Denmark, were featured on Longreads this year. I read news when I want to be entertained. I read features when I want to learn something. Here’s nine articles I read this year that changed the way I look at the world, and made […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
My Tears See More Than My Eyes: My Son’s Depression and the Power of Art
Alan Shapiro | Virginia Quarterly Review| Fall 2006 | 20 minutes (4,928 words) Alan Shapiro published two books in January 2012: Broadway Baby, a novel, from Algonquin Books, and Night of the Republic, poetry, from Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt. This essay first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review (subscribe here). Our thanks to Shapiro for allowing us to reprint […]
