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 […]
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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.
Posted inEditor's Pick
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.
Posted inEditor's Pick
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 […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Inside the App Economy
Beyond the goofy games is a world of useful programs that’s making fortunes and changing the rules of business
Posted inEditor's Pick
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, […]
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction
The Skies Belong to Us: How Hijackers Created an Airline Crisis in the 1970s
Brendan I. Koerner | The Skies Belong to Us | 2013 | 25 minutes (6,186 words) ‘There Is No Way to Tell a Hijacker by Looking At Him’ When the FAA’s antihijacking task force first convened in February 1969, its ten members knew they faced a daunting challenge—not only because of the severity of the […]
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Unapologetic Women
The Good Girls Revolt
In 1970, Lynn Povich and 45 other women sued Newsweek for discrimination. Here is what the workplace was like for them.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Swiping Right in the 1700s: The Evolution of Personal Ads
Noga Arikha | Lapham’s Quarterly | 2009 | 13 minutes (3,200 words) Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) I. In 1727, a lady named Helen Morrison placed a personal advertisement in the Manchester Weekly Journal. It was possibly the first time a newspaper was ever used for such a purpose. As it happens, Morrison was […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
The Bohemians: The San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature
Ben Tarnoff | The Bohemians, Penguin Press | March 2014 | 46 minutes (11,380 words) Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) For our Longreads Member Pick, we’re thrilled to share the opening chapter of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature, the book by Ben Tarnoff, published by The Penguin Press.
