What happened inside the Latitude Society? In September, we featured a Longreads Original by Rick Paulas, “‘We Value Experience,’” which told the story of artist/entrepreneur Jeff Hull and his group’s attempts to build a sustainable “secret society” in the Bay Area. Paulas has shared the following postscript on what happened after his story about the […]
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Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Why the World Is Betting on a Better Battery: A Reading List
Nick Leiber | Longreads | March 2015 The first battery, a pile of copper and zinc discs, was invented more than 200 years ago, ushering in the electric age. Subsequent versions led to portable electronics, mobile computing, and our current love affair with smartphones (1,000 of which are shipped every 22 seconds). Now batteries are […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
The top 5 longreads of the week, featuring, The Stranger, Oxford American, Next City, Politico, and Vice.
Posted inNonfiction, Podcasts, Quotes
Playing Wii Tennis with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
A few years ago, Uber was barely started. Travis is at my house up in the mountains over the holidays, hanging out with me and my family. And he’s palling around with my dad. And my dad says, ‘Hey, let’s play a game of Wii Tennis (Nintendo Wii). And my dad had a Wii at […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2014: Business Writing
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in business writing.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
‘We Value Experience’: Can a Secret Society Become a Business?
Jeff Hull’s Latitude Society explores the possibilities of art, intimacy, experience, and membership.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Two-Thirds of Publishing Is About Failure’
My boss when I worked in London—someone who’d published Booker Prize winners, remember—used to say that two-thirds of publishing is about failure. I agree with that: it’s the nature of the business. And yet publishing is an industry that keeps attracting to it, in various ways, people who want it to be two-thirds about success. […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Founder of Flickr and Slack on the Psychological Torture of Selling Too Early
Stewart readily admits he sold Flickr too early. “If we had waited six months we would have made much more money. If we had waited a year we would have made 10 times more money,” he says. He regrets it now. But at the time, after the dotcom crash, the Nasdaq plummet, and September 11, […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How a $1B E-Commerce Site Found Its Market on a Trip to Babies “R” Us
They had a small inkling of what they wanted to do. At the time, flash-sale startups like Gilt were just beginning to make some noise, and Cavens and Vadon seriously considered aping the model for the home and beauty space (a la One Kings Lane) before scrapping the idea. “What we came to realize in […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why the Uber and Lyft Battle Turned So Ugly
Uber’s aggressive tactics reflect the fact that ridesharing is largely a zero-sum game: a driver picking up an Uber customer can’t simultaneously pick up a Lyft customer. (Drivers are allowed to drive for both services, though the companies discourage the practice.) Having more active drivers on the road creates a virtuous circle that improves geographical […]
