Tag: Business & Tech

An interview with Mark Arax about the two decades he spent writing about the San Joaquin Valley empire of Lynda and Stuart Resnick.

Just like handwriting survived long after the introduction of print, paper is still very much part of our internet-era economy.

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in business, tech, and science writing.

The story behind a “world famous” cinnamon roll.

The commodification of female friendship began in the suburban living room. Today, it’s booming online.

Bob Mankoff created a successful business model for cartoonists to get paid. Then Condé Nast ruined it.

When your Ubud neighborhood becomes a luxury tech bubble.

On Monocle’s tenth anniversary, one writer analyzes the magazine’s vision, business model, and what place this globalist outlet has in an age of increasing nationalism.

When a company decides to “celebrate diversity,” who’s the party for?

Michael Thevis built a lucrative pornography empire in the 1970s only to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Is the man behind Amazon a benevolent benefactor or a manipulative monopolist?

Meet the family turning Las Vegas casino food waste into future meals.

When 3M, the Post-It Note manufacturer, began making electronic ankle monitors for corrections, it challenged the company’s long-heald philosophy about design and innovation.

Bloomberg Businessweek‘s latest cover story highlights the tricky economics of licensing live sports.

Why do we love reading about CEOs behaving badly? Perhaps it’s because we identify with their exhausted workers.

Charles Vigliotti, chief executive of American Organic Energy, has a vision for the future: transforming the food waste of New York City into clean energy — and a profit.

“I think it’s coming along,” said Tim, “though we expect—” “I think it sucks!” said Jobs. His vehemence made Tim pause. “Why?” he asked, a bit stiffly. “It just does.” “In what sense?” said Tim, getting his feet back under him. “Give me a clue.” “Its shape is not innovative, it’s not elegant, it doesn’t […]

The story of Google’s groundbreaking, buzz-generating modular smartphone — aka Project Ara — from bang to whimper.

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in business and tech reporting.

The madness must stop.

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 and tech. * * *

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 […]

Roger Hodge went inside Zappos for his October 2015 in the The New Republic, investigating CEO Tony Hsieh’s radical decision to eliminate management and fully embrace the concept of Holacracy at the online shoe retailer. 

“On account of its federal status [as a Schedule I drug], most big law firms don’t want to touch weed,” [attorney Amanda] Connor explains. “Ethically, lawyers aren’t supposed to give advice about illegal activities. Major firms are afraid to lose clients.” Her boutique firm may be the only one in the country that takes marijuana […]

Jeff Hull’s Latitude Society explores the possibilities of art, intimacy, experience, and membership.

Since the early days, the Dead have also grown into a corporation and an independent record company with well over thirty people on the payroll. Their hardcore San Francisco audience may still be locked into a 1967 consciousness, but the Grateful Dead operation is Big Business and strictly 1974. Why, Weir and Garcia have even […]

The company is meticulous when it comes to product development, particularly for the BeForever line. “It takes about three years to launch a new character because you do a lot of research,” explains Opland. The BeForever books tackle a range of difficult issues—Addy Walker is an escaped slave, Samantha speaks out against child labor—and so American […]

Rob Brunner, writing about the rise of the popular Shake Shack burger chain in Fast Company.

  In a 2009 paper for Administrative Science Quarterly, J. Stuart Bunderson and Jeffery A. Thompson studied zookeepers and found that the profession was about the closest anyone in the modern, secular world comes to having a calling—the sort of intensely meaningful career that Martin Luther said could turn work into a divine offering. Zookeeping is dirty, repetitive, […]

This was a precursor for what would become the protocol by which models were paid for the rest of the century, but as Natálie [Nickerson] put it to Eileen [Ford] in their late-night Barbizon conversations, the system was back to front. According to Eileen, Natálie told her, “Models were treated as if they worked for […]