“Standard construction can be slow, costly, and inefficient. Machines might do it better.”
business
Posted inEditor's Pick
Secrets of the Christmas Trade
“Turf wars. Protection money. Scientology. And my boss, a man who’s half-convinced he really is Santa.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How the 1% Runs an Ironman
“Inside the world of Ironman XC, which makes the endurance contest a little more endurable — for executives who can afford to pay.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Promise and Peril of Space Tourism
“A space tourism industry is being built on the proposition of personal and existential transformation. But at what cost?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Failure to Launch
“True community-building, as tech founders should have realized by now, requires more than renting a mansion in Beverly Hills.” In this Vox investigation, Rebecca Jennings does what she does best: reporting on the influencer and creator economy while writing compellingly about some new corner of internet and tech culture. In this piece, she gets behind […]
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Milk Money
Reeves Wiederman reports on how the baby-formula shortage in the U.S. created an opportunity for new companies to enter an industry historically dominated by a few corporations. Laura Modi, a Google and Airbnb alum who founded the baby-formula startup Bobbie, is one such CEO hoping to transform an industry “that has grown complacent.” As Modi […]
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The Death Cheaters
Michael Nguyen, once a a tailor to the stars, is the founder of Longevity House, an exclusive club where the ultra-wealthy are dipping into high-tech ways to prolong their lives. There’s the BioCharger, a device that fights chronic disease and other ailments, a red-light therapy room, experimental fecal transplants, and access to various specialists, from […]
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The Twisted Life of Clippy
In the 1990s, Microsoft created a virtual assistant in Microsoft Office that users found annoying — so it was swiftly retired. For Seattle Met, Benjamin Cassidy recounts the history of an unloved and doomed office assistant that has lived on in pop and nerd culture. These days, an annoying Word creature might seem eminently tolerable […]
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend longreads by Benjamin Wofford, Josh Dzieza, Evan Osnos, Alice Wong & Ed Yong, and Dan Kois.
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Baking and Real Estate Collide
For The New Yorker, Anna Wiener explores the cuisine-real-estate business model and traces the rise of Tartine, the artisanal San Francisco bakery known for its delicious breads and pastries and hip, airy spaces. How did this beloved spot in the Mission become a world-renowned brand? And is this food empire really what it seems? Certain […]