Saturdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at Apple’s transformation into a subscription-based company.
Quote of the day
“We need a dynamic capitalist economy that gives everybody a justified belief that they can share in the benefits. What we increasingly seem to have instead is an unstable rentier capitalism, weakened competition, feeble productivity growth, high inequality and, not coincidentally, an increasingly degraded democracy.” – Martin Wolf
Excerpts
- An adaptation from Nicholas Leman's "Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream." (wsj.com)
- An excerpt from "Billion Dollar Fantasy: The High-Stakes Game Between FanDuel and DraftKings That Upended Sports in America" by Albert Chen. (si.com)
- An excerpt from "The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb" by Sam Kean. (engadget.com)
- An excerpt from "The Ride of A Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company" by Robert Iger. (vanityfair.com)
- An excerpt from "What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence" by Stephen A. Schwarzman. (forbes.com)
Investing
- We return to the 'greatest hits' in personal finance because they are time-tested and work for the vast majority of people. (rpseawright.wordpress.com)
- A profile of James Grant. A favorite on Wall Street despite the fact he is often wrong. (institutionalinvestor.com)
- How Peggy Ann Barard stole millions from a number of pro athletes. (si.com)
- Not all heuristics are wrong. (kitces.com)
Longreads
- A profile of WeWork's controversial CEO Adam Neumann. (wsj.com)
- Sneaker collectors now have their own universe of celebrities. (gq.com)
- RV build quality is generally p*ss poor. (curbed.com)
- How baking became the go-to escape for corporate burnouts. (insidehook.com)
- Can (or should) technology replace firespotters in national forests? (npr.org)
- How an author learned the economics of book publishing the hard way. (medium.com)
- Are we underestimating the number of serial killers out there? (theatlantic.com)
- On the value of friendship. (fs.blog)