Thursdays are now all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the invention of money.
Quote of the Day
"Critically, the more we rely on other people to understand the world, the more susceptible we are to being shaped by their agendas—an emergent outcome which has dramatic society-wide consequences."
(Adam Julian Goldstein)
Excerpts
- An excerpt from Jonathan Karl's new book "Front Row at the Trump Show." (theatlantic.com)
- An excerpt from Danny Oppenheimer and Mike Edwards' "Democracy Despite Itself: Why a System That Shouldn't Work at All Works So Well." (thereader.mitpress.mit.edu)
- An excerpt from David Hill's new book "The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice." (theringer.com)
- An excerpt from Maria Konnikova's new book “The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.“ (wired.com)
- An excerpt from "Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely" by Don A. Moore. (behavioralscientist.org)
Profiles
- Management lessons learned from Jurgen Klopp's turnaround of the Liverpool football team. (theguardian.com)
- Why is John Ackerman buying up most of the underground caves in Minnesota? (outsideonline.com)
- Sergey Brin is funding a charity, Global Support and Development, that is focused on rapid, disaster relief. (thedailybeast.com)
Technology
- Why doesn't venture capital seem to build important stuff any more? (technologyreview.com)
- Banning a persistently bad website is harder than it looks for Facebook ($FB). (vox.com)
- Can OpenRAN technology compete against the likes of Huawei and Nokia in 5G? (washingtonpost.com)
Failures
- What if the NTSB were brought in to look at the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic? In short, 'catastrophic.' (theatlantic.com)
- It is safe to say now that the Mueller investigation was a grand failure. (newyorker.com)
Entertainment
- The Sony Walkman made social distancing cool some 40 years ago. (newyorker.com)
- Remember Pop.com? Maybe Jeffrey Katzenberg should have before starting Quibi. (fastcompany.com)
- What makes for a great 'Summer Movie'? (wsj.com)
Business
- eBay’s ($EBAY) harassment campaign against a pair of bloggers was 'bold and bizarre' and apparently criminal as well. (wsj.com)
- A history of Buffett, Berkshire and the Buffalo News. (rationalwalk.com)
- Do you have what it takes to be a professional auctioneer. What it's like to take a course at America’s Auction Academy. (texasmonthly.com)
- The story of child geniuses is not a happy one. (1843magazine.com)
- How elk were successfully returned to Kentucky. (nytimes.com)
