Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at what made Jeff Bezos’ Amazon a success.
Quote of the Day
"The power of memes is not simply the amount of information they convey, but the malleability with which they convey it."
(Ben Thompson)
Book stuff
- A Q&A with Adam Grant author of "Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know." (behavioralscientist.org)
- Lessons from Annalee Newitz's new book, "Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age." (curbed.com)
- An excerpt from Joann S. Lublin’s “Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life.” (wsj.com)
- Insights from a new book by experimental psychologist Ethan Kross entitled “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It.” (newyorker.com)
Environment
- The shift to renewable energy, i.e. electricity, in the U.S. is already well established. Now it's time to focus on oil consumption, think transport. (gregor.substack.com)
- Why the world needs to be more aggressive recycling phosphorous. (theatlantic.com)
Markets
- GameStop ($GME) wasn't the first time Redditors had a big effect on market prices: the case of turnips. (theringer.com)
- Why the Feds have gone after crypto exchange BitMEX and its founders. (vanityfair.com)
Longreads
- Twitter ($TWTR) has a lot of options to create more value, but consistently fails to do so. (notboring.substack.com)
- How fast fashion ate the clothes industry. (theatlantic.com)
- The story of the surprising meltdown of Ample Hills Creamery, 'Brooklyn's most beloved' ice cream. (marker.medium.com)
- Being a flight attendant was always a tough job. The pandemic made it harder. (theverge.com)
- Given better techniques, why is the list of unsolved murders growing? (texasobserver.org)