Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at what really drove the Roaring 20’s.
Quote of the Day
"Exponential phenomena are almost impossible for us to grasp. We are very experienced in a more or less linear world...We’re not equipped for it. It takes a long time to educate intuition."
(Daniel Kahneman)
Book excerpts
- An excerpt from "The Devil’s Playbook: Big Tobacco, Juul, and the Addiction of a New Generatio" by Lauren Etter. (bloomberg.com)
- An excerpt from “Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power” by Zachary Karabell. (wsj.com)
- An excerpt from “The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World,” by Adrian Wooldridge. (bloomberg.com)
Diversions
- Rob Tannenbaum, "Nothing can be “the new MTV,” because 2021 is as different from 1981 as 1981 was from 1901." (vanityfair.com)
- The story of how NFTs have taken over the art world. (nytimes.com)
- Can horse racing survive? There are number of issues including genetic un-diversity. (newyorker.com)
Profiles
- A profile of Gary Haase, who is known as the 'King of Pokemon cards.' (inputmag.com)
- The story behind the origin of Flamin' Hot Cheetos is more complicated than you thought. (latimes.com)
Longreads
- Billionaires cruised through the pandemic. (ft.com)
- Why telecom executives can't resist looking outside their industry with envy. (om.co)
- Regenerative farming works, but still has a long way to go. (bloomberg.com)
- Feral pigs are a problem. Fixing it is complicated. (undark.org)
- A look at America's economic geography, post-pandemic. (city-journal.org)