Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at uncertain life of Wall Street whistleblowers.
Quote of the Day
"Working hard is not just a dial you turn up to 11. It's a complicated, dynamic system that has to be tuned just right at each point."
(Paul Graham)
Books
- An excerpt from Susan R. Barry's "Coming to Our Senses: A Boy Who Learned to See, a Girl Who Learned to Hear, and How We All Discover the World." (wsj.com)
- An excerpt from "Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men" by Katrine Marçal. (theguardian.com)
- An excerpt from "Glory Days: The Summer of 1984 and the 90 Days That Changed Sports and Culture Forever" by Jon Wertheim. (indianapolismonthly.com)
Billion dollar IRAs
- How a big chunk of Peter Thiel's wealth ended up in a Roth IRA. (propublica.org)
- There is no shortage of legal issues surrounding Peter Thiel's Roth IRA. (fairviewlawgroup.com)
Business
- A deep dive into the economics of dollar stores. (thehustle.co)
- An interview with an OnlyFans star on ins and outs of the business. (investmenttalk.substack.com)
Health
- The CDC was always going to struggle with a pandemic, and it did. (fivethirtyeight.com)
- Did you know there used to be a vaccine for Lyme Disease on the market? (slate.com)
Technology
- What does it really mean to 'break up' Big Tech? (technologyreview.com)
- The Internet is by it nature ephemeral, which isn't good if you are trying to preserve information and knowledge. (theatlantic.com)
- Not every company ends up paying ransomware. (theverge.com)
Longreads
- Hong Kong has been rapidly integrated into the Chinese system. (nytimes.com)
- How North Korea almost pulled off a $1 billion bank heist. (morningstar.com)
- Farmers in California's Central Valley are running out of options when it comes to water. (nytimes.com)
- More satellites make it imperative to make sure we clean up space junk. (latimes.com)
- The story of how a ground worker stole an airplane in Seattle in 2018. (rollingstone.com)