Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the weird world of Dave Ramsey.
Quote of the Day
"Energy isn’t energy. It’s our experience of burning energy, converting it to work. It’s a metabolic mood."
(Nick Paumgarten)
Books
- A Q&A with Sebastian Junger author of "Freedom." (vox.com)
- An excerpt from Marc Myers' “Rock Concert: An Oral History as Told by the Artists, Backstage Insiders and Fans Who Were There.” (wsj.com)
Dogs
- An excerpt from "Our Oldest Companions: The Story of the First Dogs" by Pat Shipman. (engadget.com)
- Why are some people so cruel to their own dogs? (washingtonpost.com)
- What would happen to dogs if human disappeared? (aeon.co)
Companies
- A Q&A with Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian ($TEAM). (theobservereffect.org)
- How Hims ($HIMS) leveraged male insecurity into a big business. (nymag.com)
- Packy McCormick and Mario Gabriele, "Discord is not just a communication platform, it’s a hidden world." (notboring.co)
Longreads
- Ian Parker, "More than in most retail transactions, the organic consumer is buying both a thing and an assurance about a thing." (newyorker.com)
- Powell's Books survived the pandemic, but does it have a future? (nytimes.com)
- The CIA is adapting its recruitment procedures for a new age. (washingtonian.com)
- The purported head of Asia's biggest drug ring got his start in Toronto. (torontolife.com)
- The U.S. has a public bathroom problem, i.e. not enough of them. (bloomberg.com)
- On the nothingness of money. (moretothat.com)