Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at why collectibles are, on average, a bad investment.
Quote of the Day
"Today Amazon’s logistics is massive and fully integrated from the fulfillment center to the doorstep, even though it only serves Amazon; the obvious next step is opening it up to non-Amazon retailers, and that is exactly what is happening."
(Ben Thompson)
Books
- An excerpt from "War Virtually: The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future" by Roberto J. González. (engadget.com)
- A Q&A with Susan Cain author of "Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole." (gq.com)
- An excerpt from “Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature” by Steven Rinella. (wsj.com)
- An excerpt from "The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life" by A.J. Jacobs. (theatlantic.com)
Amazon
- Amazon ($AMZN) really doesn't want to take responsibility for the conduct of third-party sellers. (nytimes.com)
- How Amazon ($AMZN) can take back Shopify ($SHOP) sellers: logistics. (stratechery.com)
Misinformation
- Propagating the 'big lie' means jumping from one discredited theory to the next. (propublica.org)
- Sometimes misinformation hides in plain sight. (revealnews.org)
Music
- A lot goes into selling an artist's song catalog, but it can make a lot of financial sense. (variety.com)
- Where did the blues really originate? (tedgioia.substack.com)
Environment
- We need a better understanding of the ocean if we hope to curb carbon in the atmosphere. (hakaimagazine.com)
- How our relationship with human excrement has changed over time. (aeon.co)
- How the hotel soap recycling process works at Clean the World. (thehustle.co)
- What it's like to live in a 'zero waste' town. (washingtonpost.com)
Gambling
- How 'Mattress Mack' uses sports gambling to boost his furniture empire. (forbes.com)
- Australia has a gambling problem, i.e. pokies or slot machines. (washingtonpost.com)
Longreads
- A profile of Christopher Hohn who launched The Children’s Investment Fund Management with a charitable bent. (institutionalinvestor.com)
- A deep dive into the business of Substack and what it will take for it to succeed. (unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com)
- Russian forces have been spiriting Ukrainian citizens across the border into Russia. (wsj.com)
- The story of how Covid treatment, Paxlovid, came to be. (statnews.com)
- Pity the school board members who would rather be reviewing construction contracts than lists of books to ban. (theatlantic.com)
