Thursdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the fast growing business of pickleball.
Quote of the Day
"The economic model for railroads is not too far off that of big tech: there's a fixed asset that leads to a hard-to-match competitive advantage, and variance in outcomes is driven by how well companies exploit that asset."
(Byrne Hobart)
Books
- An excerpt from "Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions" by Jennifer Robertson with Stephen Kimber. (thewalrus.ca)
- An excerpt from "Directed By James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories From The Legendary Director of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, and More" by James Burrows with Eddy Friedfeld. (wsj.com)
Health care
- The nursing crisis is global in nature. (on.ft.com)
- Covid has given new energy to the anti-vax movement. (nytimes.com)
- What (medical) information are children conceived by sperm donation owed? (wsj.com)
Longreads
- The palletized global economy runs on stretch wrap. (theprepared.org)
- How credit scores came to be a central part of our lives. (thewalrus.ca)
- Paradise, California essentially burned to the ground. People are rebuilding amid a strong housing market. (vice.com)
- White men make up a disproportionate number of suicide deaths. (washingtonpost.com)
- How youth baseball in America lost its way. (americamagazine.org)
- How technology is transforming bird watching. (theverge.com)
- A profile of the uber-talented Taika Waititi. (wired.com)