One of the reasons Steve Henn moved to Silicon Valley six years ago was to preempt his own irrelevance. As a longtime public radio reporter, he knew the move promised access to the technology industry he covered for shows like Marketplace and Planet Money . But he also had a sinking feeling that,…

“A Total Rethink of How Work Should Work” by @johnbattelle https://t.co/5V4ckkx1zd

In Hollywood, the tweets and email alerts from industry trades trumpeting the announcements of superstar actors and showrunners attached to flashy TV projects roll out with almost numbing regularity now: Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange team up for FX, Amy Adams heads to HBO, Drew Barrymore joins…

What an elegant phrase: software should be “beautiful, elegant and considerate” — @stewart https://t.co/fBIQceqAt8 https://t.co/xTPdsVPp7S

Currency December 19, 2015 On its Facebook page, Muji describes its aim as creating “products that are really necessary in everyday life in the shapes that are really necessary.”Photograph by Todd Heisler / The New York Times / Redux Last month, Muji, the Japanese life-style brand that sells…

A bungled merger. A corruption scandal. Three CEOs in a year. But hey, at least the snacks are free again. Early last summer, a team at United Airlines set out to discover what bothered its passengers most. The airline collects 8,000 customer surveys a day, and there was a lot to choose from: Was it…

There was a time, in the distant past, when studying nutrition was a relatively simple science. In 1747, a Scottish doctor named James Lind wanted to figure out why so many sailors got scurvy, a disease that leaves sufferers exhausted and anemic, with bloody gums and missing teeth. So Lind took 12…

The marathon myth goes something like this: Pheidippides, a foot messenger in Ancient Greece, died having run 26 miles from Marathon to Athens. The Greeks had repelled an invading Persian army and such was our hero’s haste to bring home the good news that he ran himself to death, perishing upon…

When Pizza reached 100,000 followers on Tumblr, she posted a picture of a pizza box, takeout chicken wings, and an orange soda spread out on her bed: “pizza and chicken wings 2 celebrate.” One fan replied, “CONGRATULATIONS GIRL! YOU DESERVE IT!” Another: “MOTHER OF GOD 100K?!?!” An anonymous user…

Eric Jackson was sitting in his hotel room on Sea Island, Ga., watching his kids splash around in the pool, when he clicked “publish” on his latest blog post for Forbes.com. Jackson, an influential hedge-fund manager, had become fixated on Yahoo and the efforts of its chief executive, Marissa Mayer,…

Stewart is hungry. He's munching on potatoes smothered in chicken fat drippings, sitting by a long metal table that once served as a gurney in the morgue at the Treasure Island Naval Base. It's a prom

Coffee, the Quest for Perfection & Mass Markets. This is amazing #longreads abt @bluebottleroast by @alexismadrigal http://t.co/qxBOSXBMz5

Such good advice. “As a general policy, don’t give a shit.” http://t.co/8edVvcwcbq via @franklinchen

“You will reinvent yourself many times in an interesting life. You will fail to reinvent many times. That’s fun too.” http://t.co/3B1Q6ndHkA

IN REAL LIFE, WOODY ALLEN isn't much different from the character he plays in his movies. He has the same reedy Brooklyn accent he uses on-screen and wears the same dorky, black-framed glasses he's worn since he was 17. He's shy, meek, insecure, a little phobic. When he showers, he makes a point of…

The one cost engineers and product managers don't consider: http://t.co/u6AFUIIOei

The Maximum, Beautiful Product Glenn Kelman 1:14 PM PST · December 31, 2012 Editor’s note: Glenn Kelman is CEO of Redfin, a technology-powered real estate broker, backed by Greylock Partners, Madrona

WHATEVER happens on Election Day, Americans will keep asking the same question: When will this economy get better? In many ways, the answer won’t depend on who wins on Tuesday. Anyone who says otherwise is overstating the power of the American president. But if the president doesn’t have the power…

There are only 4 steps: Do it Get feedback on how you suck Study how to improve at where you suck Repeat People tell me this is obvious. But it’s ok to be obvious . Knowing and doing are different. Many people know many obvious things they fail to try or do, despite their knowledge. I’m often asked…

SINCE 1900, the life expectancy of Americans has jumped to just shy of 80 from 47 years. This surge comes mostly from improved hygiene and nutrition, but also from new discoveries and interventions: everything from antibiotics and heart bypass surgery to cancer drugs that target and neutralize the…

Download “Jad Abumrad” Manifesto (PDF) The Terrors & Occasional Virtues of Not Knowing What You’re Doing Anyone who knows me knows that much of the time, I have very little idea what the hell I’m doing. Sometimes by design, sometimes not. Choosing that character flaw as my topic was the only way I…

Today’s post is a guest post from William Hertling, author of the award-winning Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears and A.I. Apocalypse , near-term science-fiction novels about realistic ways strong AI might emerge. They’ve been called “frighteningly plausible”, “tremendous”,…

BOARD MEETING Yvon Chouinard (seated), Patagonia's founder, at his home in Ventura, California. When the waves are rolling, his staff goes surfing, thanks to the company's flex-time policy. Photograph by Tierney Gearon A couple of years ago, Yvon Chouinard—founder of the outdoor-clothing brand…

My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine. Illustration by Mark Matcho "Don't take anything that happens to you there personally," the woman at the local chamber of commerce says when I tell her that tomorrow I start working at…

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills…

It takes confidence to sit in front of an audience, armed with a few pages of notes and one glass of water, wearing clothes you may have slept in, using your rubbery face as your primary prop, to discuss warmly but ultimately damningly, for nearly two hours, a man you never met. A man thought of as…