July Fourth is here! Pour yourself a mug of Organic Ft French Guatemalan Quetzaltenango coffee, grab a seat on the beach, and get ready for our longer form weekend reads:
• The 3 Weeks That Changed Everything: Imagine if the National Transportation Safety Board investigated America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, it was a challenge that the United States did not meet. (The Atlantic)
• Private Equity Makes ESG Promises. But Their Impact Is Often Superficial. Private equity is very private. Different from public companies that have regular and extensive reporting requirements, most private equity firms disclose far less. (Institutional Investor)
• Is investors’ love affair with commercial property ending? Covid-19 has severely impaired tenants’ ability to pay rent. It also upended questions about where shopping, work or leisure will happen once the crisis abates. (The Economist)
• Our Ghost-Kitchen Future: Opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant is high-risk and expensive, whereas ghost kitchens are lower-risk, offering a more affordable way for entrepreneurs to enter the business. A once marginal, pre-pandemic business model now looks like the future of restaurants. (New Yorker)
• How Wirecard Went From Tech Star to Bankrupt: Prosecutors are probing whether the electronic-payments giant used fictitious revenue to inflate its sales and fool investors; a missing $2 billion (Wall Street Journal)
• Zuckerberg once wanted to sanction Trump. Then Facebook wrote rules that accommodated him. Starting as early as 2015, Facebook executives started crafting exceptions for the then-candidate that transformed the world’s information battlefield for years to come. (Washington Post) see also Spies, Lies, and Stonewalling: What It’s Like to Report on Facebook (Columbia Journalism Review)
• The real cost of Amazon: What the struggle Amazon workers face during the pandemic says about the future of work in America (Vox)
• The Cursed Platoon: How could a man they blamed for ruining their lives, an officer the Army convicted of second-degree murder and other charges, be forgiven so easily? How could their president allow him to just walk free? “I feel like I’m in a nightmare” (Washington Post)
• Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell. (The Guardian)
• The Patriots Fan Who Stole the Giants’ Super Bowl Rings: Stealing Super Bowl rings wasn’t enough for Sean Murphy. His next mark: stealing $100 million from a Brink’s depot (Businessweek)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this July Fourth holiday weekend with Robin King, Chief Executive Officer for the Navy SEAL Foundation, a 501(c)(3) national nonprofit organization that provides critical support and assistance to the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community and its families.
Private Equity Makes ESG Promises. But Their Impact Is Often Superficial.
Source: Institutional Investor
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