The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Volcanica coffee, grab a seat by the pool, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• The Rise of the Worker Productivity Score: Across industries and incomes, more employees are being tracked, recorded and ranked. What is gained, companies say, is efficiency and accountability. What is lost? (New York Times)
• What’s the most successful venture capital firm in history? Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital backed many Internet-era success stories. Andreessen Horowitz? No, one organization towers above. This firm was there before the first transistor was printed, and it will be there after we receive brain implants. One investor funded the computer, the internet, speech recognition, last-mile distribution, mapping the human genome, the core technologies of fracking, and the first horizontal shale drill, and today it’s driving down the cost of solar and wind power below that of coal. Even better news: If you’re a U.S. taxpayer, you’re a limited partner. (No Mercy, No Malice)
• The Crypto Geniuses Who Vaporized a Trillion Dollars: Everyone trusted the two guys at Three Arrows Capital. They knew what they were doing — right? (New York Magazine)
• Are teachers leaving the classroom en masse? The chaotic debate over this year’s teacher shortages, explained. (Vox)
• Bill Gates and the Secret Push to Save Biden’s Climate Bill: The billionaire philanthropist was among those lobbying Joe Manchin, starting before Biden took the White House. A look at the influencers who secured a rare climate win. (Bloomberg) see also Why gas is actually cheap in America: Gas is at record-high prices in the United States, but it still costs far less than elsewhere in the world. And in the long run, Americans might pay for that privilege. (The Hustle)
• Looking for Clarence Thomas: He grew up speaking a language of the enslaved on the shores of Pin Point, Georgia. He would become the most powerful Black man in America, using the astonishing power vested in a Supreme Court justice to hold back his own people. Now he sits atop an activist right-wing court poised to undo the progressivism of the past century. What happened? (Esquire)
• The Rise And Fall Of Chimerica: For decades, America gave China a vision of future prosperity. But today, America has mostly ceased to offer a model for China or anywhere else, leaving China’s leaders without a guide as they chart a course into a future filled with potential turmoil. (NOEMA)
• Behind Enemy Lines, Ukrainians Tell Russians ‘You Are Never Safe’: Clandestine resistance cells are spotting targets, sabotaging rail lines and killing those deemed collaborators as they seek to unnerve Russian forces. (New York Times) see also Russia’s spies misread Ukraine and misled Kremlin as war loomed In the final days before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s security service began sending cryptic instructions to informants in Kyiv. Pack up and get out of the capital, the Kremlin collaborators were told, but leave behind the keys to your homes. The directions came from senior officers in a unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) with a prosaic name — the Department of Operational Information — but an ominous assignment: ensure the decapitation of the Ukrainian government and oversee the installation of a pro-Russian regime. (Washington Post)
• The Arizona Republican Party’s Anti-Democracy Experiment: First, it turned against the establishment. Now it has set its sights on democracy — the principles, the process and even the word itself. (New York Times)
• The best restaurants in America’s busiest airports: Where to eat and drink at 13 of the busiest airports in the U.S., from ATL to DFW to LAX (Washington Post)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Bill Browder, founder of Hermitage Capital Management, and author of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice and Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath.
Study: What Americans really think
Source: Axios
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