The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• Netflix’s $82.7 billion rags-to-riches story: How the DVD-by-mail company swallowed Hollywood. It’s a story so good it could have been a screenplay. In 2000, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph sat down across from John Antioco, then CEO of video rental giant Blockbuster, and pitched him on acquiring their still unprofitable DVD-by-mail startup, Netflix, which at the time had around 300,000 subscribers. But when they told him their price—$50 million and the chance to develop and run Blockbuster’s online rental business—Antioco balked. By 2010, Blockbuster had filed for bankruptcy, and Netflix had stormed Hollywood with its entertainment streaming service. (Fortune)
• Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and the Reading Unlock: One Buffett lesson I’ll share with my kid: read, read, read. (SatPost by Trung Phan)
• The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking. Using a true multidisciplinary understanding of things, Peter identifies two often overlooked, parabolic “Big Ideas”: 1) Mirrored Reciprocation (go positive and go first) and 2) Compound Interest (being constant). A great “Life Hack” is to simply combine these two into one basic approach to living your life: “Go positive and go first, and be constant in doing it.” (Farnam Street)
• The Crisis Whisperer: how Adam Tooze makes sense of our bewildering age: Whether it’s the financial crash, the climate emergency or the breakdown of the international order, historian Adam Tooze has become the go-to guide to the radical new world we’ve entered. (The Guardian)
• The Shape of Time: In the 19th century, the linear idea of time became dominant, forever changing how those in the West experience the world. (Aeon)
• GLP-1s And Your Brain: The Surprising Impact On Addiction, Anxiety, ADHD, And More: What started out as a medication for diabetes and weight loss is offering something unexpected—and completely life-changing—for many women. (Womens Health)
• The Education of the Broligarchy: The same sources that inspired tech moguls to bend matter, minds, and markets to their will may also help explain their foray into other forms of power (Colossus)
• Can Congress Still Check the Commander in Chief? Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, discusses Venezuela, NATO and the limits of congressional power as global crises multiply. (Bloomberg)
• An exclusive look inside the largest effort ever mounted to keep the Great Barrier Reef alive: Australia is doing absolutely everything to protect its most iconic ecosystem — except, perhaps, the one thing that really matters. (Vox)
• Mike Macdonald is a genius, but that’s not the only reason his Seahawks are Super Bowl favorites: The Seahawks are arguably the best team in football because they have elite talent. But everyone in the NFL has talent, especially in the postseason. Marrying that talent with the vision and bringing it to life, Macdonald believes, starts with intent and attitude. That’s their foundation for getting players to play fast and free. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this weekend with Zach Buchwald, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Russell Investments. The global investment firm was founded in 1936, and today has ~$370 billion in AUM. Previously, he had a 15-year tenure at BlackRock, where he served as the head of its $2 trillion Institutional Business, leading the company’s Financial Institutions Group and helped establish its Retirement Solutions and Financial Markets Advisory platforms.
January 2026 set to be a record in Geopolitics
Source: Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank
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To learn how these reads are assembled each day, please see this.
