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Best Articles This Week – 06/28/19

Jun 28, 2019 | Fifteen on Friday

This week’s highlights: The B.A. Breakthrough, Facebook’s Content Moderation Problem, Fixing Email

pexels-photo-261909

Fifteen on Friday – Issue 337

Best,

David


Food for Thought:

Top Read(s) of the Week:  The74 – As School Districts Collaborate With Top Charters and Foundations, We’re on the Cusp of a Breakthrough in Guiding Low-Income & Minority Students to a College Diploma

Why It Matters:  In this excerpt from the forthcoming book, The B.A. Breakthrough, author Richard Whitmire looks at many of the positive developments that are helping to drive academic outcomes and improve access to educational opportunity.

Consider as well:

  1. TorontoLife – The $500-Million Family Feud  Frank Stronach spent decades grooming his daughter, Belinda, to take over his billion-dollar business. Now he wants it back
  2. Elle – His Mood Changed and Our Marriage Imploded. Then He Took a Blood Test.
  3. LA Times – Is this 70-year-old marathon runner from East L.A. a record setter or a cheater?
  4. NYT – In Tennessee, Blackberry Farm Takes Over a Mountain  Can you call it a wellness retreat if you’re drinking and not hiking? Blackberry Mountain says yes. (Just maybe put down your phone.

Business/Economics:

Top Read of the Week:  TheVerge – Bodies in Seats

Why It Matters:   Who are the people hired to police the content posted on Facebook?  In this piece of investigative journalism, we get a deep dive into the world of ‘content moderators’ at one of the outsourced vendors Facebook has hired.  Not surprisingly what is uncovered is deeply disturbing.  Not only is the worst of humanity on display by Facebook’s users, the individuals tasked with the role are under-paid and under-equipped for the psychological effects of the job.  Warning – There is some really disturbing stuff discussed.

Consider as well:

  1. TechCrunch – The Changing Nature of Venture Capital – Credit SG
  2. Bloomberg – The Charmed Life of a Young Tiger Cub With a $4.6 Billion Fortune  Chase Coleman’s tech-focused Tiger Global manages $30 billion, helping land him on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
  3. Kalzumeus – How Discount Brokerages Make Money
  4. FRR – Make Friends With the Monster Chewing on Your Leg, and Other Tips for Surviving Startups

Culture/Tech/Science:

Top Read of the Week:  NYT – Would You Pay $30 a Month to Check Your Email?

Why It Matters:   Slack and others have been trying to make the case that email is dead as a productivity tool.  Here is one start-up that is arguing the opposite, that email itself is not dead, it’s just that the tools we have to manage it (Gmail, Outlook) have seen essentially no innovation in the last 15 years.  “One of Silicon Valley’s buzziest start-ups, Superhuman, is betting its app’s shiny features are worth a premium price.”

Consider as well:

  1. Pocket – How To Read A Self-Help Book In 90 Minutes  Most self-help books are filled with useless fluff. Shave that off and actually learn something valuable.
  2. TheAtlantic – How a Bad Night’s Sleep Birthed the Sound Conditioner  In 1960, a Rubbermaid executive invented a device to tame noise in the home. Its impact has been anything but quiet.
  3. ESPN – Freddy Adu exclusive: ‘I’m not ready to give it up’  Adu was the phenom who would save American soccer from irrelevance. So why didn’t his career materialize?  “It’s a matter of habits, He never had the work rate. He never had to. Things always came easy.”
  4. TNR – I’ve Climbed Everest 21 Times. It’s Not the Mountain It Used to Be.  Over nearly three decades, Apa Sherpa has witnessed the effects of a warming climate and an overcrowded peak.

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