This week’s highlights: Suits, Investing with Patience, & the NFL’s PhD Candidate at M.I.T.

Issue 254

Food for Thought:

1. NYMag – America Wasn’t Built for Humans  Tribalism was an urge our Founding Fathers assumed we could overcome. And so it has become our greatest vulnerability.
2. Esquire – Patrick Adams Knows Why Suits is America’s Secret Obsession.  The star of USA Network’s sleek, stylish hit opens up about the show’s passionate fans, its awkward place in Trump’s America, and his now very famous co-star, Meghan Markle.
3. WashPo – Why it’s so hard for Americans to save for retirement
4. HBR – Whole Foods Is Becoming Amazon’s Brick-and-Mortar Pricing Lab
5. Offspring – What to Say to Kids Instead of “Be Careful”

Business/Economics:

1. Bloomberg – Stumbling Isn’t Humbling for This Hedge-Fund Guy – Credit MH – Mick McGuire won a proxy fight at Buffalo Wild Wings. The stock tanked. Now he’s playing hardball elsewhere.
2. NYT – Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age
3. MC2 – You Need To Do What Others Don’t.  The hardest part of achieving 10-20+ baggers is having the patience and conviction to hold through multi-year periods of underperformance. Patience is your biggest asset when investing in a great business.
4. WSJ – How Grocery Giant Aldi Plans to Conquer America: Limit Choice.  Secretive giant offers shoppers bare-bones stores and rock-bottom prices—a formula that will further unsettle a fast-changing industry
5. NYT – Simple Investing for Nonprofits

Culture/Tech/Science:

1. BI – Psychologists studied 5,000 genius kids for 45 years — here are their 6 key takeaways
2. Freakonomics Radio – How Much Brain Damage Do I Have?  John Urschel was the only player in the N.F.L. simultaneously getting a math Ph.D. at M.I.T. But after a new study came out linking football to brain damage, he abruptly retired. Here’s the inside story — and a look at how we make decisions in the face of risk versus uncertainty.
3. Wired – What Happens When Algorithms Design a Concert Hall? The Stunning Elbphilharmonie
4. Jalopnick – NASCAR Team Penalized For Wing Mod After Fans Call Out Their Shady Behavior On TV.  As the saying goes in Nascar, if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying.
5. Stratechery – The Lessons and Questions of the Iphone X and the iPhone 8