This week’s highlights: Investing in a NYC Restaurant, Yeti Coolers and the Taste Gap.

Fifteen on Friday – Issue 258

Food for Thought:

1. New Yorker – The Thrill of Losing Money by Investing in a Manhattan Restaurant.  “But of the many failures of logic and foresight of that investment, which I made in 2010, the one that stings the most is not realizing that so few restaurants in New York make money precisely because too many restaurants in New York have investors like me.”
2. Vox – The problem is the prices.  Opaque and sky high bills are breaking Americans — and our health care system.
3. Guardian – The new decluttering trend is called Swedish Death Cleaning and we tried it.  MARIE KONDO made headlines with her unique “KonMari” decluttering method. But there’s a new technique in town, and it’s a game-changer.
4. NYT – Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?.  Parents, therapists and schools are struggling to figure out whether helping anxious teenagers means protecting them or pushing them to face their fears.
5. Chemark – The Taste Gap. “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good.  Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.”

Business/Economics:

1. FC – The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare.  Why did Casper sue a mattress blogger? A closer look reveals a secret, multimillion-dollar battle to get you into bed.
2. GMO – The S&P 500: Just Say No
3. Forbes – Inside Arizona Iced Tea: How Don Vultaggio Beat Snapple, Became A Billionaire And Nearly Lost It All
4. WSJ – How Google’s Quantum Computer Could Change the World.  The ultra-powerful machine has the potential to disrupt everything from science and medicine to national security—assuming it works.
5. HBR – A Short Guide to Strategy for Entrepreneurs

Culture/Tech/Science:

1. NYT – Can a $300 Cooler Unite America?  One nation, under Yeti?
2. TG – 10 Things I Learned in My 40s.  What I wished I had known in my 20s and 30s.
3. Inc. – Disaster Prep: The 10 Things You Should Absolutely Have In A Go Bag
4. BI – Clemson’s new $55 million football complex shows how swanky college football facilities have become
5. TG – iMessage isn’t the glue Apple thinks it is.  I’ve been using the iPhone for years and was one of the many people that kept parroting the same line repeatedly: I love Apple’s ecosystem so much and could never leave because iMessage.