How to Succeed in Silicon Valley Without Really Trying
Tech investors gave Seth Bannon, co-founder of the seemingly surging startup Amicus, over four million dollars, despite knowing almost nothing about him.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "A Planet for Rent"
Trials and dangers abound for an interplanetary social worker.
For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, try Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.
Deadly Contact
When animals infect us.
A Voice Heard
A survivor of child abuse refuses to be silenced.
Is It a Crime to Raise a Killer?
The debate over who’s responsible when a child kills.
Ryan Adams Finally Finds His Way Home
The alt-country wunderkind turned walking disaster finds peace at 39.
"Son, Men Don't Get Raped"
In the U.S. military, more than half of rape victims are men.
Life Atop Ground Zero
The rebirth of the World Trade Center.
The Dating Game
An oral history of the Tinderverse.
The Eternal Paternal
On Bill Cosby’s complicated family life.
The Story That Tore Through the Trees
On Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire and its lingering effects on our collective imagination and environment.
Ivory Tower Phony?
Sex, lies and fraud alleged at West Virginia University.
The Wet Stuff
The men who built the great American water park.
Sean Wilsey has written for The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The New York Times, and McSweeney’s Quarterly, where he is an editor-at-large. His latest book is More Curious.
"I’m actually apparently a fairly competent person at getting things done, making deadlines and all these things. But the Wilsey you might get in the piece about NASA is the guy who eats a ton of oysters and drinks a lot of beer before getting on the vomit comet."
Thanks to TinyLetter and GoDaddy for sponsoring this week's episode.
The Next Giant Leap
“You are reading this because you have no idea what NASA is doing. And NASA, tongue-tied by jargon, can’t figure out how to tell you. But the agency is engaged in work that can be more enduring and far-reaching than anything else this country is paying for.”
Sky Burial
Meet the people decomposing on a body farm.
Ending College Sexual Assault
On the president’s campaign to crack down on campus rape.
The Force That Drives the Flower
On the universal drive to grow and reproduce.
The Trans-Everything CEO
A profile of the highest-paid female executive in America, who was born male.
The Boy They Couldn't Save
On the failure of Minnesota’s child-protection agencies.
Teach for America's Next Act
The organization is listening to criticism — and changing.
The Source of All Things
Looking for answers while camping with an abusive father.
Lock Up Your Wives!
Marital advice columns from the past.
A Changed Woman
A survivor of conversion therapy gets the wedding of her dreams.
Dignity
Inside the fast-food labor protests.
