The rise of an amazing optical corporation and the future of our eyes.

A 42,000-word, 3-continent spanning “hacker tourist” account of the laying of the (then) longest wire on earth.

A review of several books on Rupert Murdoch first criticizes the authors for not grasping the many sides of their subject, then offers a thesis of its own. He’s “not so much a man, or a cultural force, as a portrait of the modern world.”

Five years after they leave the league, 60 percent of NBA players have nothing left. In the NFL, it’s closer to 80 percent after just two years. On the economics of professional sports.

Using several email addresses and a lot of exclamation points, teenager Jonathan Lebed worked finance message boards in the morning before school and made almost a million bucks. Then he made the head of the S.E.C. look like a fool.

Bruce Wisan received one of the toughest assignments ever thrust upon an accountant: to take control of the assets (and by proxy, followers) of the polygamist Mormon breakaway sect, F.L.D.S., after their prophet, Warren Jeffs, went on the lam and their compound was raided.

A dispatch from Anthony Scaramucci’s SALT Conference.

How pop-up tax preparers make billions off the poor.

Trump’s Commerce pick and a government by, and for, the super-rich.

The immersive mise en scène of a Hollister flagship store, redolent of California beach towns that don’t exist, “lazy, hygienic sexuality,” and weed.

Sitting alone in his San Jose office, Michael Burry saw the bubble in the subprime-mortgage market before anyone else. So he convinced Wall Street to let him bet on it, even though few were betting on him. The article that became The Big Short.

An investigative reporter goes undercover at a dealership to learn the tricks of the trade, of which there are many.

A profile of the highest-paid female executive in America, who was born male.

In July 2008, the director of a Denver non-profit received a package containing house keys, a will, a $100,000 check and what appeared to be a suicide note. She didn’t go to the bank–or to the cops.

The story of a lead squandered.

The human lives lost in exchange for cheaper goods.

How an obscure Australian judge and a hard-charging lawyer put the S&P on trial for the global financial collapse.

The future of beer behemoth AB InBev.

The strange existence of the accused Internet pirate as he battles the U.S. government.

The rise and (potential) fall of the electronics superstore.

Frank Firetti, a 54-year-old pool salesman in Virginia, and his fading American dream.

Grizzly Bear and the surprisingly crappy economics of indie rock stardom.

JPMorgan Chase’s $6 billion mistake and the woman who took the fall.