Unvarnished
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The Price of Nice Nails
How nail salon owners exploit their employees.
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Perfect Nails, Poisoned Workers
The medical risks of working all day among the chemicals of a nail salon.
Entrepreneurs
ZPM Espresso and the Rage of the Jilted Crowdfunder
What happens when a successfully funded Kickstarter product fails to launch?
The Crazy, Bitter Battle Over Benihana
The family feud Steve Aoki left behind.
A Liar Standing Next to a Hole in the Ground
Prospecting for gold is still a live trade in America, if you’re willing to walk deep into the desert with a hand-drawn map.
Meet the King of Kombucha
The man behind the craze for fermented alcoholic tea likes to tell the story of his own conception.
The Swamp Men
In Florida, sinker cypress harvesters have to dodge the law while working their trade.
The Pro Dumpster Diver Who’s Making Thousands Off America’s Biggest Retailers
Even the dumpster divers of America are becoming tech-savvy, well-earning entrepreneurs.
Reprints Business Science Tech
Ground Control
On the coming age of domestic drones.
A City Run by Children
The theme-park chain where kids learn to pilot a plane, pay taxes, and pretend to be adults.
The Cannabis Queen of Beverly Hills
Cheryl Shuman has been a coupon queen, an optician to the stars and the plaintiff in a lawsuit against Steven Segal. Now she’s the face of the high-end weed market.
Mainline Street
What does it take for heroin to grab hold in the small, remote towns of America? Like any business, it starts with one man and an entrepreneurial dream.
“If you’d like to relive your horrible moment, if you want people to know what actually happened, talk to me. I will tell your story.” — Sean Flynn on the Longform Podcast
To the Office, With Love
What do we give up when we become freedom-seeking, self-determining, autonomous entrepreneurs? A lot, actually.
What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs
The inside story of how Yahoo’s C.E.O. lost her way.
Genius Idea
Can a company best known for explaining Kanye West lyrics and telling Warren Buffett to do unseemly things actually annotate the world?
The Top-Secret Food That Will Change the Way You Eat
The scientists at Beyond Meat have concocted a plant-protein-based performance burger that delivers the juicy flavor and texture of beef with none of the dietary and environmental downsides.
The Bitcoin Boy
On a 16-year-old Silicon Valley wunderkind.
Selling the Bro Dream
Is Vemma an energy drink, the new Amway or a pyramid scheme taking advantage of college kids? Maybe all three.
The Trans-Everything CEO
A profile of the highest-paid female executive in America, who was born male.
I Want It, and I Want It Now
A five-part series on the instant gratification economy.
The Most Fascinating Profile You’ll Ever Read About a Guy and His Boring Startup
On Stewart Butterfield, the founder of Flickr and now Slack, a wildly popular, difficult-to-describe messaging service that has 38,000 paying subscribers just a few months after launching.
The Inside Story of Rap Genius (Annotated!)
On a $40 million raise and a fired co-founder.
The Fall of the Sleaze King
Dov Charney’s struggle to keep control of American Apparel.
The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth
The 50,000-word story of Microsoft’s antitrust case.
Twilight of the Pizza Barons
Tom Monaghan started Domino’s. Mike Ilitch started Little Caesers. Both became billionaires, both live in Detroit, both are now over 75. They’ve made very different decisions about how to spend their fortunes.
Linux for Lettuce
The “subtly radical” open-source plant movement.
