Was the biggest record sale in the history of Discogs actually someone selling the record to themself? Was a serial hoaxer who had posed as Jimi Hendrix’s son in blackface actually behind both the 1989 album and its 2017 sale?

As labels big and small attempt to gain traction in the world’s largest market, they’re learning that selling pop is never simple in the epicenter of piracy.

They’re known as the Jills. They’re two of America’s top realtors, selling the glitziest mansions in Miami. Then a place went missing—and everyday greed blossomed into full-blown extortion.

In his old life, Matthew Cox told stories to scam his way into millions of dollars. Now he’s trying to make it by selling tales that are true.

Twenty-two years in, E-40 has extended his reign over the Bay Area rap landscape by returning to “making music the way he did back in the late ’80s: completely independently, selling his raps more or less directly to his fans.”

A startup’s rocky search for profitability.

From failure to Pixar, Steve Jobs’ “wilderness years.”

How one company helps landlords exploit a loophole in New York’s tenant laws.

On the development of South Korea’s New Songdo and Cisco’s plans to build smart cities which will “offer cities as a service, bundling urban necessities – water, power, traffic, telephony – into a single, Internet-enabled utility, taking a little extra off the top of every resident’s bill.” The demand for such cities is enormous:

China doesn't need cool, green, smart cities. It needs cities, period -- 500 New Songdos at the very least. One hundred of those will each house a million or more transplanted peasants. In fact, while humanity has been building cities for 9,000 years, that was apparently just a warm-up for the next 40. As of now, we're officially an urban species. More than half of us -- 3.3 billion people -- live in a city. Our numbers are projected to nearly double by 2050, adding roughly a New Songdo a day; the United Nations predicts the vast majority will flood smaller cities in Africa and Asia.

Despite its association with piracy, BitTorrent is a company in its own right, and one desperate to hit upon a way to monetize its revolutionary file transfer technology.

A look at the artists and writers who drive for a New York cab company. The story that inspired Taxi.

On L.A.’s Homeboy Industries, which offers former felons—including at least one disgraced CEO—the chance to work.

How one company is rethinking the business of sex toys.

The international battle over 17 tons of coins discovered by an American deep-sea treasure hunting company.

James Frey is starting a publishing company, paying young writers (very poorly) to reverse engineer a Twilight-esque hit.

A “reckless” fracking company, poisoned springs, and a family forced to buy water at Walmart.

Eira Thomas’s company has used radical new methods to find some of the biggest uncut gems in history.

Creation of a fast food phenomenon.

Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon.

How does a company that sells youth learn to grow up?

On a company that provides fake paparazzi, pretend campaign supporters, and counterfeit protesters on demand.

Why did Casper sue a mattress blogger?

On the personal genetic sequencing company 23andMe and why their long time term strategy is collecting spit, not cash.

Harland Sanders left home when he was 13. He once gunned a man down in the street for painting over one of his signs. During the war, he fed the scientists who created the atomic bomb. And then, in his 60s and going by the moniker Colonel Sanders, he began selling fried chicken.

Medicine, the company says, can also be a tasty snack.