DecorMyEyes is a online eyewear store with an unusual business plan; the owner harasses and intimidates customers who complain in order to get negative reviews posted across the web, in turn making his website more visible to Google searchers.

How Cantor Fitzgerald is bringing the principles of day trading to sports betting in Vegas.

A history of entrepreneurship in New York City, starting with shipping magnate Jeremiah Thompson’s big gamble in the 1820s: scheduled departures.

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

The bizarre tale of how the hiring of a reality TV contestant to greet high-end customers led to the firing of a successful CEO. Plus: a follow-up article.

On Ayn Rand becoming a cult hero to Wall Street insiders and others items that make Matt Taibbi angry.

A single-page version of Shalhoup’s reporting on the Black Mafia Family, one of the largest cocaine empires in American history.

An early attempt to explain the world-changing power of computer software—and the minds of young programmers like Bill Gates—to a mass audience. “Software,” the article begins, “is the magic carpet to the future.”

When it comes to representing pharmaceutical companies, a doctor’s medical record is far less important than his or her ability to sell.

The world’s population is rapidly getting older. How China and other countries stocked with young workers are taking advantage.

Diapers.com has a stripped-down business model, a massive warehouse staffed by robots, and a legitimate chance to outsell Amazon.

Not only is the penny useless, it costs the U.S. Treasury $50 million per year. So why is it still around?

In an elaborate FBI sting to expose corruption, four agents pose as futures traders in Chicago. The plan works–if you don’t count the hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars the agents lost in the process.

Raffaello Follieri was young, handsome. He was Italian. He was dating Anne Hathaway, hobnobbing with Bill Clinton, and using contacts at the Vatican to launch a lucrative business in the States. Then he was in jail.

A 2006 profile of Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook opened from a college-only site to a public social network.

A just-barred Pakistani-American attorney attempts to save a young family’s home from foreclosure and glimpses the contradiction-rich bureaucracy that has emerged in response to the housing crisis.

A series on the growing income inequality gap in America.

The author joins his father’s work crew, gutting out foreclosed houses in Florida and interviewing their former residents.

It makes as much money as Whole Foods while stocking 90 percent fewer products. The Trader Joe’s business model explained.

The billionaire Koch brothers have declared war on Obama.

Christian Audigier is the man behind Von Dutch and Ed Hardy. The massive succes of his garish and expensive creations may say more about the power of celebrity than about fashion.

The number one item confiscated by U.S. customs for four years in a row: fake shoes. As brands continue to crack down, counterfeiters continue to up their game.

In the early 1960s, Middle Eastern guys in Brooklyn introduced America to Arabic rock-and-roll.

A new Egyptian TV channel called 4Shbab—“for youth” in Arabic—aims to get young people interested in Islam through music videos and reality shows.

A reporter heads to Nauru, a tiny island nation in the Pacific, to track down the hub of a worldwide money-laundering operation—a shack filled with computers, air-conditioners, and little else.