10 Weekend Reads – Overview

• The evolution of financial advice. To be a successful investor, you must possess a number of different characteristics. You need to understand how math, statistics, and probability work. You need to understand how business and the global economy generally works over the long term. You need to understand how different asset classes behave from a risk and return perspective. You also need a thorough understanding of the history of financial markets, from booms to busts. And you need the emotional discipline to stick to a sensible investment strategy, from fads to panics and everything in between. (A wealth of common sense)

• Goofy conspiracy theory threatens Wall Street: Naked short selling is one thing. In fact, it really isn’t. But that hasn’t stopped a group of peddlers, led by a cynical lawyer, from conjuring up an excuse for the crashing meme stock — and creating a community that now talks about violence against anyone who gets in their way. (Forbes)

• How MrBeast Became YouTube’s Willy Wonka: Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, has become a viral sensation for his senseless acts of selflessness. Why do so many people think it’s bad? (New York Times)

• From “big buyers” of pregnancy tests to people prone to depression: We found 650,000 ways advertisers label you A spreadsheet on the Xandr advertising platform website revealed a massive collection of “audience segments” used to target consumers based on information and very specific, sometimes intimate, inferences. (markup)

• The sounds of invisible worlds: As the microscope and telescope did centuries ago, new technologies for capturing and analyzing sound are leading to startling discoveries about what the eyes cannot see. (NOEMA)

• The Trillion Gallon Question: Extreme weather threatens California dams. What if they fail? What if the California dams fail? (New York Times)

• From Dylan to Bieber, catalog sales are the megadeals taking over music: Some call it song management, others copyright acquisition. Managers of this asset class include Mestel, Merck Mercuriadis (CEO and founder of Hipgnosis Songs) and Round Hill Music’s Josh Gruss, in addition to traditional publishers such as Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony Music Publishing and BMG. The latter have longer histories and much larger holdings than the more insurgent independents, but only recently have they struck successful deals on publishing acquisitions. (Washington Post)

• Amid a wave of anti-Semitic hate crimes, a New York unit offers a model of resistance: As the country grapples with growing extremism, a seasoned observer of anti-Semitic violence follows a security team combating threats against Jewish targets. (vanity lounge)

• Kylian Mbappe’s mother and the rise of one of football’s toughest negotiators: It is above all about his mother, who has become the driving force behind discussions about his future, who manages these very charged conversations with the PSG hierarchy and, if things go as he hopes and expects, whether it’s this summer or next, the negotiations to take him to Madrid. (Athleticism) see also The long and sad story of the theft of the Oakland A’s: On the most bizarre relocation campaign in modern sports history and the fan base that fought back. (The ring)

• Taylor Sheridan Does What He Wants: ‘I’ll Tell My Stories My Way’ Hollywood’s most prolific hitmaker — and THR’s TV Producer of the Year — breaks his silence on ‘Yellowstone’ ending, Kevin Costner’s exit, potential Matthew McConaughey spinoff, his battles with costumes and how he became a powerful mega-rancher straight out of his own show: “There’s no compromise.” (Hollywood journalist)