Profiles

Here is a sampling of notable profiles over the years, written primarily for The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company magazine. Some focus on the strengths – and foibles – of prominent business people. Others concentrate on not-so-famous subjects whose lives shed light on the aspirations, anxieties and diversions of our times.

Jeff Bloom. This 1997 WSJ profile was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning package of stories on the impact of new AIDS therapies.

Gary Koerper. This Fast Company article tells the story of a young engineer, facing long odds, who set out to build the best smartphone in the world.

Ben Ray III. A WSJ front-page piece showing how a top mortgage salesman plied his trade in the midst of the housing bubble.

Zuckerberg's IPO Letter Is a Data-Miner's Delight, Forbes online

 

Talent, Careers and Innovation

I've been refining a variety of ideas from The Rare Find, including the importance of the jagged resume, the value of resilience as a career marker, and the best ways to use auditions to size up talent. Here are some recent articles that have appeared in U.S. and British publications.

LinkedIn Boss Endorses New Kind of Career Path, Forbes online

Spotting the Great but Imperfect Resume, Harvard Business Review online

Big Fish in a Small Pond: How to Hire the Best Talent, Business Life

Work Simulations Solve the Hiring Conundrum, The Guardian (U.K.)

 

Big-picture economics

Are our jobs safe? What is driving the stock market up or down? Why do some companies thrive while others fall apart? We all care about big questions like these, and timely journalism can do a lot of help bring answers to light. Here are some recent articles from Bloomberg View, as well as earlier pieces that appeared in publications ranging from Parade magazine to Harvard Business Review.

Comics and Economists Make Sense of Ireland's Woes, BusinessWeek

Tax Break for Mortgage Debt Is Ready for the Wrecking Ball, Bloomberg View

What People Earn: How We’re Making It Work, Parade magazine

Barbarians in the Board Room, Harvard Business Review

 

Book reviews

This sampling of reviews tilts toward serious non-fiction, including biographies and American history. Lighter pleasures include essayists' surveys of everything from electricity to Ecuadorian flower farms. The pieces here originally ran in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.com.

Social Media Frenzy. A forbes.com review of The Facebook Effect, by David Kirkpatrick

Rich Bank, Poor Bank. An NYT review of The Partnership, by Charles D. Ellis.

The Money Kept Vanishing. A WSJ review of Fooling Some of the People All of the Time, by David Einhorn.