This Hook is a little heavier on the reading side than previous editions, but we took great care to provide you with articles that should matter to you and make you think, regardless of your business background. They roughly circle around the themes of business, work, capitalism, and revolutions. An odd combination?
Make yourself comfortable and feed your brain.
01 Sorry, It’s Not A ‘Law Of Capitalism’ ...
by Henry Blodget / Business Insider
The law of capitalism which says “you should pay your employees as little as possible” is a myth that has been around since the industrialization. Henry Blodget dispels that myth, and very appealingly so, with rhetoric and real data.
02 Out of the picture
by Casey Newton / The Verge
How even great companies and ideas can fail, and why this should still not discourage you: the story of everpix.
03 On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
by David Graeber / Strike! Magazine
Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul.
Anthropologist David Graeber explores the current phenomenon of us working. Or, more precisely, working too much in jobs nearly completely devoid of value, meaning, and sense.
04 11 Years of Teehan+Lax
by John Lax
Teehan+Lax always had a slightly unusual philosophy; one that didn't exactly match traditional business structures. John Lax gives us some insights into a company that make some of the coolest products around today, with a different approach.
05 How science is telling us all to revolt
by Naomi Klein / New Statesman
There is still time to avoid catastrophic warming, but not within the rules of capitalism as they are currently constructed. Which may be the best argument we have ever had for changing those rules.
Naomi Klein on the question of “Is Earth F*cked?”, and if it is — which seems to be “more or less” the case — what we can do about it.
06 I Am Anonymous
by John H. Richardson / Esquire
A story about courage in an environment of repression and scaremongering.
