Why Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical could finally bring speed and convenience to American healthcare — The U.S. healthcare industry is a wounded 7-ton seal, drifting aimlessly, bleeding into the sea. Predators are circling. The blood in the water is unearned margin: price increases, relative to inflation, without a concomitant improvement in quality. Amazon is the lurking megalodon, its 11-foot jaws and 7-inch teeth the largest…

An excerpt from my forthcoming book, Adrift: America in 100 Charts — Of all media channels, I find writing books the most difficult — and rewarding. (A decent metaphor for anything.) I believe each of us has a camera in our brain that observes everything we do and registers if we’re adding value. Sweating, caring, concentrating all report to a central authority…

Powerful people replace guardrails with enablers whenever they can. With Twitter, Musk has finally hit a guardrail that won’t give way. — A few months ago, I wrote about powerful people’s ability to override guardrails. Just as badmouthing your ex is poor form, turning on the institutions that are the bedrock of your success is bad for the commonwealth and plain tacky. Coco Chanel said the opposite of luxury is not poverty…

The platform’s potential for espionage is a concern. Its use for propaganda is a clear and present danger. — Late in the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Franklin published a report detailing how the British army had enlisted Native American tribes to commit atrocities against settlers. One tribe, he reported, had provided its British paymasters with 102 scalps, including 18 marked with flame — the scalps of children whose parents had…

Every year there’s a draft for human capital. And every year, the U.S. gets the top picks. — Early on a Monday morning, 51 people assemble at a safe house in northern Mexico. A semi truck pulls up, and the man they’ve paid to shepherd them to America directs them into the trailer. …

Why I’m doubling down on podcasts — I’ve made my living communicating. The first 20 years of my career, I rented my brain to Fortune 500 CEOs looking for guidance on branding or strategy. Just as a hit television show is a cocktail of production values and storytelling, a good consultant brings the peanut butter and chocolate…

Crypto’s dirty little secret is that it’s no more eliminated the need for trust than it has replaced the U.S. dollar. — It’s been a bummer summer for crypto. Flagship coins Bitcoin and Ether are at multiyear lows, while lesser coins barrel to zero. Luna went from a market capitalization of $34 billion (“market” and “capitalization” are becoming misnomers for crypto) to worthless in a matter of days.

Work is always changing, and it’s entering a period of rapid evolution — Work has been the most important thing in my life. It’s my identity, and has been the greatest source of reward. Yes, my kids mean more to me now. But, for 35 years, the majority of my waking hours, effort, skills, and even relationships have been focused on work. Is…

Big firms and wealthy individuals are just as prone to making bad decisions as anyone else — Your ancestors pet snakes and drank foul-smelling water. You (likely) do not, as you have learned from their mistakes via the ultimate streaming network of life lessons, always on in your head, called instinct+. In sum, our instincts help us predict the future. If you get close to a lion…