Good morning, Quartz readers!
Elon Musk and the ground don’t seem to meet very often. In illustrations meant to capture Musk in likeness and spirit, he is often found riding a rocket, floating in space, or hovering above Mars. Even in images where the co-founder and leader of SpaceX and electric car maker Tesla is not outside our orbit, his feet may be miraculously airborne. The message is that Musk is not like the rest of us, and considering his achievements, we can’t debate that.
Except, as a new interview with the New York Times (paywall) makes evident, in some essential ways, Musk is a lot like an ordinary person. For instance, he needs more sleep; when he doesn’t sleep enough, he courts trouble—like by tweeting impromptu plans to take Tesla private. Musk told the Times he works 120-hour weeks, and sometimes doesn’t leave the factory floor for days at a time. “This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And seeing friends,” he said, before seemingly becoming too emotional to continue.
How do you sleep enough to avoid the hazards that come with exhaustion, and without resorting to pills, as Musk does, which actually can trigger even more bizarre behavior? And how do we find time for meaningful relationships, and the lasting happiness they can bring, when our culture of work is all-consuming?
To varying degrees, these interconnected problems are riddles we’re all trying to solve. For Musk, solving them could also benefit the very companies he’s killing himself to run. As tech journalist Kara Swisher concluded in a recent Times op-ed (paywall), Musk can salvage his status by demonstrating that Tesla “is not just revolving around his aura” and is run by “a team that does its best work with or without him.” —Lila MacLellan
Five things on Quartz we especially liked
The climate-change problem no one is talking about. The warming planet is only going to exacerbate water shortages, and countries currently have almost no mechanisms in place to manage water across borderlands. Quartz collaborated with the Texas Observer to investigate the nature of border water in an era of growing scarcity.
They say teenagers don’t use Facebook. That’s mostly true. But research shows the platform is still popular among low-income teens in the US. Hanna Kozlowska looks at how Facebook—born out of privilege—is now being used by underprivileged kids to fill gaps when other resources are unavailable.
Lobsters, rolled. China is hitting back against Donald Trump’s trade war by going after New England’s most valuable crustacean. Heather Timmons reports on new trade rules that make it virtually impossible for Maine’s lobster industry to export to the growing Chinese market.
Sewing up the future. Although traditionally low-tech, the apparel industry is on the cusp of a radical transformation. In the latest episode of Quartz News, a video series focused on the global economy, Marc Bain and Isabelle Niu introduce us to the technologies—including lasers and 3D knitting—powering fashion’s new era.
Dogs are a woman’s best friend. When Leah Fessler began caring for an adorable but accident-prone pug, she realized why powerful women are often also dog-parents: Pups insist that women (and men) connect to the parts of themselves that, as Fessler writes, “a sexist society is often determined to strip away.”
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
China’s ballooning surveillance spending. Imagine a police officer with the ability to instantly analyze all the contacts, photos, emails, and social media posts on your phone. Cate Cadell reports for Reuters on the “black tech” being deployed by law enforcement across China, which has spent nearly $20 million on surveillance equipment since the start of 2016.
Putting on a brave face. In 2014, a distraught teenager’s impulsive action destroyed her face and changed the course of her life. For National Geographic, Joanna Connors followed the young woman, her family, and her doctors through their yearslong journey to a face transplant, a surgery of incredible medical, technical, and emotional complexity.
Alex Jones is a distraction. Banning Jones and his hate-filled rhetoric has become a popular move for tech platforms, even as they quietly take up more dangerous censorship and begin cooperating with politically repressive regimes. “Jones is an incidental player in a much larger narrative,” Matt Taibbi writes for Rolling Stone.
Life at 50° C. As the northern hemisphere closes out a notably hot summer, Jonathan Watts and Elle Hunt at The Guardian imagine a world where 50° C (122° F) is the norm instead of an anomaly. “Society is divided into the cool haves and the hot have-nots,” they write, as soaring temperatures impact everything from power grids to human health.
Pocket inequality. Forget the pay gap; do you know about the pocket gap? For The Pudding, Jan Diehm and Amber Thomas ran a statistical analysis that found women’s jean pockets are, on average, 48% shorter than men’s. Worse, only 10% of women’s pockets can fit the average female hand.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, “black tech,” and suitably sized pockets to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Kira Bindrim.