Hi, Quartz members!
This week we spent arguably too much time looking at the net worth of the richest people in the world—the list Elon Musk topped, and then briefly didn’t, before topping again. We also looked at others who are raking it in: Colleen Hoover—she’s doing fine—and of course, Taylor Swift, who’s about to make the Kansas City Chiefs a lot of money, simply by existing.
But let’s digress a little. The following are some reads you’ll want to enjoy as you lie around in bed—even if you’re not lying around on a bed of cash. Happy reading!
5 things we especially liked on Quartz
⭐ A gold star for working hard. Employee recognition software is a $33 billion industry. But do point systems that allow peers to reward one another actually boost morale? Quartz’s Laura Bratton looks at where these types of programs succeed, and where they, well, miss the point.
💰 Russia’s military is a money-making machine. The country is spending so much on its invasion of Ukraine that its GDP is growing. Even the mass exit of global companies and sanctions haven’t been as bitter to the Russian economy as anticipated, according to a new analysis from the International Monetary Fund.
🤫 Hong Kong wants to make everything a “state secret.” A new, intentionally vague proposed law could shift the city government even more closely aligned with Beijing. If passed, it would leave the government in charge of what constitutes endangerment of national security—making it judge, jury, and executioner.
📵 45 million views and 24,000 reposts. That’s what one fake image of Taylor Swift amassed on X last week. The explicit, AI-generated photos were removed from the social media platform after 17 hours, but are emblematic of a deepfake problem that’s only getting deeper.
🤐 Black employees say they still need to code-switch. Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have done little to end the practice, where workers change their tone, expressions, body language, or appearance to fit in with a dominant (usually white) culture. Representation in leadership isn’t really changing things either, according to a new survey from Indeed.
🌹 Bonus: Happy anniversary, RuPaul’s Drag Race! In case you missed it when we published it last year, here’s our Weekly Obsession on the show, to commemorate the 15th birthday of its premiere.
5 great stories from elsewhere
🤳 The great American brandist. If you want to write a novel or release an album, be prepared to spend every other waking minute working on your other new job: self-promotion. Artists find the new age of personal branding to be not only essential, but exhausting and even in some cases, life-destroying. Vox’s Rebecca Jennings talks to several creatives about whether it’s all worth it in the end.
🤖 AI for writers. What will it take to get writers to get over their hang-ups about using AI? Writing for the Verge, Josh Dzieza follows the journey of one micro-genre writer who was willing to experiment. It took some tweaking, but in a niche like hers where time-to-publish is a very real metric, she thinks that the technology could very well catch on.
📰 These Times. It’s not just been a scary few months for tech employees—we journalists too are looking around at each other with wide eyes, as reports of layoffs proliferate. Jon Allsop at the Columbia Journalism Review asks if the long-foretold media extinction event is finally happening, and if it’s time for the government to step in.
🎓 Leg up. Parents with means may find it hard to resist the siren call of college consultants who, for a rather hefty fee, can greatly increase Junior’s chances of getting into a prestigious university. Parents without means may bristle, but as highly sought-after coach Christopher Rim puts it, he’s only helping rich kids compete against other rich kids. Read Caitlin Moscatello’s fascinating deep dive in New York magazine.
🧠 Advanced age research. We know a lot more about Alzheimer’s than ever before, and that’s a good thing, because it’s on the rise. That’s not because we’re doing anything wrong—the opposite, in fact. We’re just living longer. This piece by Natalie de Souza from the New York Review looks at the steps and missteps in Alzheimer’s research so far, and why it’s OK, although sometimes difficult, to remain optimistic.
🗓️ What to watch for this week
Here’s what our newsroom will be keeping an eye on:
- Sunday: El Salvador holds its general election, and president Nayib Bukele is looking to secure a second term—despite accusations of human rights violations.
- Monday: McDonald’s earnings will be hot and ready.
- Tuesday: Toyota, Ford, Spotify, and BP will all release their quarterly financials.
- Wednesday: The US will publish its latest trade balance, and Uber, Walt Disney, and chip designer Arm step up to the earnings plate. Azerbaijan will vote for its next leader in a snap election that comes just as president Ilham Aliyev is enjoying support.
- Thursday: Pakistan will hold its own particularly controversial election.
- Friday: PepsiCo cracks open its latest earnings.
Thanks for reading! Here’s to the week ahead, and don’t hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, feedback, self-promotional TikTok ideas, and favorite RuPaul moments. Sunday Reads was brought to you by Susan Howson and Morgan Haefner.