quaro.com:

I’ve heard PlentyOfFish.com is essentially operated by one guy from his living room and makes $10M+ per year. He’s the programmer, designer, marketer, customer service, everything. What are some other examples like this?
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Vanessa Friedman:

When the new iPad went on-sale at midnight last Friday night it provoked the usual frenzy — miles of lines, ecstatic buyers — as well as one very interesting blog that somehow seems to have fallen through the cracks over the weekend. I think it’s worth revisiting.

It was written by Evan Clark, deputy business editor of WWD (the site of insider fashion publication Women’s Wear Daily), and it takes a good, analytic look at the general perception that Apple is a luxury brand (a perception that Apple itself has created), pointing out that it does tick all the boxes save one; exclusivity. But here’s what I wonder: is exclusivity really a luxury value these days?

Ray Dalio:

A Template for Understanding…
…How the Economic Machine Works and How it is Reflected Now
Ray Dalio | October 2008 (Updated March 2012): The economy is like a machine. At the most fundamental level it is a relatively simple machine, yet it is not well understood. I wrote this paper to describe how I believe it works. My description is not the same as conventional economists’ descriptions so you should decide for yourself whether or not what I’m saying makes sense. I will start with the simple things and build up, so please bear with me. I believe that you will be able to understand and assess my description if we patiently go through it.

An In-Depth Look at Deleveragings
Ray Dalio | February, 2012: The purpose of this paper is to show the compositions of past deleveragings and, through this process, to convey in-depth, how the deleveraging process works.

Why Countries Succeed and Fail Economically
Ray Dalio | June, 2011: This study looks at how different countries’ shares of the world economy have changed and why these changes have occurred, with a particular emphasis on the period since 1820. As explained in this study, the rises and declines in countries’ shares of the world economy occur as a result of very long-term cycles that are not apparent to observers who look at economic conditions from a close-up perspective.