COVER: Smart Jobs A__ WIRED special report with NPR’s Planet Money ____by Adam Davidson ____pg. 121 __
For six months WIRED worked with NPR’s Planet Money to chart the state of the job market as it rebounds from the recession. With 6.5 million more Americans unemployed today than five years ago, it’s still too early to declare an end to the national job crisis. But it’s not too early to see what recovery looks like. Adam Davidson breaks down the emerging industries and blossoming business epicenters, documenting how new currents of job growth promise to restore the American middle class.
__Q&A: Jack Dorsey ____by Jason Tanz __pg. 114
Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey specializes in simple ideas that make a big impact. His new company, Square, seeks to give anyone the ability to accept credit card payments via a tiny reader that plugs into smartphones and iPads. WIRED New York Editor Jason Tanz talks to Dorsey about how Square works and where it’s headed.
__Meet Generation Y ____by Steven Levy __pg. 136
Paul Graham’s boot camp for startups has become the golden ticket for young entrepreneurs in search of funding for their big Internet ideas. Graham’s company, Y Combinator, has helped launch some of the most successful startups of the past five years—including Airbnb, Scribd, and Reddit—by providing seed funding and then connecting fledgling companies with Silicon Valley’s most powerful investors. Steven Levy takes an inside look at the process.
__Liquid Gold ____by Judy Dutton __pg. 144
There’s a booming market for human milk sold over the Internet. The website “Only the Breast” operates like Craigslist, allowing nursing mothers with an overstock to sell their excess for upwards of $2 an ounce. Others like “Eats on Feets” accept donations and exchanges but not sales. These Internet-only upstarts are disrupting traditional brick-and-mortar milk banks, which charge around $5 per ounce. Isn’t the Internet an amazing thing?
__Going, Going, Gone ____by James Surowiecki __pg. 150
Fifteen years ago eBay was touted as the most important company in the history of ecommerce. Replacing fixed pricing with auctions elicited an enormous consumer response for eBay, and pundits predicted that some day everything would be sold via auctions. A decade later, auctions account for just 30 percent of sales at the giant online merchant, and they are no longer at the heart of the eBay business model. James Surowiecki explains the decline of the Internet auction.
__Plus! __A look at the Mojave Desert’s massive solar energy system (pg. 32); What’s inside tear gas (pg. 52); How to deal with Twitter robots (pg. 78)
__Media Contact: __Rachel Millner, Rachel_Millner@condenast.com, 212-286-4673
