John Cox

Blogs · @wyome

Tagged business · everything

www.insidehook.com

The 100 Best American-Made Products

InsideHook curates a list of 100 American-made products across gear, style, home, kitchen, and grooming categories, taking a generous approach to what qualifies as "made in America" by including items where substantial American manufacturing and ingenuity are involved, even if some international components are necessary. Rather than focusing on strict FTC compliance, the editors emphasize celebrating the specific craftspeople and small manufacturers behind these goods—from cast iron skillets hand-signed by blacksmiths to vertically integrated woolen mills—arguing that what makes these products worth buying is not patriotic labeling but their genuine quality and the dedication of American makers.

Permalink gearrecommendationsunited stateskitchen

The Points Guy

Redeem American Airlines AAdvantage miles for maximum value - The Points Guy

American Airlines' AAdvantage program offers several high-value redemption opportunities, particularly with Oneworld partner airlines where fixed award charts still apply—such as European business class seats for 57,500 miles on carriers like Iberia or Finnair, and first-class flights to Japan on Japan Airlines for 80,000 miles. The program uses dynamic pricing for American-operated flights, making off-peak travel and short-haul economy redemptions (starting at 5,000 miles) better values, while partner redemptions like Royal Air Maroc business class to Morocco at 57,500 miles provide consistent availability and pricing.

Permalink travelbusinesscredit cardstips

www.nytimes.com

How Churners Earn Money By Regularly Signing Up for Credit Cards

David Wignall profiles [[Matthew Palm]], a 57-year-old freelance television producer in [[Illinois]] whose side hustle is opening and managing an array of [[credit cards]]—about 50 at last count—to harvest signup bonuses and rewards. The article explains the mechanics of card-churning strategies, the allure of sign-up points and travel perks, and how disciplined spending, calendar vigilance and an understanding of issuer rules can make the practice lucrative for some while posing risks to others: potential credit-score impacts, fees, and complex record-keeping. Wignall situates churning within broader consumer-finance choices, interviews experts and participants, and notes industry responses and policy considerations, concluding that while churning can pay off for experienced, organized individuals it is rarely advisable as a casual side income. Appeared in [[The New York Times]].

Permalink travelstrategybusinesscredit cards

Fast Company

Companies fire employees for these personality traits, but maybe they should be getting bonuses

Rather than treating nonconformity as a liability, companies desperate to innovate should actively recruit and strategically integrate "Rare Breeds"—rebellious, obsessed, audacious individuals whose refusal to accept conventional wisdom drives breakthrough thinking. These misfits, whose traits parents and bosses once derided as character flaws, need careful organizational management to channel their disruptive energy without destabilizing the broader team, but their presence fundamentally shifts how an organization thinks about problems and risk. The article argues that innovation isn't a mystery but rather the direct result of prioritizing unconventional talent over cultural fit.

Permalink cultureleadershipcreativitybusiness

www.investors.com

Warren Buffett Makes All His Money From Just 11 Stocks

Berkshire Hathaway's outperformance versus the S&P 500 this year is driven almost entirely by a small subset of its holdings, with just 11 of its 50 U.S.-listed stocks showing gains while most others have declined. The portfolio's strongest performers include energy stocks like Occidental Petroleum and Chevron, along with healthcare distributor McKesson, which have bucked the broader market weakness affecting Berkshire's other positions.

Permalink businesspersonal financeinvestment

thepointsguy.com

500-plus benefits for $595 a year — is FoundersCard worth it?

A TPG writer makes the case for FoundersCard, a paid membership (not a credit card) offering 500+ discounts and elite-status perks across travel, shopping, and business services, priced at $595-$995/year (though discounted rates as low as $295 are attainable). The piece walks through favorite benefits—airline fare discounts, TripIt Pro, Equinox and Dell pricing, hotel elite status—and weighs them against overlapping perks already bundled into premium cards like the Amex Platinum, concluding it's worthwhile mainly for frequent travelers or business owners who can actually use the niche discounts.

Permalink travelhotelsbusinesscredit cards

www.vice.com

I Wrote an Ebook to See How Much Easy Money I Could Make Online

The author self-published a short ebook about making money online and tracked whether it could generate genuine profits without existing fame or marketing resources. Despite reaching the top of Amazon's niche categories during a free promotional period and securing a blog post feature that temporarily tripled daily sales, the book averaged only a few paid sales per day at £2.99, making it marginally profitable only because the author had existing writing experience and access to professional design. The piece reveals that self-publishing success depends far less on writing quality than on marketing expertise, paid advertising budgets, and existing audience size—advantages the author lacked and most hopeful self-publishers won't have either.

Permalink booksmoneybusinesspersonal finance

Futurism

AI Is Creating "Doom Loops" All Over the Economy

Unredacted legal documents from the New York Times' copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI reveal internal company admissions that AI creates "doom loops"—systems where AI monetizes human-created content while simultaneously destroying the economic incentives and conditions needed to produce that content in the first place. The article catalogs these doom loops across journalism, music, film, education, and recruitment, showing how AI companies knowingly built business models that cannibalize their own supply chains and harm workers across creative industries. Microsoft's own internal documents acknowledged this paradox explicitly: the technology relies on fresh cultural content to function while the products themselves undermine creators' ability to earn livelihoods, ultimately threatening the open web and broader economy.

Permalink aibusinesseconomicsjournalism

Boston Magazine

Inside Demetri Tsolakis's Legal Battle With His Former Boss

Demetri Tsolakis rose from a young promoter to become George Aboujaoude's trusted general manager at the Seaport restaurant Committee, helping build it into a success before launching his own acclaimed Greek restaurant empire starting in 2017. In March 2024, Aboujaoude's company sued Tsolakis for allegedly misappropriating over $1 million in Committee funds to finance his personal restaurants, presenting checks and invoices suggesting Committee paid for items destined for Krasi and other Xenia establishments, though Tsolakis argues these expenses either benefited Committee directly or occurred with Aboujaoude's knowledge and approval. The lawsuit comes after years of tension following Tsolakis's departure from Committee in 2023 and coincides with Aboujaoude's personal and professional struggles, including the loss of his nightclub Bijou and his ongoing divorce.

Permalink restaurantsbusiness

Claude

Agents and products | Claude Marketplace | Claude by Anthropic

The Claude Marketplace allows enterprises to apply their existing Anthropic commitments across multiple Claude-powered software tools—including platforms for code review, app development, legal work, and data analysis—rather than managing separate contracts with individual vendors. This consolidation simplifies purchasing and budgeting while giving organizations access to vetted, enterprise-grade partners that can be added flexibly as needs change.

Permalink aidevelopmentbusinesstools

apple.news

www.bbc.com

Insider warnings over AI fall flat with some in Silicon Valley

After Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly warned that AI could destroy humanity, sparking similar statements from other insiders at major AI labs, tech executives and investors at a Goldman Sachs conference dismissed these concerns as either fearmongering designed to hype upcoming IPOs or unfounded hyperbole. The skepticism reflects a broader Silicon Valley backlash against existential AI warnings, though some lawmakers like Bernie Sanders are pushing for regulatory restrictions, while the Trump administration—which favors unrestricted AI development—has targeted Anthropic with legal challenges despite supporting OpenAI's growth.

Permalink safetyainewsbusiness

Fat Stacks Blog

The 67 Best Blogging Tools that Built my 6-Figure portfolio

A first-hand, category-by-category rundown of the exact paid tools and services one blogger used to build a six-figure niche-site portfolio, covering hosting/themes (Bluehost/Astra for beginners, Rocket.net/Trellis at scale), ad networks (Ezoic then Mediavine), keyword research and SEO (Ahrefs, KeywordChef, Frase), AI writing and content optimization (Koala, Zimmwriter, Originality.ai, Surfer), affiliate and email tools (Lasso, Convertbox, Beehiiv), plus content sourcing, image/compression, VA hiring, and course-hosting platforms. The value is in the specificity of "what I actually pay for and why," including candid notes on switches made (Yoast→Rankmath, AWeber→Convertkit) and a simple recommended stack progression for beginners versus 50k+ pageview sites. Worth keeping as a running reference/toolkit list rather than a one-time read, since the author says they update it as their stack changes.

Permalink softwarebusinesstools

Fast Company

Hoban Cards

Letterpress Business Cards – Hoban Cards

Hoban Cards is a small letterpress shop's site pitching handmade, tactile business and calling cards as an antidote to disposable digital contact-sharing, made on century-old cast-iron presses with an emphasis on typography and craft over volume. It's part store, part manifesto—explaining why letterpress impressions matter, reviving the "calling card" tradition, and offering custom design/printing alongside templates. Worth keeping as a source for affordable letterpress printing and a possible gift/stationery vendor.

Permalink designbusinesshandmade

www.wired.com

Palantir Employees Are Starting to Wonder if They’re the Bad Guys

Palantir employees are increasingly breaking with the company's culture of internal debate to openly question leadership over its deepening ties to Trump-era immigration enforcement and military operations, including ICE deportation work, alleged Maven surveillance involvement in a deadly Iranian strike, and CEO Alex Karp's public rhetoric on AI and voters. WIRED documents a year of escalating internal Slack revolts, deleted message logs, contentious AMAs with privacy staff, and a fascism-tinged company "manifesto" that together suggest a genuine identity crisis at a firm founded partly to prevent post-9/11 civil-liberties abuses. Worth keeping as a granular, sourced account of how a secretive, non-disparagement-bound workforce is nonetheless cracking under Karp's unapologetic embrace of controversy.

Permalink technologyaiprivacypolitics

www.nytimes.com

How Rupert Murdoch’s Empire of Influence Remade the World

Rupert Murdoch suffered a serious spinal injury in January 2018 that forced his adult children to contemplate succession for the first time, raising questions about who would control his sprawling global media empire and its outsized political influence across the English-speaking world. The piece traces how Murdoch built this empire by using his outlets to support favored political candidates and then leveraging those relationships to remove regulatory obstacles to his expansion, a formula his father Keith pioneered in Australia and that Rupert perfected across Britain and America, particularly through Fox News's role in amplifying right-wing populism including Trump's rise. The narrative reveals deep tensions between Murdoch's sons—the idealistic, centrist James who wanted to modernize the company and his more conservative older brother Lachlan, whom Murdoch ultimately favored—and explains how the controlling family trust structure means that Murdoch's death would trigger a power struggle that could reshape global politics.

Permalink united statespoliticsbusinessfamily

www.freelancer.com

www.gearpatrol.com

5 Bourbon Makers to Know Before They Go Mainstream

The piece identifies five distilleries positioned to make waves in bourbon in 2022, based on their upcoming age statements, product innovations, and market expansion. Green River is rebounding after a rebrand and technical controversy with traditional aging methods and five-year releases coming soon; Wilderness Trail's founders bring expert problem-solving credentials and major age-statement releases in 2022; Lux Row is finally bringing its own distillates to market after years of managing heritage brands, bolstered by its parent company's acquisition by distributor MGP; Frey Ranch is scaling beyond Nevada with grain-to-glass experimentation and multi-state distribution; and George Dickel has reinvigorated itself under new head distiller Nicole Austin with well-reviewed releases and creative collaborations.

Permalink whiskeyrecommendationsbusinessbourbon