This week’s highlights: Anti-leadership, the value of college, and how Instagram killed retail.

Food for Thought:

1. NYTimes – Not Leadership Material? Good. The World Needs Followers. – Credit EW – The glorification of leadership skills, especially in college admissions, has emptied leadership of its meaning.
2. Ford Foundation – Unleashing the power of endowments: The next great challenge for philanthropy
3. CNN – The exact age when girls lose interest in science and math
4. MMB – Millennials & the Myth of the Sharing Economy  To be clear, the sharing economy and the millennial obsession with experiences both exist. What’s not true is the idea that these current trends represent how the economy will operate (and wants to operate) for the foreseeable future.
5. TheAtlantic – What Is an Elite College Really Worth?  These researchers tracked two groups of students—one that attended college in the 1970s and another in the early 1990s. They wanted know: Did students attending the most elite colleges earn more in their 30s, 40s, and 50s than students with similar SAT scores, who were rejected from those elite colleges? The short answer was no.

Business/Economics:

1. JPM – Jamie Dimon’s Letter to Shareholders.  These may be ‘fighting words’ but I enjoyed this one more than the Berkshire letter this year.
2. WSJ – Why Americans Aren’t Spending Like They Used To.  Americans remain cautious on spending, and the scars left by the recession may make that persist.
3. MarketFolly – Ryanair’s Low Cost Flywheel
4. Bloomberg – Even Best Stock Pickers Can’t Beat Bots – Credit SF
5. BusinessWeek – Instagram Killed the Retail Store.  The members of Gen Z are rewriting the rules of selling fashion.

Culture/Tech/Science:

1. Wired – Wanna Protect Your Online Privacy? Open a Tab and Make Some Noise
2. GolfWorld – The Dawn Of Dominance: Oral History Of Tiger’s ’97 Win.  Looking back 20 years at Tiger’s first run at the Augusta.
3. LifeHacker – Why You Should Be Drinking Boxed Wine
4. OutsideMag – Why I Run in Prison. Rahsaan Thomas is incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, where he found running while serving a life sentence.
5. Ringer – The Secret Shame of the Cracked iPhone.  The owner of the phone with a shattered screen is one of society’s most disgraced citizens. Why do we care so deeply about these ever-ubiquitous possessions? And what does the damage say about us?