This Week’s Issue: How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism

Plus: Alabama’s wastewater crisis, the carpenter behind some of New York’s most elaborate homes, and the long awakening of Adrienne Rich. View in browser | Update your preferences Letter from Silicon Valley How Venture Capitalists Are Deforming Capitalism Even the worst-run startup can beat competitors if investors prop it up. The V.C. firm Benchmark helped enable WeWork to make one wild mistake after another—hoping that its gamble would pay off before disaster struck. By Charles Duhigg U.S. Journal The Heavy Toll of the Black Belt’s Wastewater Crisis Many rural households in America don’t have access to safe sewage systems. In Alabama, entrenched poverty and unusual geology have created a public-health disaster. By Alexis Okeowo Our Local Correspondents The Art of Building the Impossible The carpenter behind some of New York’s most elaborate—and expensive—homes. By Burkhard Bilger Personal History Preparing to Spin the Wheel of Fortune You may win a lot of cash and tons of prizes, but please don’t do anything stupid, like quit your day job. By David Gilbert Portfolio Faces of a Fast-Food Nation During the pandemic, low-wage workers must manage risk and rudeness. By Richard Renaldi Comment Biden’s Covid-19 Mission As Donald Trump continues to find new ways to make things worse, Joe Biden is preparing to take immediate action on an escalating crisis. By Amy Davidson Sorkin Books The Long Awakening of Adrienne Rich Some called her coarse, extreme, too quick to change. In fact, she was always one step ahead. By Maggie Doherty Books William Faulkner’s Demons In his own life, the novelist failed to truly acknowledge the evils of slavery and segregation. But he did so with savage thoroughness in his fiction. By Casey Cep The Art World The Metropolitan Museum at a Hundred and Fifty The museum is our Home Depot of the soul. It has just about whatever you want, and it has a lot of it. By Peter Schjeldahl Newsletters Sign Up for the New Yorker Recommends Newsletter Discover what our staff is reading, watching, and listening to each week. Humor from The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs Dark Sitcom Reboots The medical drama “Howser” is set in the future, when the number of adult doctors has been so depleted by pandemics that child doctors must fill the void. By Jay Martel Cartoons From The Issue Cartoons from the Issue Drawings and drollery from this week’s magazine. This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To insure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com. For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.