Friday, July 31, 2015

Business writing - on Mark Hurd, writing code, painting for fun, and high-priced medicine

Some really solid business stories over the past several months included a profile from Fortune Magazine and three different features from Bloomberg Businessweek.

The Fortune piece was by Adam Lashinsky with "The redemption of Oracle's Mark Hurd" and the Businessweek stories covered a lot of ground with one a magazine issue-length look at code, one a piece on painting and drinking for fun and one about an extremely expensive, and effective, treatment for hepatitis C.

The Businessweek pieces are "What is Code?" by Paul Ford, "How Paint Nite Is Saving the American Bar" by Joel Stein, and "Pharma Execs Don't Know Why Anyone Is Upset by a $94,500 Miracle Cure" by Paul Barrett and Robert Langreth. All are interesting and the Barrett and Langreth piece includes below...

"Gilead Sciences of Foster City, Calif., introduced Harvoni, which completely cures the vast majority of people with the most common type of hepatitis C and does it in just three months with few significant side effects. Gilead charges $94,500 for the 12-week treatment."