Here at Grid we spend a lot of time reading what the Internet has to say about business. Or, as journalists like to call it, “working.” Every Friday, we let you benefit from our diligence by collecting the most interesting and entertaining stuff we’ve encountered this week.
How orchids dropped from $100,000 to $5.48
See boss, there is such a thing as doing a job too well. In Taiwan, that means growing orchids at such a scale that selling them is no longer profitable. And while I do love being able to pick up a lovely plant for under $10 at Home Depot, it does somewhat spoil the allure. Sarah Collins
As more and more men are shopping for themselves and their families, Kraft and other big food companies are putting more stuff in black packages. A Greek yogurt company urges customers to “find their inner abs,” and even cafes, those repositories of the sensitive, are adding nitrogen to brews so they pour like Guinness. Matt Present
What to do instead of learning to code
Listen, we’re probably still going to try our hand at a few of the online coding courses. But if we fail, we’ll definitely point to this Fast Co. article to prove that we never needed to learn how to code anyway. Sarah Collins
All right, all right. This isn’t a business story, per se. But rapper-slash-producer-slash-entrepreneur Jay Z tells Vanity Fair how selling crack made him a better businessman — “I know about budgets. I was a drug dealer.” He’s since moved on to less life-threatening pursuits, like fragrances, cigars and his own $20,000 Hublot watch. Meg Graham
Would you pay $2,000 for a GIF?
Fancy auction house Phillips held its first digital art auction in New York last week. Among the artists with works on the block: Chicago Tumblr star Molly Soda, who sold an eight-hour webcam video of her reading the messages in her inbox. The Verge takes a look at the uncharted business of selling digital art, in which ownership is relatively meaningless as anyone can access and share a GIF, website or piece of code. Sara White
