Today is Thursday, my friends, and this is Apex Money, your source for the juiciest money stories from around the web. Oh — and other interesting stuff we want to share haha. Let’s get started.
The quest to find the world’s best rice. [Taste] — “Japan has around 300 brands of short-grain japonica rice that go by names like Yume Shizuku (Dream Droplet), Seiten no Hekireki (Bolt from the Blue), Tsuyahime (Shiny Princess), and Mirukii Kuiin (Milky Queen). Each one is a unique cultivar that’s been grown by plant breeders for some combination of traits: stickiness, starch density, big kernels, high yields, early maturation, heat resilience, pest resistance.”
How to be successful. [Sam Altman] — “I’ve observed thousands of founders and thought a lot about what it takes to make a huge amount of money or to create something important. Usually, people start off wanting the former and end up wanting the latter. Here are 13 thoughts about how to achieve such outlier success. Everything here is easier to do once you’ve already reached a baseline degree of success (through privilege or effort) and want to put in the work to turn that into outlier success. But much of it applies to anyone.”
Cage-free is basically meaningless (and other lies your egg carton is telling you). [Lifehacker] — “If all of this seems like too much to remember, you can always build a coop and raise your own hens, or source your eggs from a local farm. The yolks in local farm eggs have a darker color and richer flavor than factory farmed eggs, and come with a nice smug feeling of moral superiority. (My favorite eggs come from my dad’s chickens, but Vital Farms, which is rated very highly on ol’ Organic Egg Scorecard, are a very close second).” [Our household is also devoted to Vital Farms eggs.]
Lastly, here’s a YouTube video I found recently, and about which I find myself thinking several times a week. (Seriously!) It’s a two-minute clip explaining the “veil of ignorance” thought experiment from philosopher John Rawls. It’s a way of trying to think about what’s fair and just when it comes to communities and societies.
Okay, that’s it for Thursday. I’ll be back here tomorrow to see you into the weekend. Take care!