The Long Road to “You’re Hired!”

We're all familiar with the unemployment numbers, as well as the persistent cries that it's difficult to match job seekers with open positions. But unless you're on hiring Ground Zero, it's tough to understand exactly what this puzzle looks like, let alone how to put it together. This wonderfully written article puts the reader in the shoes of Bernie Coyle, who wants to hire 40 people to work in a new egg-white-extraction factory in the aptly named town of Fort Recovery, Ohio. His excitement about giving people jobs can't be overstated. But from poorly written cover letters to interview no-shows to (yay) an eventual hire, Coyle's story underlines one of the central tensions of the American economic recovery that seems easily solvable: Even though a lot of qualified workers can’t find jobs, a lot of jobs can’t quite find qualified workers.

Don't Drink Your Own Kool-Aid A Broken Place: The Spectacular Failure of the Start-Up that Was Going to Change the World Fast Company

Better Place was the car-battery start-up that was going to revolutionize transportation until it didn't. In this lengthy investigation of the company, writer Max Chafkin says founder Shai Agassi "made great Kool-Aid and then drank it all himself." Chafkin relies on the nifty narrative technique of inverting eight entrepreneurship rules ("Think locally and globally – all at once," for example) to explain what went so terribly wrong. Among the problems: Agassi "effectively committed to a business model before he even settled on a name" and didn't bother to hire people with management or automotive experience. According to many, he also packed an unhealthy amount of hubris. With an eventual daily burn rate of $500,000 – before the company even had a car for sale – it's no wonder the company went bust.

Don't Fight It How to Think Like the Dutch in a Post-Sandy World The New York Times Magazine

Can you imagine deep concrete pits in New York City that would serve as basketball courts most of the time but would be allowed to fill up with water during periods of flooding? Or floating office buildings in Miami? How about artificial islands in other low-lying U.S. cities that would be designed to safely flood during storm surges? These are the kinds of innovations being implemented in the Netherlands, which has moved beyond a dams-and-dikes mentality to embrace the country's relationship with water, because in Holland, water is everywhere and rising all the time. Russell Shorto's profile of Dutch flooding expert Henk Ovink looks at how – and whether – the U.S. might similarly manage a delicate dance with the oceans. Will rugged American individualism stand in the way of effective solutions? Maybe so. –Andy O'Connell

But They Give The Jobs Back in the End 'Gods' Make Comeback at Toyota as Humans Steal Jobs from Robots Bloomberg

The robots may not be coming to take all of our jobs – but knowing how to work with them is going to be imperative. This, in part, is what's driving a new Toyota program requiring people – that's right, actual humans – to build cars by hand. There are now around 100 manual-intensive workstations in three of Toyota's Japanese factories, where younger employees learn how to, for example, turn and hammer metal into crankshafts. The company hopes that these employees will then be able to make automated processes more productive. "We cannot simply depend on the machines that only repeat the same task over and over again," Toyota's Mitsuru Kawai says. "To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the skills to teach the machine."

Try Saying It Out Loud Greed Is Good: A 300-Year History of a Dangerous Idea The Atlantic

You're probably not going to find yourself discussing greed at your next networking event. There's a reason for that: Greed is both central to modern business and the "hobgoblin of capitalism," argues Booth Business School adjunct professor John Paul Rollert. This isn't because "of doubts about the efficacy of free markets, but of the centuries of moral reform that was required to make those markets as free as they are." Rollert takes us through those centuries, from a time when "the pursuit of self-interest was largely reviled" to (of course) Ayn Rand. He also reminds us why we don't overtly call things or people "greedy," and the consequences of our silence: "We enjoy the benefit of being high-minded without the burden of moral restraint. We also embolden that behavior, which proceeds with a presumptive blessing."

BONUS BITS Mixed Feelings

Should Airlines Attach Advertising to Your Luggage? (Boston.com)
Women and Social Mobility: Six Key Facts (Brookings)
The Heartbleed Bug, Explained (Vox)