Modest Operations | Newsletter Volume 14

Hello from somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, or perhaps Alaska, on our way to Hong Kong! 

This was a week with lighter and more casual reads than normal, which I'm chalking up to pre-vacation mind-wandering. Have a great week.

This Week's Links A list of things I've been reading & thinking about.* "'I’ve been told by our distributor that we sell the largest quantity of Veuve Clicquot in all of North America for an individual establishment,' boasts Tommy Tollesson, Cloud Nine’s manager. He also claims that Cloud Nine earns the highest revenue per square foot of any restaurant in the U.S., even though it’s only open 135 days a year." - Things I Never Knew About Skiing Until I Was a Private Instructor in Aspen (Brandon Presser for Bloomberg) * "There is no doubt that this type of health care advertising-cum-storytelling is effective — and is frequently compliant with federal regulations. But there’s a more important question we need to be asking: Is it ethical?" - "Patient influencers" are the latest Instagram trend, and they want to sell you drugs and devices (Suzanne Zuppello  for Vox) * "There are lots of reasons for why you’d want to start and run a business. Passion isn’t a permit you need to acquire before setting off." - Permits of passion (David Heinemeier Hansson for Signal vs. Noise) * "It’s insane that we raised $750,000 for fucking salmon, and I don’t even have a bank account with $20,000 in it to send my coworkers to rehabilitation. The fact is we’re a motley crew of pirates who all need to speak to someone a bit." - My Restaurant Was the Greatest Show of Excess You’d Ever Seen, and It Almost Killed Me (David McMillan for Bon Appetit)