The first section of the High Line in 2012, open as a public park on the viaduct that was once slated for demolition. Photograph: Dansnguyen · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
The hindsight game
Would you have seen it?
We take you back to the decision and hide the ending. Choose with the uncertainty people actually had.
Investing · Public markets
Amazon, 2001
The dot-com bubble has burst. Amazon is losing money, carrying substantial obligations, and trading near a quarterly low. You have only the company’s latest public filing and the market in front of you.
Business · Acquisitions
The Blockbuster meeting
Netflix is a young DVD-by-mail service seeking a larger partner. Its founders later say they floated a $50 million sale while proposing that Netflix run Blockbuster’s online business.
Business · Strategy
Yahoo’s Microsoft decision
Microsoft has proposed buying Yahoo for cash and stock. Yahoo’s board must decide whether the premium fairly captures the company’s prospects or undervalues its future.
Technology · Research systems
The Xerox Alto
Your research lab has combined a bitmap screen, mouse, graphical interface, networking, email, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get editing. The machine is extraordinary—and extraordinarily expensive.
Technology · Product design
Ship the Newton?
Apple has announced a new kind of pocket computer. The vision is compelling, but the schedule has slipped and the handwriting system—the feature people will judge first—is not yet dependable.
Real Estate · Metro housing
Miami, 2010
Miami housing has already fallen sharply after the financial crisis. You can buy, keep renting, or wait for clearer evidence that the market has stopped falling.
Real Estate · Adaptive reuse
Save the High Line?
An elevated freight railway has sat unused for two decades. A demolition order promises a clean slate; neighborhood advocates argue that the structure itself could become public space.
Careers · Founder path
After Apple
You have been pushed out of the company you helped start. Your reputation has taken a public hit, but you still have experience, relationships, and a strong view of what computers should become.
Careers · Broadcasting
A demotion in Baltimore
A young television journalist has been taken off the main anchor desk. The station can place her in lower-profile news cut-ins or try her in a daytime conversation format.
Entertainment · Music
The Decca audition
A Liverpool group arrives for a label audition after building a live following. The tape is imperfect, the market is crowded, and signing an unfamiliar regional act means choosing what not to fund.
Entertainment · Publishing
The manuscript in the pile
An agent is circulating a long children’s fantasy by an unknown author. Publishing space is finite, the sales case is uncertain, and several houses have already declined.
Sports · Basketball
Portland’s No. 2 pick
You run Portland’s draft room. Houston has taken Hakeem Olajuwon. Your roster already includes young guard Clyde Drexler, while conventional wisdom prizes elite centers.
Sports · Football
Pick 199
Six quarterbacks have already been selected. Michigan’s Tom Brady remains available, and your roster has more immediate needs than another developmental passer.
Investing · Digital currency
Two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin
A forum user offers 10,000 bitcoin to anyone who will arrange delivery of two pizzas. The network is experimental, liquidity is thin, and proving that the tokens can buy something is part of the point.
Everyday Life · Collecting
The recovered Superman comic
A rare copy of Action Comics No. 1, stolen from actor Nicolas Cage in 2000, has been recovered. After fifteen years of ownership and an extraordinary provenance story, the choice is sell, hold, or insure and lend it.
Everyday Life · Consumer brands
Change the Coke formula?
Coca-Cola’s flagship has been losing share in its core market. Blind taste tests favor a new formula, but the company must decide whether product preference is the same thing as permission to replace a cultural habit.
Ideas & Inventions · Imaging
A camera without film
A Kodak engineer has assembled a toaster-sized device that captures a black-and-white image electronically. It is slow and crude, and the company’s profitable ecosystem is built around film and processing.
Ideas & Inventions · Communications
The frequency-hopping patent
Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil have patented a system that switches radio frequencies in coordination, intended to make guidance signals harder to detect or jam during wartime.
Travel · Rail architecture
Old Penn Station
A monumental rail terminal is expensive to maintain while its owner wants to monetize the air rights above the tracks. Preservationists have begun a public fight, but New York lacks today’s landmark protections.
Travel · Aviation
Put Concorde into service?
Supersonic passenger flight is ready to leave the demonstration era. The aircraft promises an Atlantic crossing in under four hours, but capacity is small and the economics depend on expensive tickets.