Corporate monopolies, gross mismanagement, retail delivery drones, the growing app economy--2015 was a year of profound changes in the world of business and finance. Offering clear-eyed assessments of these developments along with compelling profiles and muckraking reports, the incisive articles in this volume provide an essential guide for understanding business's influence on economics, politics, and culture.

Selections include Sarah Maslin Nir's explosive expos of the nail-salon industry in the New York Times and the Associated Press's disheartening investigation into slave-labor practices abroad. The stories in this volume explore new frontiers in the way we do chores, eat takeout, order online, and dumpster-dive, showcasing business's rapid evolution under the influence of new technologies. Profiles include the amusing portrait of a young investor who made a fortune betting on penny stocks; the inspiring and cautionary story of an undocumented immigrant who became a star trader at Goldman Sachs; and the shocking account of a troubled financial prodigy who defrauded his inner circle of millions. Claire Suddath adds her take on corporate America's broken maternity-leave system (Businessweek), and Charles Levinson reminds us of Wall Street's close ties to Washington in a probing look at the making (and unmaking) of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act (Reuters).