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Alexandra Constantinople

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Jenna Landry

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Christina Valencia

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   Wired 17.03


Latest Release

Wired March 2009: Issue Highlights


To interview the editors, or for more information on the stories below, please contact Jenna Landry at jenna_landry@wired, 212-286-6877 or Christina Valencia at christina_valencia@wired.com, 415-276-5190



COVER: The Secret Formula that Destroyed Wall Street, pg. 74 | Download Cover PDF (128 KB) | Download Article PDF (492 KB)

In the mid-'80s, Wall Street turned to brainy financial engineers to invent new ways to boost profits. Their methods for minting money worked brilliantly...until one of them devastated the global economy. Wired contributor Felix Salmon reports how risk formulas created by math wizard David X. Li helped convince bankers there was little downside to investing in exotic new securities and derivatives. Salmon traces the increasing danger — and how the secret formula turned toxic.

PLUS: A Radically Transparent Plan to Remake the Market, p. 80 | Download Article PDF (676 KB)

Forget new regulations. What the financial world needs is a heavy dose of radical transparency. Wired senior writer Daniel Roth makes the case that companies should report results in easy to understand, easy to crunch numbers--and let investors do the rest.



The Netbook Effect, pg. 60 | Download Article PDF (360 KB)

Wired contributor Clive Thompson looks at why cheap little laptops own the future. Inspired by the X0-1, better known as the One Laptop per Child computer, Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta released an inexpensive, low-performance mass-market machine, and quickly learned that many consumers didn't want more out of a laptop — they wanted less. Today, netbooks account for 7 percent of laptops sold worldwide. Next year it will be 12 percent. US companies including Dell and HP are scrambling to get their own models into the market. The rise of the tiny machines has disrupted the entire market. "The great terror in the PC industry is that [netbooks] have created a $300 device so good, most people will simply no longer feel a need to shell out $1,000 for a portable computer," writes Thompson.



Air Repair, pg. 104 | Download Article PDF (1.8 MB)

Nearly all US flight delays can be traced to the snarl of jets over New York City. How do you squeeze more efficiency out of an archaic air traffic control system? Wired contributor Andrew Blum reports on an ingenious plan to unclog the sky.