Vanity Fair - August 2009
Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard
Only a year ago, Harvard had a $36.9 billion endowment, the largest in academia. Now that endowment has imploded, and the university faces the worst financial crisis in its 373-year history. Could the same lethal mix of uncurbed expansion, colossal debt, arrogance, and mismanagement that ravaged Wall Street bring down America’s most famous university? And how much of the turmoil is the fault of former Harvard president Larry Summers, now a top economic adviser to President Obama? As students demonstrate, administrators impose Draconian cuts, and construction is halted on an over-ambitious $1.2 billion science complex, Nina Munk follows the finger-pointing. [read more]

Canadian Business - May 12, 2008
My Father's Brilliant Mistake
For a decade, in the 1960s, Clairtone Sound Corp. captured the spirit of the times. Hugh Hefner owned a Clairtone hi-fi. So did Frank Sinatra and the jazz legend Oscar Peterson. In an excerpt from her new book, Nina Munk, daughter of Clairtone founder Peter Munk, reveals the inside story of the skyrocketing success and the sensational collapse of a design icon. [read more]

Vanity Fair - July 2007
Jeffrey Sachs’s $200 Billion Dream
Jeffrey Sachs—visionary economist, savior of Bolivia, Poland, and other struggling nations, adviser to the U.N. and movie stars—won’t settle for less than the global eradication of extreme poverty. And he hasn’t got a second to waste. [read more]

Vanity Fair - July 2006
Greenwich's Outrageous Fortunes
For more than a century, Greenwich, Connecticut, has attracted some of the biggest, newest, shiniest fortunes in America. Today that money comes from the trillion-dollar hedge fund business, which occupies a third of the town’s office space, and whose managers are behind a decade of over-the-top real-estate deals, teardowns, and mega-mansions. From Paul Tudor Jones II’s monster Monticello to Steven Cohen’s $14.8 million cash purchase, Nina Munk discovers just how far Greenwich’s latest tycoons will go—and meets the one who finally went too far. [read more]

The New York Times - September 25, 2005
Don't Blink. You'll Miss the 258th Richest American
The latest Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America has just hit the newsstands. The idea for the Forbes 400—rather than, say, 300 or 500—was inspired by Mrs. Astor's 400, the definitive list of New York high society in the 1890's...[read more]

The New York Times - August 15, 2005
My Generation: Hope I Shop Before I Get Old
My generation was created by Time magazine. Calling us "the 20-something generation," the cover article of July 16, 1990, herded and then defined the 48 million Americans born from 1965 to 1977. [read more]

The New York Times - July 19, 2005
Steve Case's New Act
Without a trace of self-consciousness, Stephen M. Case calls his new company Revolution. ''It struck me that Revolution might be a good name,'' he said, ''because it does sort of summarize the approach we're trying to bring to bear, which is not an incremental, tweaking kind of thing, but really... [read more]

Vanity Fair - June 2005
Steve Wynn's Biggest Gamble
Even as Steve Wynn’s sight is failing, his vision grows more ambitious. Five years after selling his Mirage Resorts, the uncrowned king of Las Vegas has just finished building a shimmering, 50-floor hotel-casino, complete with 18 restaurants, a car dealership, golf course, spa, museum, and man-made mountain. Visiting the $2.7 billion follow-up to Wynn’s famed Bellagio, Nina Munk finds the man who re-invested Las Vegas grappling with his legacy—and on at least one memorable occasion, losing his cool. [read more]

The New York Times - May 22, 2005
Gunslingers No More
Hedge fund managers once had nerves of steel. In the 1980's and 1990's, men like George Soros, Julian H. Robertson Jr. and Michael H. Steinhardt made huge, daring bets on foreign currencies and on interest rate spreads. Secretive, and unsupervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission, hedge fund managers were... [read more]

The New York Times - March 5, 2004
If You Don't Like the Ride, Get Off
Everyone, it seems, is in agreement. Michael Eisner, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, is a bloated relic of the late 1990's. He has to go. [read more]

Vanity Fair - January 2004
The Taking of Time Warner
From the Shanghai night when Gerald Levin thought he’d glimpsed the real Steve Case to the wine-and-room-service evening during which the two C.E.O.’s explored their grand visions for a combined future, the AOL-Time Warner merger was a dangerous brew of vulnerability and ego. In an excerpt from her new book, Fools Rush In, Nina Munk tells the inside story of how Levin became trapped by his own bid for Digital Age immortality. [read more]

The New York Times - January 15, 2003
Steve Case, Genius
The morning after announcing he would resign as chairman of AOL Time Warner, Steve Case was asked to feel his shareholders' pain. ''In a personal sense, how badly do you feel about the almost $200 billion worth of shareholder value that has been wiped out?'' asked an interviewer on CNN. Not too bad, apparently. His face expressionless, Mr. Case said: ''I recognize a lot of people have bet on this company and are disappointed by the results. But it's never over till it's over.'' [read more]

Vanity Fair - January 2003
Steve Case's Last Stand
With the departure of AOL Time Warner's C.E.O. Gerald Levin and C.O.O. Robert Pittman, all the anger and hostility consuming the world's most powerful media company is focussed on chairman Steve Case. Employees from the Time Warner side blame him for crippling their company (and destroying their retirement accounts). Top investors, including Ted Turner and Gordon Crawford, are calling for his head. His management style, his accounting practices, and his vision are under attack. How come he's still there? Nina Munk goes into the trenches. [read more]

Vanity Fair - July 2002
Power Failure
Yes, the merger of AOL and Time Warner created the world's largest media company. It also produced a corporate civil war, a 70 percent drop in the stock value, one of the biggest write-offs ($54 billion) in history, and the "early retirement" of Gerald Levin. Now an uneasy troika––new CEO Richard Parsons, chairman Steve Case, and COO Bob Pittman––is scrambling to reboot. Nina Munk investigates. [read more]

Vanity Fair - August 2001
In The Final Analysis
Internet-stock mania made powerful stars out of Wall Street research analysts such as Mary Meeker, Henry Blodget, and Jack Grubman. Then the techno-bubble burst, and investors who'd followed their advice lost serious money. Now celebrity analysts are facing death threats, investigations, and lawsuits. [read more]

Vanity Fair - May 2001
Dennis The Menace
With five homes, five Rolls-Royces, and a Rolodex of mistresses, Felix Dennis is a story worthy of his own testosterone-and-cleavage-packed Maxim, the runaway hit of U.S. newsstands. But the British media mogul's transatlantic invasion has only just begun, as he launches three more magazines in America. [read more]

The New York Times Magazine - October 15, 2000
How I Started a DotCom for Dogs
In the make-believe world of Internet start-ups, I learned that it might be better to be a novelist than a journalist. [read more]

The New York Times Magazine - March 5, 2000
The Price of Freedom
In the much-romanticized free-agent nation, workers are liberated from routines, dress codes and office politics. As well as benefits, vacations and regular paychecks. [read more]

Vanity Fair - January 2000
It's The IPO, Stupid!
As investors scramble for stakes in the Internet gold rush, fledging entrepreneurs are getting filthy rich simply by taking their start-ups public, routinely doubling and tripling the paper worth of untried companies in 24 hours. At the NASDAQ Stock Market, Goldman Sachs, and the high-tech San Francisco madhouse where yet another money-losing dot-com races toward its I.P.O., Nina Munk explores the surreal, get-rich-quick terrain of what may be the greatest speculative craze since the 1630's tulip mania. [read more]

The New York Times Magazine - August 15, 1999
The Eminence of Excess
Thierry Despont's clients include Bill Gates, Mickey Drexler, Conrad Black and other titans of the new gilded age. So who cares if rival architects find his work embarrassing? [read more]

The New Yorker - July 12, 1999
Wall Street Follies
Shareholders' complaint: You can't take the playboy out of the mansion. [read more]

Fortune - June 21, 1999
Title Fight
Just a year ago, book king Lenny Riggio had the category killed. Then Amazon.com knocked his Barnes & Noble flat. But this brawl's just begun. [read more]

Fortune - April 12, 1999
How Levi's Trashed a Great American Brand
While Bob Haas pioneered benevolent management, his company came apart at the seams. [read more]

Fortune - August 3, 1998
Gap Gets It
Mickey Drexler is turning his apparel chain into a global brand. He wants buying a Gap T-shirt to be like buying a quart of milk. But is this business a slave to fashion? [read more]

Fortune - May 25, 1998
Why Women Find Lauder Mesmerizing
Selling cosmetics works best if you get intimate with the customer. Estee Lauder knew that; so does her son Leonard. [read more]

Fortune - March 1998
Yo, Corporate America!
I want a fat salary, a signing bonus, and a cappuccino machine––oh, and I'm bringing my bird to work. I'm the New Organization Man. You need me. [read more]

Fortune - December 8, 1997
Girl Power!
Penniless mall rats no longer, teenage girls now have billions to spend. A few smart marketers have figured out what they really really want. [read more]