In May 2012, Autumn Radtke, chief executive of the fledgling virtual currency exchange, First Meta, gave a remarkable talk on how otherwise intelligent people began reaching for their wallets to shell out for code.
When members of the House Financial Services Committee grilled Mary Jo White, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all they wanted to talk about was a book: Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys.
The drilling areas are easy to spot. “In the past few years, it has totally taken over the landscape,” says Gordon, executive director of EcoFlight, a nonprofit that sponsors flights over drill sites, forest clear-cuts and strip mines to educate those who don’t get to regularly see the full impact on the land of the energy-extraction process. “The pristine areas are so few now, they really catch your eye,” he said. “You can’t fly 30 minutes in any direction without seeing the wreckage.”
