Friday's Fast Five: Week of 6.14

How Birkenstock Became a Luxury Brand With ‘Succession’-Level Drama (Bloomberg):  Under Reichert's watch, Birkenstock became an accessible luxury, the company's sales more than tripling, to $830 million by 2020. Then, the following year, Reichert unexpectedly sold a majority stake to L Catterton Management Ltd. in a deal that valued Birkenstock at about $4.9 billion.

The Celtics Needed a Killer Instinct. Their Coach Made Them Watch Killer Whales. (The Wall Street Journal): Every coach in the NBA scours game film of other basketball teams, looking for plays to steal and defenses to build up. But nobody watches tape the way the head coach of the Boston Celtics does. Because where other coaches are watching the Bulls and Timberwolves, Joe Mazzulla prefers to study killer whales and hyenas.

Restaurants are having their biggest year ever (Axios): 2024 will be the U.S. restaurant industry's biggest year ever in sales — $1.1 trillion by the end of December, per National Restaurant Association estimates. The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the restaurant industry, but sales are now far higher than before it started — and climbing.

It Looked Like a Reliable News Site. It Was an A.I. Chop Shop. (The New York Times): BNN Breaking had millions of readers, an international team of journalists and a publishing deal with Microsoft. But it was full of error-ridden content.

America’s best decade, according to data (The Washington Post): One simple variable, more than anything, determines when you think the nation peaked. Age, more than anything, determines when you think America peaked.