The Profile: The woman helping North Korea infiltrate U.S. companies & the parents pushing for phone-free schools

This edition of The Profile features Dick Vitale, Erling Haaland, and others.

Good morning, friends!

I am making my way through the late Barbara Walters’ 600-page memoir, Audition. In it, Walters reflects on her childhood, adolescence, and her five-decade television career. It’s a fascinating look into the inner world of a figure whose job was often to dive into other people’s inner worlds.

I can’t put this book down because it does what so few celebrity memoirs dare to do: it’s unflinchingly honest. Walters confronts her deepest insecurities and owns the controversial decisions she knows will invite judgment.

She writes about resenting her older sister, whose developmental disability embarrassed her as a teenager. She owns up to not one, but three failed marriages. And she openly recounts a two-year affair with a married senator.

As for what was responsible for her trailblazing career? It wasn’t some grand feminist mission. It was survival. Raised in a volatile, financially unstable household, Walters never knew when the money would run out. “It wasn’t that I was this courageous woman who was fighting the battles of womanhood,” she writes. “I needed a job. I had to hang in there.”

That kind of honesty is what makes a great profile, a powerful memoir, or a captivating story. The biggest mistake people make is thinking polish and perfection will earn them respect. In reality, it’s their messy humanity that build connection.

As I wrote in my Anthony Scaramucci profile, “Scaramucci relishes sharing these stories because he understands a simple truth about the human condition: we connect with each other far more deeply over our failures than our successes.”

Perfection isn’t relatable. Success without sacrifice isn’t realistic. And a story without vulnerability isn’t worth telling.

So if you’re working on telling your story — whether through writing, building a business, or just figuring out who you are — remember that what makes you unforgettable isn’t how impressive you seem. It’s how honest you’re willing to be.

— Polina

PROFILES.

— The woman helping North Korea infiltrate U.S. companies [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The voice of college basketball
— Soccer’s goal machine
— The parents pushing for phone-free schools
— The last website of the old internet

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The woman helping North Korea infiltrate U.S. companies: Christina Chapman, a struggling software boot camp grad in rural Minnesota, thought she’d landed her dream remote tech job — but she was unknowingly helping North Korean agents infiltrate U.S. companies. Lured by money and flattery, she became a “laptop farmer,” hosting dozens of computers that allowed North Koreans to pose as American IT workers. The scheme funneled millions to the North Korean regime and touched companies from Google to NBCUniversal — while leaving Chapman broke, alone, and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison. What started as a lifeline became a cautionary tale of exploitation, naivete, and a global cybercrime empire hiding in plain sight. (Bloomberg; alternate link)

“American companies are unwittingly working with individuals who are working with the North Korean munitions industry.”

The voice of college basketball: Dick Vitale’s life has been a loud, loving fight — from overcoming childhood trauma and a wandering eye to becoming the voice of college basketball. His bond with Jim Valvano turned into a lifelong mission to defeat cancer, raising over $100 million for pediatric research. Even after battling cancer himself and losing his voice, Dickie V refused to give up — embodying the very words he once stood beside: “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” Now 85, he’s still courtside, still fundraising, still everybody’s buddy. (Sports Business Journal)

“Listen to me, Dick. Slow down. You’re going 100 miles an hour. Slow down and enjoy life. Slow down, buddy.”

Soccer’s goal machine: Erling Haaland, soccer’s goal machine, has taken the sport by storm — smashing records, inspiring fans across continents, and leading Manchester City to historic victories. Born in a small Norwegian farming town, he transformed childhood dreams into a global career, fueled by a mix of discipline, biohacking quirks, and raw, relentless ambition. Now, at just 25, Haaland is chasing new glory with club and country, poised to succeed Messi and Ronaldo as the face of football. As he puts it, scoring is freedom, and Haaland is just getting started. (TIME)

“That’s the best part of football. There’s always something new that’s coming. You have to think about what is coming next and live in the present moment.”

The parents pushing for phone-free schools: Former Doctors Without Borders nurse Laura Derrendinger is now fighting a new public health crisis: smartphones. She and a growing coalition of parent-led groups are leading a grassroots movement to ban phones from schools, arguing that toxic online content is harming kids as much as any physical pathogen. Fueled by personal tragedies and turbocharged by Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, the movement has already helped pass phone bans in 37 states. What was once a fringe concern has become a national rallying cry: save childhood by making schools distraction-free zones. (TIME)

“In malaria, the mosquito is the vector of disease. Here, the phone is the vector that’s carrying the disease of toxic online content.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The last website of the old internet: Reddit has quietly become the backbone of the modern internet by stubbornly staying the same. As other platforms collapsed into TikTok clones or AI-generated noise, Reddit surged, fueled by Google’s algorithmic shift and a renewed appetite for authentic human conversation. Now a $28 billion public company, it’s simultaneously the last bastion of old-school web community and a rich data mine for the AI tools that may one day replace it. (New York Magazine; alternate link)

“The core of Reddit actually becomes more valuable over time when the rest of the internet turns into AI.”

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