As a graduate student in the 1980s, Yann LeCun had trouble finding an adviser for his Ph.D. thesis on machine learning—because no one else was studying the topic, he recalled later. More recently, ...

It was pushing 4 a.m. when Vignesh Sundaresan bought one of the most expensive artworks in history. Wearing his favorite T-shirt for the occasion, he had stayed up through the night on his iMac, at ...