Six great reads: Sam Altman’s spectacular comeback, British preppers, and fear and loathing in Starbase, Texas

1. ‘Every person that clashed with him has left’: the rise, fall and spectacular comeback of Sam Altman

Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

This week, as OpenAI signed a potentially zeitgeist-shifting deal to buy former Apple design head Jony Ive’s device company io, Emine Saner interviewed Karen Hao, author of a new book about the rise and fall and rise again of OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Hao says we should all be wary of the power he now wields.

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2. ‘Without time, there is no flavour’: a South Korean grand master on the art of the perfect soy sauce

Ki Soon-do, the only person in South Korea officially designated as a grand master of jinjang. Photograph: The Guardian

“The flavour unfolds slowly, first salty, then deeply savoury, with hints of something almost floral. It bears little resemblance to the bottles labelled ‘soy sauce’ in western supermarkets.”

In the lush foothills of Damyang county, South Jeolla province, rows of earthenware jars stand under the Korean sky. Inside each clay vessel, a quiet transformation is taking place, one that has been occurring on this land for centuries.This is the domain of Ki Soon-do, South Korea’s sole grand master of traditional aged soy sauce, where patience isn’t just a virtue but the essential ingredient in her craft. Raphael Rashid visited to taste a sauce so powerful it has gained Unesco heritage protection. It is recognition that is 370 years in the making.

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3. ‘People were buying crossbows faster than I’d like’ – how prepping went mainstream in Britain

Photograph: Simon Belcher/Alamy

Once, getting ready for the apocalypse was for the paranoid. Now, in the face of cyber-attacks, climate breakdown and nuclear threats, the UK government recommends it. Zoe Williams asked: should everyone have a survival kit?

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4. Fear, hope and loathing in Elon Musk’s new city: ‘It’s the wild, wild west and the future’

Photograph: Gabriel Cardenas/AFP/Getty Images

“Along a flat, coastal highway in south-east Texas, surrounded by wetlands and open plains, the artefacts of a new American oligarchy appear in quick succession. Three towering rockets stand upright on the horizon. A fleet of Tesla Cybertrucks speeds by. A large mural of the Shiba Inu “doge” dog stares ahead, its arms crossed. There is a 4-metre-tall (12ft) bust of the world’s richest person, painted in bronze, facing a dusty roadside. “ELON aka MemeLord”, a plaque beneath reads.”

Starbase in Texas, where the world’s richest man has a rocket-launching facility, was incorporated this week. Mars obsessives are flocking there – but some long-term locals are far from happy, discovered Oliver Laughland.

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Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The former Liverpool defender has become, for millions of viewers, the face of English football punditry. In this brilliant profile for the Long read, Kieran Morris explored the rise of “Carra” and the changing nature of how we talk about sport.

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6. ‘I feel free’: the people who quit office jobs for the great outdoors – and would never go back

Steve Kell, an assistant bank manager who is now a park ranger. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian

Have you ever craved ditching the desk to spend your time outside? Donna Ferguson met five people who did just that, from a banker turned park ranger to a cook turned falconer.

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