Author Archive
Derek Thompson
Ideas
3 Theories for Why You Have No Time
Better technology means higher expectations, and higher expectations create more work.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Ideas
The Not-Com Bubble Is Popping
The unicorn massacre unfolding today is exactly the opposite of what happened in 2000.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Ideas
Workism Is Making Americans Miserable
For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising identity, transcendence, and community, but failing to deliver.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Emerging Tech
Why Flying Cars Are an Impossible Dream
The air taxi is the Godot of technology: always on its way, never here.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Cybersecurity
How the Grinch Bots Stole Christmas
It’s a Christmas tale for our time: Cyber nerds using high-tech software to buy a slew of baby-monkey robots and holding them ransom for thousands of dollars.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Digital Government
Why Nerds and Nurses Are Taking Over the U.S. Economy
A blockbuster report from government economists forecasts the workforce of 2026—a world of robot cashiers, well-paid math nerds, and so (so, so, so) many healthcare workers.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Emerging Tech
The Secrets of Google’s Moonshot Factory
How the tech giant is trying to leverage the science of breakthroughs and resurrect the lost art of invention
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Artificial Intelligence
The Post-Human World
A conversation about the end of work, individualism, and the human species with the historian Yuval Harari
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Artificial Intelligence
When Will Robots Take All the Jobs?
There isn’t much evidence from today’s statistics that human workers are on the verge of a historic shift. But just wait until the next recession.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Digital Government
Why Facebook Scares the Media -- And the US Government
Facebook’s potential is without precedent. But its public scrutiny will be unprecedented, too.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Digital Government
The Joys and Sorrows of Late-Night Email
For a certain class of workers, nighttime isn't time off work. It's time on email.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Featured eBooks
Modernization
Mobile Is Eating Global Attention: 10 Graphs on the State of the Internet
Online photo sharing has sextupled in two years. Nigerians are on their phones 30 percent more than Americans. We now spend more time on mobile than on print and radio combined.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Modernization
Monetizing Social Media Users Is Getting Easier; Adding New Ones Is Getting Harder
What are the teenagers up to?
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Emerging Tech
What Jobs Will the Robots Take?
Nearly half of American jobs today could be automated in "a decade or two," according to new research. The question is: Which half?
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Modernization
The 9 Ways That Twitter Could Fail, According to Twitter
Befitting any young, undeveloped, and unprofitable company, the list of risks is long and wide-ranging.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Digital Government
Video: Big Changes Coming to Your Gmail Inbox
The design overhaul will roll out to inboxes gradually.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Modernization
The Most Fascinating Charts From an Epic Slideshow of Internet Trends
Facebook is the only major social network in decline. Saudis share more online than anyone. You check your phone 150 times a day. And much more.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Digital Government
Why Is American Health Care So Ridiculously Expensive?
It would be nice to say that high prices are a bug of our medical system. But they're a feature. They're part of a choice we've made.
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Digital Government
Marissa Mayer Is Wrong: Working From Home Can Make You More Productive
The statistical evidence on telecommuting suggests that (1) sometimes people just like to work from home for a change, and (2) they're actually quite good at it
- By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic