I’ve written and edited for outlets including The Guardian, The New York Times, Wired, MIT Technology Review, and Medium, and helped start award-winning publications Matter and Anxy. These days I operate as a freelance writer and editorial consultant while working on a book.
It’s hard to pick the highlights from 25 years of working at long-established publications and launching new ones, but here’s a small sample of work I’ve enjoyed as a writer, editor and publisher.
What is Sora slop for, exactly?
For The New York Times opinion pages, I wrote about the dangerous and disconcerting advent of tools that make it easy to produce deepfake video.
Your new favorite co-worker is an AI-enhanced operative from North Korea
For Wired, I investigated the strange phenomenon of North Korean agents who fake their way into remote engineering jobs with American companies.
Make Something Wonderful: Steve Jobs in his own words
As editorial director of the Steve Jobs Archive, I oversaw this print & digital book of the Apple co-founder’s comments and correspondence.
The China Initiative
is a mess
I supervised this investigative series into the failures of a US Department of Justice program targeting Chinese academics. The program was cancelled shortly afterwards.
What happens when ICE
detains you
I conducted (with a translator) and wrote up this as-told-to interview with an undocumented woman who had been held in ICE detention for 11 months.
Ghost
Boat
I ran this multi-part live, longform investigation looking for 243 disappeared migrants. Nominated for the National Magazine Award for reporting.
How to get away
with Uber
Scandal after scandal after scandal didn’t stop Uber’s wild, unstoppable growth. One of my favorite pieces looks at why we can’t stay away from it.
Shanzhai!
For Wired, I traveled to China to understand the booming industry of copycat hardware manufacturing known as “shanzhai”.
Stars in your lap
I wrote lots for the Guardian during my time there (2002–2010). But one of my favorites was this magazine story about a new generation of video bloggers—which turned out to be a premonition of an incoming influencer culture.
