Search results

Jim Gilliam was a precocious young conservative Christian who grew up in Silicon Valley and became a talented programmer. After fighting cancer, he lost his faith in God and found a passion for progressive causes. NationBuilder, a piece of software he built to—in his own words—help “democratize democracy,” has had some of his progressive friends […]

Gangs in Chicago have used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread inflammatory messages about rivals and incite violence: “We naturally associate criminal activity with secrecy, with conspiracies hatched in alleyways or back rooms. Today, though, foolish as it may be in practice, street gangs have adopted a level of transparency that might […]

Inside the offices—and servers—of the video streaming empire: “On a normal weeknight, Netflix accounts for almost a third of all Internet traffic entering North American homes. That’s more than YouTube, Hulu, Amazon.com, HBO Go, iTunes, and BitTorrent combined. Traffic to Netflix usually peaks at around 10 p.m. in each time zone, at which point a […]

The U.S. government is increasingly facing cyber threats that could affect our national security and economy. As a result, the government is courting hackers for cyber security jobs, but needs to overhaul its image to lure young talent, who can easily find well paid jobs in Silicon Valley and private security firms: “To get a […]

An exhaustive, 22,000-word account of Marissa Mayer’s rise from a focused student in Wausau, Wis. to Yahoo! CEO. Carlson goes back to her childhood to explore the traits that made her so successful at Stanford and Google, and he goes behind the scenes on the Yahoo! board’s decision to choose her over interim CEO Ross […]

Making sense of San Francisco through Google and Apple’s commuter buses to Silicon Valley: “The buses roll up to San Francisco’s bus stops in the morning and evening, but they are unmarked, or nearly so, and not for the public. They have no signs or have discreet acronyms on the front windshield, and because they […]

Remembering Aaron Swartz, the programmer and Internet activist who took his own life earlier this year, and what he was fighting for: “Aaron didn’t play that game. After he sold Reddit, he couldn’t be bought. In fact, he was spending his own money, and his valuable time, on campaigns for the public good, and helping […]

An excerpt from Stross’s new book, which goes inside Y Combinator, Paul Graham’s Silicon Valley startup incubator: “The Kalvins are attempting an improbable thing, making a case for a nondigital product: ‘Having a physical product that you flip through and have on your coffee table and show your friends—it’s real­ly valuable! We’ve actually bought photo […]