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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 […]

Faith, technology and Christianity in Silicon Valley: “The internet and social media present a conundrum for Chuck DeGroat, the pastor at City Church. With a congregation of hip modern professionals, from architects and financial advisers to programmers and venture capitalists, he can’t afford not to have a Facebook page, Twitter handle, or website. And yet, […]

The complicated relationship between founders of a startup. Billy Chasen and Seth Goldstein lead Turntable.fm, but with very different viewpoints on how to succeed: “Then traffic started falling. By autumn, it dwindled to less than half its peak, and the very same tech watchers started wondering whether it was all over. Goldstein says he can […]

Stanford University, and its president John L. Hennessy, have a tight relationship with Silicon Valley, which has helped the university’s endowment grow to nearly $17 billion. A look at how those relationships are shaping what’s next: “John Hennessy’s experience in Silicon Valley proves that digital disruption is normal, and even desirable. It is commonly believed […]

Khalid Shaikh helped create the file-uploading company YouSendIt. After battling with the CEO, he was fired—and he soon launched a series of cyberattacks: “In Shaikh’s absence, YouSendIt had continued to grow. It had raised an additional $14 million in VC funding and had 100,000 paying subscribers. Still, Shaikh marveled at how often YouSendIt’s site went […]

[Not single-page.] Financial reform has been more successful at changing Wall Street’s business than many imagined—and the public outcry from Occupy and elsewhere has led to some soul-searching: “For New York’s bankers and traders, the new math suddenly reordered their assumptions about their place in a post-crash city. ‘After tax, that’s like, what, $75,000?’ an […]

Google and YouTube exec Robert Kyncl’s plans for the future of web TV—and the company’s big bet on professional content: “Kyncl’s relationships in Hollywood would help in securing premium content; and, more important, he understood entertainment culture. He brought ‘the skill set of being able to bridge Silicon Valley and Hollywood—an information culture and an […]