How the Streaming Era Turned Music Into Sludge
I woke up one day last year and realized I no longer listened to music. Instead I just listened to sludge—a blur of indistinguishable songs that...
I’m Healing From the Tech Layoffs by Playing ‘Going Under’
Beyond the game’s eclectic weapons, we later learn that the monsters are the ghosts of past failed startups. Each startup represents a level with its own...
The Internet Archive’s Literary Civil War
A lesson I learned early in life: never piss off a librarian. Apparently District Court Judge John G. Koetl skipped out on a formative traumatic-shushing experience,...
Video Games Are a New Propaganda Machine for Iran
One figure in particular emerged as the leader of propaganda games development—Mahdi Jafari Jozani, a high-ranking member of the Basij. Jozani’s first major title, Safir-e Eshgh, was...
An Apple Store Worker Is the New Face of US Labor Law Reform
The percentage of US workers represented by a union has fallen for decades, down to 10 percent last year. But unions have recently scored wins in...
Who Should You Believe When Chatbots Go Wild?
In 1987, then-CEO of Apple Computer, John Sculley, unveiled a vision that he hoped would cement his legacy as more than just a former purveyor of...
Layoffs Broke Big Tech’s Elite College Hiring Pipeline
Eva Xie did it right. She went to the highly competitive Bronx High School of Science in New York City and then MIT, where she studied...
Ex-Twitter Workers Puzzle Over Elon Musk’s Abandoned Laptops
Elon Musk’s Twitter needs every penny. With millions of dollars in allegedly unpaid rent and bills, plus $13 billion owed to lenders who financed his takeover, there is “still much...
Alphabet’s Layoffs Aren’t Very Googley
In 2004, Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin engaged in a comically passive-aggressive IPO road show. They eschewed business suits for casual garb, refused to...
Big Tech Is Really Bad at Firing People
People who are still at the company aren’t sure if they’re next. Bowling said that workers who still have access to the company’s systems told him...