2016
On William Del Monte, the Final Survivor of San Francisco’s 1906 Quake and Fire, From “The Lives They Lived,” The New York Times Magazine, December 21, 2016.
A Complicated Man: A Review of “A Truck Full of Money,” Tracy Kidder’s book on Paul English, The New York Times Book Review, October 16, 2016.
Does the Disappearance of Sea Ice Matter? The Melting Arctic and Its Dangerous Ripple Effects, The New York Times Magazine, July 29, 2016.
Should We Save Tangier Island From Oblivion? It’s a Choice That Climate Change Will Force Us To Confront Again and Again, The New York Times Magazine, July 6, 2016.
The Rise and Fall of Iridium: A Review of John Bloom’s book, “Eccentric Orbits,”The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2016.
An Astronaut Finds Himself in Greenland: With a Year to Live, Piers Sellers Travels to the Arctic, The New Yorker, May 13, 2016.
On the Origins of AOL and the Future of Tech: A Review of Steve Case’s book “The Third Wave,” The Washington Post, April 7, 2016
Wisdom Has a Time and Place: A Review of ‘The Geography of Genius,’ by Eric Weiner, The Washington Post, January 21, 2016.
2015
The Secrets In The Ice: By Studying The Largest Glaciers On Earth, Scientists Hope To Determine Whether We’ll Have Time To Respond To Climate Change, The New York Times Magazine, November 15, 2015.
What Will Alphabet Be When It Grows Up? The Prospects For Success At Google’s New Parent Company; Technology Review, October, 2015.
Anonymously Saving the World: A Review of Guru Madhavan’s “Applied Minds: How Engineers Think”; The Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2015.
Inside Obama’s Stealth Startup: How the President Has Quietly Recruited Silicon Valley’s Best Talent in an Effort to Reboot Government, Fast Company, July 2015.
Rocket Man: A Review of “Elon Musk,” by Ashlee Vance, New York Times Book Review, May 17, 2015.
Clearing the Air: The Enormous Technical (and Economic) Challenge of Pulling Carbon Dioxide Out of the Atmosphere, Fast Company, May 2015.
Mission to Mars: A Q&A with Ellen Stofan, NASA’s Chief Scientist; Fast Company, May 2015
Gut Check: Will the Science of the Microbiome Lead to a Slew of Innovative New Drug Companies?; Fast Company, February 2015.
2014
A review of “How We Got to Now,” By Steven Johnson; New York Times Book Review, December 28, 2014
California’s Fresh Water Problem: If the Current Technologies For Desalination Aren’t the Answer, Then What Is?; Fast Company, December 2014.
What If Your Home Made Its Own Energy?; Fast Company, November 2014.
The Contrarian’s Guide to Changing the World: A Review of Peter Thiel’s New Book, “Zero to One”; Technology Review, October 2014.
Inside Toyota and Tesla’s Duel to Make the Electric Car of the Future; Fast Company, September 2014.
Can Jeff Immelt Make the World 1% Better? Inside General Electric’s Push to Build an Industrial Internet; Fast Company, July 2014.
The X Factor: Space Elevators, Teleportation, Driverless Cars, and Glass—Google’s Secret Lab Opens Up About How It Works, and How It Thinks; Fast Company, May 2014.
Why the (LED) Light Bulb Can Teach You Almost Everything You Need to Know About Innovation; Fast Company, March 2014.
Space For Rent: How The International Space Station Became a Lab for Private Enterprise; Fast Company, March 2014.
A New Act for an Old Bell Labs Building; Fast Company, March 2014.
Making Sense of the Failure of Medtronic’s Symplicity Device; Fastcompany.com, March 2014.
2013
George Mitchell: The Father of Fracking (From, The Lives They Lived); The New York Times Magazine, December 2013.
Why General Motors is Betting on Mary Barra; Fast Company, December 2013.
Trying on “The Year Without Pants,” (review) Strategy + Business, Spring 2014
Into the Wind: The Global Wind Industry Is Already Green, Growing, and Highly Innovative. So Why Do We Need a Radical New Turbine Design? Fast Company, September 2013.
Intel Corp’s Mobile Strategy: First Infiltration, Then Domination; Fast Company, July 2013.
Nate Silver, Big Data, and Creativity; Fast Company, June 2013
Is It Legal to Sell Used Digital Goods? Redigi Wants to Find Out; Fast Company, May 2013
Body Hackers: How Do You Treat the Most Prevalent Diseases of the Western World? Not With a Pill, But With a Medical Device; Fast Company, May 2013
Mike Lazaridis, Blackberry Inventor and Tech Philanthropist, Takes a Quantum Leap of Faith in Waterloo; Fast Company, February 2013.
2012
Calling Dr. Watson: A Few Years Ago IBM’s Computer Was a Game-Playing Curiosity. Now Watson Is Poised To Change The Way Human Beings Make Decisions About Medicine, Finance, and Work; Fast Company, November 2012
Plenty to Go Around: “Abundance,” by Peter Diamandis and Steve Kotler (Review); The New York Times Sunday Book Review, March 30, 2012.
The Risk of a New Machine: Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors is Perhaps the Greatest Test of the Silicon Valley Innovation Model. And Now It’s Do-Or-Die Time, When Everything is Riding on a New, $50,000 Sedan; Fast Company, April 2012.
True Innovation: Bell Labs Offers a Number of Insights Into How Our Country’s Technology Companies—and Our Country’s Longstanding Innovative Edge—Actually Came About; The New York Times Sunday Review, February 26, 2012.
How Starbucks Infused a Steady Stream of New Ideas to Revive Its Business—Making it One of the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies; Fast Company, March, 2012.
2011
How Do You Solve a Problem Like GM, Mary? Mary Barra’s Job is to Make Every GM Car Sleeker, Sharper, and More Efficient. Oh, and Can She Design and Build Them Faster, Too? Fast Company, October 2011.
Does America Need Manufacturing? Amid the Working-class Ruins of Michigan, the Obama Administration is Pursuing What Amounts to a Stealth Industrial Policy, Based on the Assumption that Manufacturing is Essential to the Nation’s Well Being. But Is It? The New York Times Magazine, August 27, 2011.
2010
The Rise And Fall Of The G.D.P.: Economists And Even Governments Now Claim There Might Be Better Ways To Take Measure Of A Country’s Health And Happiness; The New York Times Magazine, May 16, 2010.
2009
The Calorie Restriction Experiment: Eating Much, Much Less Helped Rats Live Longer. Will It Work On Humans? The New York Times Magazine, October 11, 2009.
Getting Up To Speed: Last Fall, Californians Voted To Approve The Most Expensive Infrastructure Project In The Country’s History. But How Do You Actually Build A High-Speed Train That Will Take You From Los Angeles To San Francisco In 2 hours 40 Minutes? The New York Times Magazine, June 14, 2009.
Why Isn’t The Brain Green? Decision Scientists Are Trying To Figure Out Why It’s So Hard For Us To Get Into A Green Mind-set. Their Answers May Be More Crucial Than Any Technological Advance In Combating Environmental Challenges; The New York Times Magazine, April 19, 2009.
2008
The Year In Ideas: Positive Deviance; The New York Times Magazine, December 14, 2008.
Best Books of 2008: On Innovation; Strategy + Business, Winter 2008.
The New New Economy: Can The V.C.s At Kleiner Perkins Reduce Our Dependence On Oil, Help Stop Global Warming — And Make A Lot Of Money At The Same Time? The New York Times Magazine, October 5, 2008.
The Low Carbon Catalog: Green Collar Work Forces; Scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig; Low Emission Cookouts; Superconducting Cables; Scientist Katey Walter; Zero Waste; The New York Times Magazine (The Green Issue), April 20, 2008.
For Good, Measure: Can Better Metrics Prove Philanthropy Has An Impact? The New York Times Magazine, March 9, 2008.
Mad Scientist: Can Legendary Bell Labs—And Its Struggling Parent, Alcatel-Lucent—Be Saved By A “Crazy Risk Taker” Who’s Betting That Innovation Can Be Captured In A Mathematical Formula? Fast Company, February 2008.
2007
A Clicker Is Born: Robert Adler (1913-2007) Inventor Of The Remote Control; From “The Lives They Lived” Issue, The New York Times Magazine, December 30, 2007.
The Future Is Drying Up: The West Is the Fastest-Growing Part of the U.S. It’s Also The Driest. And Climate Change Could Be Making Things Much, Much Worse; The New York Times Magazine, October 21, 2007.
Appreciating Depreciation: A Homeowner’s Reflections; The New York Times Magazine, September 9, 2007.
Playing Sim City for Real: Tejon Ranch, Just 60 Miles North of Los Angeles, Is Over 270,000 Acres Of Open Space Attached To An Equally Vast Question—How Do You Build A City From Scratch? The New York Times Magazine, Spring, 2007.
From Zero To 60 To World Domination: Toyota Has A Market Capitalization Greater Than That Of The Biggest American Competitors Combined, And Soon It Will Produce More Vehicles Than General Motors. How Did A Japanese Company That Started Out Making Textile Looms Become Not Only The Best Automaker In The World But Also (Maybe) The Best Corporation? The New York Times Magazine, March 4, 2007.
2006
Funny Money: Why Making A Comedy Film Is Such A Good Bet; The New York Times Magazine, November 12, 2006.
Atomic Balm: For The First Times In Decades, Increasing The Role Of Nuclear Power In The United States May Be Starting To Make Political, Environmental, And Even Economic Sense; The New York Times Magazine, July 16, 2006.
Forgive Us Our Student Debts: Rising Education Costs Have Created An Opportunity To Lure Pharmacists To Rural Areas And Teachers To Cities—To Do All Sorts Of Social Engineering, In Fact; The New York Times Magazine, June 11, 2006.
Home Economics: Why Do Houses Cost So Much When There’s Plenty Of Land To Build On? Is Public Housing A Good Thing? Why Do People Still Move to Detroit? Ed Glaeser Has Some Answers; The New York Times Magazine, March 5, 2006.
Is How Much You Pay A Worker A Moral Issue? Why the Living Wage Is A Grass Roots Cause That Could Decide Elections In November; The New York Times Magazine, January 15, 2006.
2005
Job For Life: John Slade, 1908-2005, From “The Lives They Lived” Issue; The New York Times Magazine, December 25, 2005.
The House-Building Industrial Complex: How The Mega-Developers Have Transformed What We Call Home; The New York Times Magazine, October 16, 2005.
Incendiary Device: A New Cigarette Filter May Make Smoking A Lot Less Harmful. But Is That A Good Thing? The New York Times Magazine, June 12, 2005.
Morgan Stanley v. Morgan Stanley; The New York Times Magazine, June 5, 2005.
Our Ratings, Ourselves: How Technology Is About To Radically Change TV-Audience Monitoring — And How That Will Transform Advertising, The Networks And, Possibly, The Very Nature Of Television; The New York Times Magazine, April 24, 2005.
2004
The Power of the Power Bar: Brian Maxwell, 1953-2004, From “The Lives They Lived” issue, The New York Times Magazine, December 26, 2004.
The Year In Ideas: The Micropolis; The New York Times Magazine, December 12, 2004.
Hey Mom, Is It O.K. If These Guys Market Stuff To Us? Inside The Geppetto Group, An Advertising Firm That Aims At Kids — And Their All Consuming Mothers; The New York Times Magazine, November 28, 2004.
Box Office In A Box: How The DVD Is Changing Everything About Hollywood; The New York Times Magazine, November 14, 2004.
Eat Chocolate, Live Longer: The Scientific (And Profit-Seeking) Quest At The Mars Candy Company To Make Cocoa A Healthful, “Functional” Food; The New York Times Magazine, October 10, 2004.
The Virtue in $6 Heirloom Tomatoes: John Mackey Wants To Change Not Only The Way America Eats But Also The Way American Companies Do Business. Is There A Greater Good To The Whole Foods Way? The New York Times Magazine, June 6, 2004.
Proceed With Caution: That’s What Bill Joy, Silicon Valley Legend, Says That Markets Need To Do, But Don’t; The New York Times Magazine, June 6, 2004.
The Very, Very Personal Is the Political: Political Parties Are Using Enormous Databases So They Can Tailor Their Pitches For Candidates Just For You. Are Campaigning And Voting Becoming Just Marketing And Consumption? The New York Times Magazine, February 15, 2004.
2003
The Year In Ideas: Social Networks; The New York Times Magazine, December 14, 2003.
Clouds In Her Coffee: The Sculptures Of Tara Donovan; The New York Times Magazine, November 30, 2003.
Newman’s Own: Two Friends And A Canoe Paddle; The New York Times Sunday Business, November 16, 2003.
The Futile Pursuit Of Happiness: Researchers In The Burgeoning Field Of “Affective Forecasting” Are Finding That When It Comes To Personal Satisfaction In Life, You Can’t Really Know What You Want; The New York Times Magazine, September 21, 2003.
The History Of American Capitalism In A Single Industrial Complex: From The Assabet Mills To Monster.com, With A Century And A Half Of Boom-And-Bust Cycles In Between; The New York Times Magazine, June 8, 2003.
