October 15, 2025

Why Clear Leadership Beats Cutting-Edge Tools Every Single Time

Strong leadership, not technology, is the real driver of team performance and organizational success.

The Download: introducing: the Security issue

August 27, 2025
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Introducing: the Security issue It would be naïve to think we are going back to a world without AI. We’re not. But it’s only one of many urgent problems we need to address…

India is still working on sewer robots

August 27, 2025
When Jitender was a child in New Delhi, both his parents worked as manual scavengers—a job that involved clearing the city’s sewers of solid waste by hand. Now, he is among almost 200 contractors involved in the Delhi government’s effort to shift from this manual process to safer mechanical methods. Although it has been outlawed…

AI comes for the job market, security, and prosperity: The Debrief

August 27, 2025
When I picked up my daughter from summer camp, we settled in for an eight-hour drive through the Appalachian mountains, heading from North Carolina to her grandparents’ home in Kentucky. With little to no cell service for much of the drive, we enjoyed the rare opportunity to have a long, thoughtful conversation, uninterrupted by devices.…

Job titles of the future: Satellite streak astronomer

August 27, 2025
Earlier this year, the $800 million Vera Rubin Observatory commenced its decade-long quest to create an extremely detailed time-lapse movie of the universe. Rubin is capable of capturing many more stars than any other astronomical observatory ever built; it also sees many more satellites. Up to 40% of images captured by the observatory within its…

3 Things James O’Donnell is into right now

August 27, 2025
Overthink This is a podcast in which two very smart people (who happen to be young and hilarious professors of philosophy) draw unexpected philosophical connections between facets of modern life. Ellie Anderson and David Peña-Guzmán have done hour-long episodes on everything from mommy issues to animal justice, with particularly sharp segments on tech-adjacent issues like…