Brian Merchant is the Los Angeles Times’ technology columnist. He’s the author of “The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone” and the forthcoming “Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.” Merchant is the co-founder of Terraform, Vice Media’s speculative fiction website, and the co-editor of the anthology “Terraform: Watch/Worlds/Burn.” Previously, he was a senior editor at Motherboard, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, WIRED, the Atlantic, Fast Company, and Slate, among others.
Latest From This Author
The Silicon Valley Bank bailout has tech elites feeling attacked. Author Malcolm Harris reminds us of a time when the weapons they feared were bombs, not mean tweets.
The failure of Silicon Valley Bank demonstrates the risk in showering unproven companies with cash and in handing so much power to venture capitalists to manage the process.
Musk, a self-styled “free speech absolutist,” has banned an entirely new category of speech. That he hasn’t gotten more blowback speaks to both how tired people are of seeing him and his antics take center stage.
The seemingly random firing of drivers is one way ride-hail companies keep workers powerless. Can’t they bear the cost of humane engagement?
Waymo, Google’s robotaxi spinoff, has come to Los Angeles. What happens when autonomous vehicles invade the traffic capital of the country?
Google and Microsoft think chatbots that can converse like humans are the future of web search. But the human workers who make sure they don’t screw up are treated as disposable.
Twitter’s new owner is awful at tweeting, but there’s one thing about social media he understands better than the people trying to sue him, and it’s why he keeps winning.
Increasingly offering products untethered to the average consumer’s needs, the tech industry has been dwelling in La La Land. Its real-world expansion into L.A. is no coincidence.
Wildly profitable tech companies are citing an as-yet notional recession to make deep workforce cuts. They may have another agenda.