TikTok chief operating officer V Pappas, testifying before Congress in September 2022. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg
TikTok chief operating officer V Pappas, testifying before Congress in September 2022. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg
The Big Read

The Fighter: V Pappas and the Battle for TikTok’s Future

A pioneer of the creator economy has risen to the topmost ranks of the world’s most influential platform. But all is not peaceful at the summit.
Market Research

Smart Travel Tech for the Work-From-Anywhere Crowd

Luca Tomescu and Selina Eshraghi spend around nine months a year as nomads. The couple just arrived in Vienna, where Tomescu, a Web3 product manager, and Eshraghi, the founder of Pandamonium...
Fujifilm X100V digital camera ($1,900). Art by Clark Miller.
Social Studies

Wall Street Wants to Dance With TikTok—but Not When Anyone’s Watching

JPMorgan Chase & Co. had a busy week on social media. The bank’s Instagram account shared a picture snapped by one of its employees, Jock G., from atop a 13,000-foot peak in Colorado. Another...
Art by Clark Miller.
Rippling CEO Parker Conrad at his home in San Francisco on April 10, 2023. Photo by Carolyn Fong for The Information
Rippling CEO Parker Conrad at his home in San Francisco on April 10, 2023. Photo by Carolyn Fong for The Information
The Big Read

Parker Conrad Takes the Pain

A spectacular implosion at his last startup forced him into exile. But the Rippling CEO’s bold response to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse has brought him all the way back.
In Memoriam

His Death Turned Bob Lee Into a Symbol—His Friends Are Trying to Take Him Back

I’ve got some bad news. It’s about Bob.” A friend was on the phone, calling Jake Shields with news about their buddy Bob Lee. “Oh, shit. Is he OK?” said Shields, a mixed martial arts fighter who...
Photo of Bob Lee from Instagram. Art by Clark Miller.
Screentime

Screentime: The Creator Who Quit Google to Experiment With AI

Last December, Bilawal Sidhu was living a double life. By day, he was a full-time product manager at Google, working on projects like building virtual reality tools. By night, he was experimenting...
Art by Clark Miller.
Market Research

Biohacking Spas Are Becoming the New Starbucks

The first time Joslyn Lacy tried neurofeedback, she was skeptical. A finance administrator for a large cloud software company, Lacy dealt in numbers, not woo-woo. But she’d long struggled with...
Photo-illustration by Clark Miller
Social Studies

The Rise of the Not-Home Not-Office

When Jamie Snedden moved to San Francisco from London in late 2021, it occurred to him that he didn’t actually know how to make friends. In college, an abundance of common areas and extracurricular...
Art by Clark Miller
Art by Clark Miller.
Art by Clark Miller.
The Big Read

Fear the Birdie: Can an Ear-Splitting Device Make Women Feel Safer?

Designed by a pair of sister inventors, and surpassing more than 2 million units in sales, She’s Birdie gives Gen Z its own Life Alert.
Market Research

Roadie Revolution: The Stunning New Tech on Silicon Valley Bikes

As a technology, the bicycle hasn’t changed much since 1885, when designer J.K. Starley decided to use a chain to drive the rear wheel. Nearly 140 years later, a foot still turns a crank that pulls...
Art by Clark Miller
Social Studies

How Chess.com Became ‘the Wild West of the Streaming World’

When Michael Brancato began working with Chess.com in late 2017, it wasn’t particularly popular. A product manager at Twitch, Brancato was tapped to spearhead a two-year partnership between the...
Art by Clark Miller
Photography by Katie Thompson for The Information
Photography by Katie Thompson for The Information
The Big Read

Search Has Its Goliath. Could Richard Socher Be Its David?

As Google and Microsoft retrofit their search engines with AI assistants, the CEO of You.com thinks he can do better.
Show Us Everything

At Home With the Health Commandos

This is “Show Us Everything,” a new feature from The Information Weekend, in which company founders share intimate glimpses of their everyday lives. Clayton Kim first bonded with his boss, Fount...
Left: Fount CEO Andrew Herr watches chief technology officer Clayton Kim dangle in Kim’s Marina Del Rey, Calif. apartment, which doubles as the startup’s office. Right: A sample Fount morning supplement pack. Photographs by Christopher Brown for The Information.
Founders' Keepers

Ancient Swords, Stylus Pens and Other Things CEOs Can’t Work Without

As the saying goes, “You can tell a lot about a person by the type of sword they keep near their desk.” That’s certainly true for company founders like Jason Kingsley of the gaming studio Rebellion...
Art by Clark Miller.
Market Research

The Full-Body Scanners Will See You Now

In late September 2022, Ryan Crownholm, a 46-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles, donned a pair of plush surgical scrubs and hopped onto a stainless-steel MRI table at Prenuvo, a fast-growing...
Art by Clark Miller.