Derek Thompson
Newsletter (Digital)
I’m a writer, podcaster, and author. Abundance, the book I wrote with Ezra Klein, is a #1 New York Times bestseller on American politics and liberalism. After 17 years as a staff writer at The Atlantic, I left to start my own thing here on Substack in the summer of 2025. (I’m still a contributing writer at the magazine.) I’m the founder and host of the “Plain English”podcast with the Ringer Podcast Network. My previous books are Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction (2017), a national bestseller on the psychology of pop culture, and Derek Thompson On Work (2023), an anthology of my essays on the past and future of labor and technology. I live in Washington, D.C., with my wife, daughter, and dog Albie. Source
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| Scope | National |
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| Language | English |
| Country | United States of America |
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesWhat's the Worst Part of the GOP Bill? Let's Get Specific.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the value of specificity in politics and messaging. Zohran Mamdani isn’t just charismatic; he’s charismatically specific. In his campaign videos, he’ll walk through city bodegas to tell voters how he might tweak the details of urban retail policy. Rep.
American Energy Policy Cannot Afford to Be This Dumb
In January 1981, President Ronald Reagan nominated James B. Edwards to lead the Department of Energy. This was an unusual choice. As a dentist-turned-politician, Edwards’ expertise in drilling had more to do with root canals than oil fields. His appointment, however, was part of a coherent strategy: to dismantle the previous administration’s energy agenda. Under President Jimmy Carter, the U.S. had become a world leader in energy R&D. Solar projects took off around the country.
The Sunday Morning Post: GLP1s Do Everything, How to Find Aliens, and the End of the World
The internet loves bad news. Researchers have shown that negative headlines attract more clicks, and antagonistic emotions, such as outrage, stimulate more viral sharing. So, one easy way to grow an independent media company or newsletter would be for me to focus relentlessly on all the most terrible things happening in the world. I really don’t want to do that. The news cycle is a mess, and the world is full of crisis.
Young People Face a Hiring Crisis. AI Is Making It Worse.
This is a hard time to be a young person looking for a job. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates has spiked to recession levels, while the overall jobless rate remains quite low. By some measures, the labor market for recent grads hasn’t been this relatively weak in many decades. What I've called the “new grad gap”—that is, the difference in unemployment between recent grads and the overall economy—just set a modern record.
Derek Thompson
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'What Speaks to Me About Abundance': My Full Interview With Zohran Mamdani
With its projected heat index surging toward 110, New York City goes to the polls on Tuesday to choose the Democratic candidate for mayor. It’s a race that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo should be running away with. Fame and name recognition are potent assets in local politics, and Cuomo has both in ample supply. But polls now point to a dead heat with Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic 33-year-old assemblyman.
The Future of Abundance and the Left
In the last three months, I’ve watched the reaction to Abundance play out in two arenas. The first venue is the war zone of online discourse, where critics have amassed in impressive numbers.