Michael Zelenko
Verified
As seen in:
The Atlantic,
Medium,
OneZero,
The Verge,
VICE,
Flipboard,
Pocket,
The FADER,
Rest of World
Covers:
culture, film, interviews, profiles, music
Articles by Michael Zelenko
The Filipino virtual assistants behind LinkedIn’s “thought leadership” content mill
In the spring of 2025, the CEO of a European childcare startup posted a brief write-up about the qualities of a good leader on their LinkedIn page. Dozens of executives responded with comments like “Beautifully said,” “Leadership isn’t about titles. It’s about kindness,” and “Leadership is about action, influence, and integrity, not titles.” LinkedIn is peppered with posts like these. But in this case, none of the executives were personally involved with the exchange.
Bangladesh’s gig workers are stuck in gas lines as Iran-U.S. war strains fuel supply
On a recent Saturday evening, a line of motorcycles stretched from a gas station in Dhaka. The queue snaked along the road for kilometers, its end out of sight. In the late afternoon heat, delivery and ride-hailing drivers leaned against their bikes, wiping sweat from their faces. Some scrolled through their phones; others waited in silence for fuel that might or might not arrive. Among them was 25-year-old Rubel Malita.
In the Gulf, GPS jamming leaves delivery drivers navigating blind
As war raged across the Persian Gulf in the first week of March, delivery driver Saeed Ahmed continued making deliveries in Dubai. Navigating down Al Asayel street, the 32-year-old driver for Lulu Hypermarket followed the blue navigation line on his phone as it guided him to a customer. Then, without warning, the route on his map shifted. The street he was on became invisible. Ahmed pulled over and called the customer. The address was correct. The map was not.
Microsoft is shutting down Skype. Readers say it changed their lives
Skype, the online video-calling service, is shutting down in May after more than two decades of service. For those of a certain generation, Skype changed everything. Before it launched in 2003, making international calls 📱 was prohibitively expensive and few viable digital alternatives existed. Skype offered users a cheap and easy way to call anyone in the world, skirting the draconian landline industry.
What we learned from tracking AI use in global elections
2024 marked a big year for democracy, with elections held in over 70 countries representing nearly half the world’s population. It was also dubbed the year of the “AI election” as experts warned of the havoc that AI-generated disinformation could wreak.
Starlink is now cheaper than leading internet provider in some African countries
Starlink, launched in 2019 by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, has become the leading satellite internet provider in the world. Now available in more than 100 countries, Starlink can also be a relatively affordable option for users trying to log on in countries with limited internet service providers. Across Africa, for example, Starlink is sometimes the cheapest way to get online.
Rest of World welcomes Saad Mohseni to our Board of Directors
We are thrilled to share that visionary media pioneer Saad Mohseni is joining our Board of Directors. Saad brings unparalleled expertise in building media businesses in complex frontier markets. As CEO, chairman and co-founder of Afghanistan’s largest media company, Moby Media Group, Saad led a transformation in television and radio for Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Rest of World welcomes Niki Christoff to our Board of Directors
It is with great pleasure that we can share Niki Christoff is joining Rest of World’s Board of Directors. Niki is a Silicon Valley veteran, leading public policy and communications work at companies like Salesforce, Uber and Google before founding Christoff & Co, a Washington D.C.-based boutique consultancy. She is the Executive Director of a nonprofit focused on emerging technology and hosts a weekly podcast, Tech’ed Up, that breaks down what’s happening on the frontlines of tech.
Rest of World welcomes Duncan Clark to our Board of Directors
We are thrilled to announce that Duncan Clark has joined the Rest of World Board of Directors. Duncan is the Chairman of BDA, an investment advisory firm he founded in 1994. After four years at Morgan Stanley, Duncan has spent thirty years experience advising Western investors in the fastest-growing and most innovative technology firms in Asia. He wrote the essential book, “Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built,” after working closely with China’s internet pioneers.
Kinling Lo joins Rest of World as China Reporter
Rest of World is thrilled to announce that Kinling Lo will be joining Rest of World as a China Reporter. Lo will be working on our China desk, which includes Senior Reporter Viola Zhou and China Editor Joanna Chiu. Kinling was previously a correspondent covering diplomacy, macroeconomy, and tech policies for the South China Morning Post from Beijing. Kinling has spent most of her time in Hong Kong, where she was born and raised.
Rina Chandran promoted to Rest of World deputy editor
We are excited to share that Rina Chandran, a stellar newsroom leader and veteran journalist, is named a deputy editor at Rest of World. She will start her new role on Jan. 1, 2025. Rina has distinguished herself since joining Rest of World earlier this year as our Southeast Asia Editor. Rina’s talent for elevating stories, mentoring reporters, and delivering dynamic coverage makes her the ideal candidate to take on an even larger portfolio.
The World’s Last Internet Cafes
When the world’s first internet cafe, Cafe Cyberia, first opened its doors in London’s West End in September 1994, its founders could never have imagined what they’d unleashed. Internet cafes — cheap, accessible venues where just about anyone could explore cyberspace in its infancy — spread slowly across the world at first, and then snowballed in popularity. In the spring of 1996, Sri Lanka got its first two internet cafes: the Cyber Cafe, and the Surf Board.
The World’s Last Internet Cafes
13 hours ago A cryptocurrency project described as being "dystopian" has been launched by AI entrepreneur Sam Altman. Worldcoin gives people digital coins in exchange for a scan of their eyeballs. In sites around the world thousands of people queued to gaze into silver orbs on day one of the project's full launch. …
Si Elon Musk adquiere Twitter heredará una lista de dolores de cabeza de talla global
Cuando Elon Musk, el CEO de Tesla y SpaceX, anunció su intención de comprar Twitter por $43,000 millones de dólares, su carta al Consejo Directivo incluyó un breve pero tajante argumento sobre el valor que tiene la plataforma como un foro de libertad de expresión. “Yo creo en su potencial de convertirse en una plataforma para la libertad de expresión en todo el mundo”, escribió, “y creo que esta libertad es imperativa para una democracia funcional”.
A Twitter takeover would be a global headache for Elon Musk
When Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced his intention to buy Twitter for $43 billion, his letter to the company’s Board of Directors made a succinct but sweeping argument about the platform’s value as a forum for global free speech.
The fraught rise of Silicon Valley-style development projects in Ethiopia
Many days at BlueMoon, an agriculture technology incubator in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia, start the same way: the fellows gather together to watch Shark Tank. The popular American game show, where contestants pitch their business plans to a panel of celebrity investors, gives the young founders a sense of how entrepreneurs should behave: confident, perky, and restless. BlueMoon’s headquarters is located in a glass mid-rise building in Bole, a wealthy, developed neighborhood in Addis Abeba.
How Snopes Went From Debunking Bigfoot to Battling QAnon
Snopes, the fact-checking site founded in 1995 by a husband and wife team, emerged during a different era of the internet. Back then, misinformation traveled through chain e-mails and the site concerned itself with conspiracy theories that sound practically quaint by today’s standards: Bigfoot sightings; alligators crawling through our sewers; baby spiders that live in a woman’s hairdo and eat her brains.
“We went from nobody being connected to everybody on the planet being connected in just 30 years.”
This past December, writer, entrepreneur, and former Wired editor Peter Leyden published The Transformation, a six-part speculative fiction series that imagines a journalist named Stuart Rand in the year 2100, looking back at a century of radical innovation. The fictional interviews with Rand, which touch on politics, climate change, and the role of the United States in a world remaking itself, pay particular attention to the role of technology.
This Thanksgiving, Be Careful What You Post on Instagram
Photo: Adam Nieścioruk/Unsplash Last spring, on the first nice day of the year and at the height of the pandemic in New York City, my partner and I made a serious mistake: We picnicked with friends in close contact at a nearby park. Worse yet, I posted evidence of the transgression to Instagram. The censure from my followers was immediate, severe, and largely justified. I took the photo down and felt exceedingly dumb.
Exposing the dark side of Facebook disaster groups
Dear OneZero reader, Where do you turn in times of need? For many, the answer is Facebook groups. Close on the heels of practically every natural disaster — and certainly the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — Facebook groups emerge as a central hub for survivors to mourn, reconnect, and assist each other. These groups can swell to hundreds of thousands of members, and persist years after the disaster has passed.
Light Phone 2: The high hopes of the low-tech phone
Filed under: Features The Light Phone returns with many aspirations and not too many features By Michael Zelenko Sep 4, 2019, 9:33am EDT Released in the spring of 2017, the Light Phone was shaped like a business card, weighed less than a stack of seven quarters, and felt like a hollow wedge of plastic. But when you pressed the phone’s only button, its tiny keypad lit up in a soft white glow.
TikTok Is a Wake-Up Call to Silicon Valley
The U.S. and Chinese tech sectors are on a collision path Photo: Joe Scarnici / Getty Images Entertainment The United States-China relationship is at a stunning low: A trade war has enveloped both countries, knocking the legs out from an already shaky global economy; Chinese researchers, accused of spycraft, are under suspicion at United States research facilities; and after three decades of manufacturing codependency, both countries are disentangling their supply chains.
285 Kent Owner Todd P. Speaks on Closure: “We Made a Calculated Decision”
Shortly after FADER ran an article on the closure of 285 Kent earlier this week, Todd Patrick, the owner of the venue, got in touch. (Attempts to reach Patrick for the previous piece were unsuccessful.) For those unfamiliar, Patrick, better known as Todd P., is a heavyweight in New York’s DIY scene. As a promoter with almost twenty years experience, Todd P. is responsible for some of Brooklyn’s more interesting venues over the past decade, including Monster Island Basement and Market Hotel.
Welcome to Airspace
Igor Schwarzmann is the German co-founder of Third Wave, a strategy consultancy based in Berlin that works with small-scale industrial manufacturers. The company’s clients range across Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, so Schwarzmann often finds himself moving between poles of the global economy. While traveling, he turns to Foursquare for recommendations about where to eat and drink. "It knows what I like," he says.
The US is losing the high-stakes global battery war
Though we rarely give them much thought, batteries — specifically lithium-ion batteries — enable modern life. They run our smartphones, yes, but they also power our Bluetooth speakers, toothbrushes, satellites, and pacemakers. In Australia, a partnership with Tesla will equip 50,000 homes with solar panels and battery packs, transforming them into a single “virtual power plant” capable of storing 250MW.
The Sunday Long Read
For Me, With Love and Squalor (~30 minutes) I recognize so much in this raw and wise essay by Lauren Markham, a first-time author. Sure, it’s thrilling to finally publish a book, but then those feelings of pride and accomplishment are often quickly chased away by disappointment, sorrow, confusion, all kinds of personal reckonings.
As California’s largest lake dries up, it threatens nearby communities with clouds of toxic dust
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. OnOn May 29th, 2009, Michelle Dugan and her family began the 600-mile trip from El Centro, California to the Bay Area, where she was set to attend her college orientation. They left late Friday evening, driving through the dusty Imperial Valley landscape and its endless fields of onions, spinach, and alfalfa.
There’s no perfect minimalist phone - yet
I went searching for the perfect minimalist phone, but I ended up back with my iPhone By Michael Zelenko May 3, 2018, 10:17am EDT Photography by James Bareham and Amelia Krales I have no love for my phone. And yet, it’s the first thing I reach for in the morning and often the last thing I look at before going to sleep. I reach for it obsessively, reflexively, often for no reason at all. Sometimes I’ll look away from Twitter on my laptop so I can look at Twitter on my phone.
Zuckerberg testifies before Congress, day 2: start time and live stream
After yesterday’s seemingly endless marathon hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today Mark Zuckerberg heads to the House, where he’ll be answering questions in front of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Zuckerberg testifies before Congress, day 1: start time, live stream, and live blog
In just a few hours, Mark Zuckerberg will testify in the first of two widely anticipated hearings before Congress. The first hearing, scheduled for later today at 2:15PM ET, will take place before a joint session of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
Untitled
What you can do 4 This Article has a component height of 0. The sidebar size is none.
Everything we know so far about the shooting at YouTube’s headquarters
Yesterday, a shooter walked into YouTube’s headquarters in California and began firing at employees, leaving three people injured with gunshot wounds. A picture of the tragedy, and the suspect behind it, is now emerging. Here are the facts that have come to light so far. Around lunchtime on Tuesday, April 3rd, employees at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, began reporting gunshots fired in the building.
It’s time for movies to be honest about our relationships — with our phones
Despite the fact that so much of our communication now happens online, TV and film have traditionally done a bad job of translating our texts, emails, and DMs to the screen. There are a lot of good reasons why: text communication doesn’t have the inherent drama of face-to-face dialogue. It dates itself quickly.
Photos from inside the Protect Net Neutrality protests
Yesterday, one week out from an FCC vote that will almost certainly decimate the open internet protections put in place during the Obama administration, thousands took to the streets. The protests were organized by Fight for the Future, a 10-person nonprofit dedicated to preserving the doctrine known as Net Neutrality, and located in front of Verizon stores across the country. Verizon is one of a handful of large ISPs that is set to profit from the commission chairman Ajit Pai’s expected rollback.
The Verge Survey: how Americans really feel about Facebook, Apple
Filed under: Apple How Americans really feel about Facebook, Apple, and more By Casey Newton, Nick Statt, and Michael Zelenko Oct 27, 2017, 8:19am EDT Illustrations by Garret Beard and William Joel This year marked a sea change in our attitude toward tech’s largest players — and not for the better.
What is Google’s Android mascot doing in North Korea?
Though North Korea boasts some trappings of technological modernity — a nuclear weapons program, its own internet, smartphones, and tablets — it’s rare to see traces of Silicon Valley in one of the most closed-off countries in the world. So, when stories about the escalating tensions between the Trump administration and North Korea cropped up last week, one widely used image stood out.
Earth’s newest cloud is terrifying
In 2014, I spoke with Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society, about his quixotic mission: to get recognition for a new category of cloud called the “undulatus asperatus.” For years, individuals from across the world had been sending him pictures of the unusual formations, trying to figure out what they were. But they had no official name.
Judge Neil Gorsuch failed the horse-sized duck question
In a depressing sign of the times, in today’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing Judge Neil Gorsuch was asked whether he’d rather fight one hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck. The question came by way of Senator Jeff Flake, who said he was passing along the question for his son.
Last night, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a decision to ban carry-on laptops and tablets on direct flights from eight Muslim-majority countries: Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Passengers traveling to the US from 10 airports in these countries will be barred from bringing laptops, tablets, or any devices “larger than a cellphone” as carry-on items; they will instead have to take them in checked luggage.
Look back at Verge stories from 2016 that changed our world | The Verge: 2016 Yearbook
People hated 2016 so much, the year itself became a punchline. Indeed, we saw plenty of signs that something was amiss. Uber began taking over public transportation, we found out Kava could be poisonous, beaches even ran out of sand. But for every grim omen, we saw people fighting for a better future. People like the First Lady, who mastered social media to promote hope and social justice. We met a prisoner who proved the government secretly spied on him – from his jail cell.
Trump campaign now selling “Inaugural Membership Cards”
Over the summer, the Trump campaign was roundly mocked for raising funds by hawking Gold Executive Membership Cards. It was unclear what a card bought, but according to the campaign it marked its carrier as a “generous and loyal patriot” and a “true friend” of the Trump campaign. According to the campaign, the cards first sold for $200, but by August, the price had dropped to $35.
Our favorite films of TIFF 2016
From the moment our boots hit Canadian soil for the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, we were rushing out dispatches, writing reviews, talking to filmmakers, and — most importantly — seeing lots and lots of movies. Some of the TIFF screenings were world premieres, others were making their domestic debuts, and others may already be in your local multiplex (or on Netflix). With this year’s festival now behind us, we take a look at our favorites.
Ditch TaskRabbit and do your own laundry
Earlier this week, after drinks with co-workers near The Verge’s New York office, I headed down into the subway for my commute home. The M train, like most New York subways, is often delayed. When the train mysteriously stopped somewhere under the East River, I found myself sitting across from a series of ads for TaskRabbit, a gig platform that lets anyone outsource menial labor to on-demand employees. Moving a couch? Weeding your abandoned garden? Cleaning out your underwear drawer?
How an award-winning documentarian unearthed a damning new case against John McAfee
At the Q&A following the premiere of Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee, a question came from the front of the audience: now that the film was out, was the director Nanette Burstein concerned for her safety? “We do have security here,” Burstein said, “there were some threats made by his acolytes threatening they were going to come.” It wasn’t clear whether Burstein was joking, and a patter of uneasy laughter rippled across the room.
New Showtime documentary accuses John McAfee of rape and involvement in two murders
Almost four years since his return from Central America, much remains unknown about John McAfee's time in Belize, and why the cybersecurity expert went into hiding after the still unsolved murder of his neighbor, American expat Gregory Faull.
How the directors of Netflix's Amanda Knox uncovered the humanity behind the headline
The result isn’t as ambitious as O.J.: Made in America, but it is a thoughtful — though at just 92 minutes, constrained — piece of documentary film-making. There are ultimately no grand revelations here, and no damning new pieces of evidence. But it offers an opportunity or reflect how, and why, our culture transforms tragedy into tabloids. For those who did their best to avoid the seemingly interminable scandal, it is an informative and capable retelling of the incident.
Leonardo DiCaprio's global warming doc is the most depressing world tour ever
Celebrities are keen on adopting righteous causes, but few are as vocal as Leonardo DiCaprio about his quest to save the planet from ecological collapse. "I am consumed by this," DiCaprio told Rolling Stone in a profile earlier this year. "There isn’t a couple of hours a day where I’m not thinking about it." With Before the Flood, DiCaprio is asking us to sample his daily two-hour burden.
Listen to this week’s feature: Welcome to Uberville
Our big feature this week was "Welcome to Uberville," a deep look by freelance journalist Spencer Woodman into what happens when a small town turns to Uber to meet its public transportation needs. We sent Woodman down to Altamonte Springs, Florida, and the story he came back with poses as many questions as it answers: who gets left behind when Uber takes over mass transit? As public-private partnerships like these start to spread, what kind of information should Uber be forced to disclose?
Going where Google won’t
On the weekend of May 28th, more than 400,000 people gathered at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to watch the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Machines worth millions of dollars flew around the 2.5-mile long course at speeds of 230 mph and faster. The scene at California’s Thunderhill Raceway was decidedly more tame. Located three hours north of San Francisco in the golden foothills of the state’s Central Valley, Thunderhill was hot and windy that weekend.
The 13 biggest announcements from Apple WWDC 2016
watchOS 3 brings a host of updates, but perhaps most importantly, it loads apps seven times faster than the previous OS, thanks to background refreshing and keeping apps stored in memory. Navigation supposedly will be easier on the new OS, too. The side button can be used to access a "dock," which allows wearers to scroll through their apps, and the Watch will act a little more like an iPhone with a new Control Center.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Michael
Contact Michael, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack