Thomas Stackpole
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Senior Editor @HarvardBiz covering technology and innovation. The future is soon, probably.
he/him
Articles by Thomas Stackpole
Why Some Junior Employees Work Well with AI—and Others Don’t
SKIP TO CONTENT In the July 27, 2026, edition of The Insider, tech editor Tom Stackpole highlights a new study of early-career professionals showing how these employees engage with AI and how this... The Insider is a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter where our managing editor curates HBR stories, research, and ideas that senior leaders shouldn’t miss.
Künstliche Intelligenz: Woran Sie merken, dass KI Sie austricksen will
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Künstliche Intelligenz: Sollten Unternehmen HR und Technologie-Abteilungen zusammenführen?
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The Oil Shock Is Here. And We’re Just Beginning to Feel It.
March 19, 2026 As the third week of the U.S.-Israel war against Iran grinds on, the effect the war might have on the global economy is still unclear. At the center of that question is oil. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has stopped the flow of nearly one-fifth of the global oil supply. While fuel prices have already spiked, the full consequences of a prolonged closure of the Strait could be much more disruptive. Thomas Stackpole is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review.
LLMs Are Manipulating Users with Rhetorical Tricks
March 18, 2026 HBR Staff/Xavier Bonghi/Getty Images Here’s a familiar pitch: Augmenting human intelligence with AI—and AI intelligence with humans—will allow companies to supercharge productivity while maintaining standards. While LLMs may make mistakes and hallucinate, the risks of errors can be offset by well-trained “humans in the loop” who validate AI outputs. Thomas Stackpole is a senior editor at Harvard Business Review.
LLMs Are Manipulating Users with Rhetorical Tricks
4 hours ago If your iPhone has Apple Intelligence, you can create your own emoji now. Apple will likely add new emoji to your iPhone when the company releases iOS 26.4. Those new emoji could include an orca, a distorted smiley face and more. According to Emojipedia, there are 3,953 emoji with more on the way. …
Should Your Company Merge Its CHRO and CTO Roles?
Should Your Company Merge Its CHRO and CTO Roles? September 15, 2025 Over the past few years, the promise of new AI tools and systems has led companies to question just about everything. Figuring out how to create real value with these new tools, however, has proved challenging. Investments and experiments have failed to bear fruit, despite the hype of productivity gains and process transformation.
Don't Be Distracted by the Trade War. Here's What Should Inform Your China Strategy Instead.
By The Trump administration's rapid escalation of a trade war with China has forced many companies to rethink their dependence on Chinese goods and access to the Chinese market-and face the prospect that the world's two largest economies might be breaking up. Now that the administration has signaled that its working on a deal with significant reductions in tariffs, corporate leaders may be hoping for a return to some version of business as usual.
What TikTok’s Fate Will Mean for Global Business
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images Post Post Share Annotate Save Print Whether or not TikTok is banned in the U.S., the saga has broad reaching implications for global business. Three experts explain the possible ramifications of TikTok’s fate — and the larger trends that are shaping it. First, Sarah Kreps of Cornell argues that the decision highlights the increasing entanglement of technology, geopolitics, and regulation.
What the Last Trump Tariffs Did, According to Researchers
President-elect Trump has promised to impose 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, and tariffs as high as 60% on goods coming from China on day one of his new administration. What will these protectionist policies accomplish? Looking at research on the effects of the 2018–19 U.S.-China trade war might provide some insight.
What the Last Trump Tariffs Did, According to Researchers
December 2, 2024 President-elect Trump has promised to impose 25% tariffs on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico, and tariffs as high as 60% on goods coming from China on day one of his new administration. What will these protectionist policies accomplish? Looking at ... Last week, President-elect Donald Trump outlined a plan for sweeping new tariffs against three of America’s leading trading partners.
What the Last Trump Tariffs Did, According to Researchers
4 hours ago This latest threat comes after Trump’s recent proposal to hit Mexico and Canada with 25% tariffs. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100% tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRIC …
Martha’s Vineyard is being gutted by skyrocketing housing costs. Yes, you should care.
Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. The afternoon of July 4, 2023, in Edgartown, Massachusetts—one of the six towns that make up the island of Martha’s Vineyard—was muggy and threatening rain. Near the top of Main Street, the participants of the local parade mustered, eying the sky. There was a tractor from Morning Glory, the popular farm stand on the edge of town.
Are We Seeing a Revival of Union Power?
Over the past few months, the United States has seemingly entered a new era for American unions. After decades of decline, major American unions — including the Teamsters, the United Automobile Workers, and the Writers Guild of America, and the Screen Actors Guild — have taken militant stances in contract negotiations. Thus far, two have chalked up considerable victories. This week, workers at Kaiser Permanente walked off the job in the largest strike of health care workers in U.S. history.
Kein Job für schwache Nerven: Content-Moderatoren
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Content Moderation Is Terrible by Design
When people talk about content moderation, they typically reference debates about free speech and censorship. The people who actually do the moderating, however, tend to be an afterthought. Their work is largely invisible — hidden away in call center–type offices — as they filter the deluge of user-generated content on social media platforms.
Web3: Molly White dokumentiert Betrug im Krypto-Universum
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(HBm+) Revolution im Internet: Was ist Web3?
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What Is Web3?
Web3 promises to transform the experience of being online as dramatically as PCs and smartphones did. It is not, however, without risk. Some companies have entered the space only to face a backlash over the environmental impact and financial speculation (and potential for fraud) that comes with Web3 projects. And while blockchain is offered as a solution to privacy, centralization, and financial exclusion concerns, it has created new versions of many of these problems.
Exploring the Metaverse: Future Of Human Interaction?
Metaverse project GensoKishi Closed Alpha bronze ticket (Graphic: Business Wire)
Exploring the Metaverse
With the world what it is these days, you can see why people might be itching for an alternate reality—a way to reboot the system and start fresh. That’s the appeal of virtual realms: They’re places where power can be inverted, disappointments escaped, and capitalist inequities left behind for something more exciting, malleable, and meaningful.
Ahead of her time-HAZEL HENDERSON (2013) activist, green economist, global citizen, dies at 89
What Research Shows on the Effectiveness of Gun-Control Laws Analysis by Glenn Kessler - WashPost - 05-27-2022 Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland Web3 is off to a rocky start. Optimists may rattle on about progress on the horizon but at present the space is rife with fraud hacks and collapses. by Thomas Stackpole - Harvard Business Review - 05-10-2022 What Do Those Pesky 'Cookie Preferences' Pop-Ups Really Mean? We asked the engineer who invented cookies what they mean and how to handle them.
Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland
Web3 is off to a rocky start. Optimists may rattle on about progress on the horizon, but at present the space is rife with fraud, hacks, and collapses. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments
Cautionary Tales from Cryptoland
All of a sudden, it feels like Web3 is everywhere. The money, the buzz, the name all make it seem like Web3 will inevitably be the next big thing. But is it? And do we even want it to be? As the hype has reached a fever pitch, critics have started to warn of unintended and overlooked consequences of a web with a blockchain backbone.
What Is Web3?
Do you remember the first time you heard about Bitcoin? Maybe it was a faint buzz about a new technology that would change everything. Perhaps you felt a tingle of FOMO as the folks who got in early suddenly amassed a small fortune — even if it wasn’t clear what the “money” could legitimately be spent on (really expensive pizza?).
How to Set Your AI Project Up for Success
To pick the right AI project, it’s essential to understand how AI works — what it’s good at and what it’s not. HBR spoke with Marco Casalaina, head of Salesforce’s Einstein project, who broke down the basic ingredients of a good AI project and the questions leaders need to be asking themselves before investing time and resources in a new AI project.
What’s So Special About Founders?
Americans have an obsession with business founders and what sets them apart. Is it vision, drive, or insight that helps them turn industries upside down and conjure billions of dollars? Is it how they run meetings or make decisions? Is it because they eat vegan, take cold showers, and meditate? Founders occupy a cultural space that combines celebrity, guru, futurist eccentric, and occasionally comic book villain. And why not? Jeff Bezos changed both how we shop and how the internet operates.
Inside IKEA’s Digital Transformation
How does going digital change a legacy retail brand? According to Barbara Martin Coppola, CDO at IKEA Retail, it’s a challenge of remaining fundamentally the same company while doing almost everything differently. In this Q&A, Martin Coppola talks about how working in tech for 20 years prepared her for this challenge, why giving customers control over their data is good business, and how to stay focused on the core mission when you’re changing everything else.
We actively avoid information that can help us
Premium Interviews Adobe People avoid information when it might hurt their self-image. But when it comes to really consequential things, we tend to want to know so that we can prepare. There’s a tipping point, but we don’t know exactly where it is, says Emily Ho in this interview conducted by Thomas Stackpole for the Harvard Business Review.
We Actively Avoid Information That Can Help Us
Image Source/Getty Images Emily Ho of Northwestern University and two coresearchers asked more than 2,300 survey participants whether they would like to get various kinds of information that could be useful to them, including how their retirement accounts stacked up against their peers’, what listeners thought of a speech they’d recently given, and how coworkers rated their strengths and weaknesses. The team found that the respondents opted out 32% of the time, on average.
Opinion | You Call It Starvation. I Call It Biohacking.
Welcome to the bro-y world of extreme dieting. Or is it disordered eating? By Thomas Stackpole Mr. Stackpole is a writer. July 11, 2019 The run happened — or didn’t — maybe five days into the raw-diet experiment. I had formed a sort of fitness pact with a friend to forgo cooked food, and after days of nothing but salads, almonds, sashimi and black coffee, my body felt taut and ready for action.
Stunning stat: The dirtiest 1% of America's power plants release 33% of America's power-plant carbon emissions
Less than 1 percent of US power plants produce nearly a third of the energy industry’s carbon emissions, according to a new report released Tuesday.
The World’s Most Notorious Micronation Has the Secret to Protecting Your Data From the NSA
A few months ago, internet entrepreneur Avi Freedman received an unexpected email from a prince. A decade earlier, Freedman had been part of an effort to create a data haven—a safe place where information could be stashed far from the reach of prying eyes and nosy governments—on the world’s smallest and most notorious micronation, Sealand, a 120-by-50-foot anti-aircraft platform seven miles off the British coast and 60 feet above the waters of the cold North Sea.
Report: Subcontractors in Afghanistan Do Crazy Things When They Don’t Get Paid
A new report released last week suggests that shoddy contracting practices are fomenting discontent and distrust among Afghan contractors, damaging efforts to foster Afghan businesses, and undermining the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.
Keystone Light: The Keystone XL Alternative You’ve Never Heard of Is Probably Going to Be Built
Last week, the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport oil from the Alberta tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, hit another snag: The State Department’s Office of the Inspector General said that it is investigating a possible conflict-of-interest issue in the project’s environmental impact study.
Virginia Gov. Candidate Cuccinelli Asks Supreme Court to Revive Ban on Oral, Anal Sex
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP’s nominee for governor, filed an appeal on Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to revive the state’s law banning oral and anal sex.
Kim Jong Un Went to a Lubricant Factory
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Kim Jong Un is back on the PR trail. The North Korean leader used his visit to the Chonji Lubricant Factory as a chance to show off what he bragged are the great technological and industrial leaps being made by his country. During the visit, which was reported by North Korean state media on Tuesday, Kim gave "field guidance" to the employees and praised their work, which he said yielded a product that previously had to be imported, as proof of the country’s progress.
By Thomas Stackpole Verified, Jeff Sessions’ Standard, Eliza Strickland Verified, Erika Hayasaki Verified
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Foreign Policy Magazine
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How Dorothy's Ruby Slippers Came to the Smithsonian
On a spring day in 1970, as MGM studios was clearing out its famous backlot property in Culver City in advance of its sale to a developer, a costumes worker named Kent Warner slipped into the deep storage on the third floor. He crept up the stairs to the lady’s character wardrobe.
Trump Is Too Busy for His Fraud Trial-But Apparently He Has Time for a Victory Tour
Donald Trump is a busy man these days. So busy, his lawyer argues, that he can't reasonably be expected to testify in a civil lawsuit against him that's set to begin later this month. But Trump apparently does have time for a multi-state "victory tour" to celebrate his surprise electoral win. Pool reporters covering the presidential transition transition revealed Thursday that beginning sometime after Thanksgiving, Trump is planning to visit states he won in the election.
Adultery For Me, But Not For Thee: A Master List of Gingrich's Hypocrisies
Skip Navigation TNR_brand monogram_blackThe New Republic TNR_brand wordmark_black Newt Gingrich is no stranger to hypocrisies. It’s just that his own self-righteousness often gets in the way of admitting to them: “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate,” the family-values candidate once famously said about his multiple extra-marital affairs.
It's 2016 and Every Single Judge on Alabama's Highest Courts Is White
The state of Alabama's violent attacks on voting rights protesters in Selma helped drive the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Back then, the Alabama Supreme Court was an all-white body. Today, 50 years after the passage of the seminal civil rights law, it still is. Only two African Americans have ever served, and only after first being appointed by a governor.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on His Love of History, Youth Sports and Which Books Everyone Should Read
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Dan Winters At this point, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has spent more of his life as a best-selling author than a pro-basketball player. But for Abdul-Jabbar, who still holds the NBA’s career scoring record, the second act as a writer isn’t so much something new as the continuation of an inquisitiveness that preceded his status as living sports legend.
Who Really Wrote "Citizen Kane"?
Two new books offer divergent theories on the authorship of the much-heralded film Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles and Everett Sloane in the offices of Kane’s Inquirer. (Everett Collection) Smithsonian Magazine | Subscribe May 2016 How fitting that a film about the elusiveness of truth is the subject of endless argument.
The View From Beijing’s Smog ‘Red Alert’
When Beijing awoke Tuesday morning under a thick haze of some of the worst smog on record, it did so knowing that millions of its citizens would spend the next 2 ½ days stuck inside.
Austria Out-Eats America, But America Is Still Fatter
Which country packs away the most calories in a day? Who is smoking like it’s going out of style? And where in the world does the liquor flow most freely? According to a new study, three European countries — Austria, Greece, and Lithuania — now top these lists of casual immoderation. But while enthusiastic consumption of tobacco and alcohol correlates with higher mortality rates, not all overeating is created equally.
You, Too, Can Buy Margaret Thatcher’s Power Suits
Ever been curious as to what it would’ve been like to wear the royal blue power suit of one of 20th century’s foremost leaders? To decorate your mantel with porcelain figurines that had witnessed history, or clutch the clutch of one of the most powerful women in the world?
And the Winner of this Year’s PEN Pinter Award Goes to … the Man Slated for 1,000 Lashes!
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is still waiting for his remaining 950 lashes. The first of his 20 installments of 50 was delivered — publicly and on top of a 10-year prison sentence and an almost $270,000 fine — in January. But in the face of public outcry, including vigils and protests outside Saudi embassies around the world, the remainder of his punishment has been delayed.
Longform’s Picks of the Week
Every weekend, Longform highlights its favorite international articles of the week. For daily picks of new and classic nonfiction, check out Longform or follow @longform on Twitter. Have an iPad? Download Longform’s new app and read all of the latest in-depth stories from dozens of magazines, including Foreign Policy. “One Lawyer’s Crusade to Defend Extreme Pornography” by Edward Docx, the Guardian Myles Jackman is on a mission to change Britain’s obscenity laws.
Did Centcom Cook the Books in the War Against the Islamic State?
He has eluded the public spotlight in his ascent to the top echelons of the U.S. military, quietly honing his skills as an intelligence officer in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars before taking his current high-stakes position — overseeing reports on the fight against the Islamic State. But now Army Maj. Gen.
Russia Raises the Stakes in Syrian War
U.S. officials are concerned that a dramatic Russian military buildup in western Syria over the past week signals preparations by Moscow to fly combat missions in support of the President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, marking a potentially dangerous escalation of the four-year-old conflict.
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