SUMMARY
Former New York Bureau Chief and US Business Editor of The Economist who morphed into Senior Director of Advanced Strategies and Research at Microsoft, and then into startup founder, funder and advisor... and Economist writer redux.
Present:
▪ Investor at SeekOut, which offers advanced AI-driven candidate-sourcing tools for talent-acquisition teams. In January 2022 SeekOut raised $115m in Series-C funding, valuing the company at $1.2 billion. It was also GeekWire's 2021 Startup of the Year and its CEO Anoop Gupta GeekWire's 2022 CEO of the Year.
▪ After a 16-year break, resumed writing for The Economist in 2014 as a contributor, mostly on science, technology and business. Well over 70 of my articles have been published since then; many are listed below.
▪ Member of the technical board of advisors and investor at Votem, which is developing an advanced mobile voting platform designed to securely cast votes in elections around the globe.
Past:
▪ Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a DC think-tank, focused on the philosophy of technology, plus ethics and policy in rapidly changing fields such as AI, data privacy, and cybersecurity.
▪ Investor and co-founder at Polyverse, a startup that used unique and highly effective Moving Target Defense technologies to protect against cyberattacks, but has yet to gain sustainable business viability.
▪ Senior Director, Advanced Strategies and Research at Microsoft, driving long-term technology strategy, philosophy and policy in areas including cybersecurity, data, AI, and quantum computing. Formerly advisor to Bill Gates.
▪ Journalist and editor at The Economist, writing 800+ articles and editorials over 12 years, and serving as its US Business Editor and New York Bureau Chief, among other roles (plus since 2014 as a contributor of 70+ articles).
▪ Co-Founder of Oxford Economic Research Associates, now a major European economic consultancy.▪ Presenter of BBC Radio 4's "Analysis" and regular commentator on NPR's "Marketplace".
▪ Senior Researcher at the UK's Institute for Fiscal Studies and National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
Education:
▪ Oxford University, Keble College: MA, Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
For full online résumé, see LinkedIn.
THE ECONOMIST
I've written close to 900 articles for The Economist over the years. Below are links to those penned as a contributor since 2014 (most of my 1985-97 articles aren't online):
— 2017 —
An ill wind (November 9th 2017)
Livestock farms smell. The answer could involve titanium dioxide and disco lights.
Pop! (August 31st 2017)
How nano-lasers can blow up cancer cells from the inside and stop tumours from metastasising
Winging the blues (August 3rd 2017)
A promising new way to make holograms, inspired by the wings of South America's blue morpho butterfly
Wide-eyed and lensless (July 6th 2017)
Tomorrow's cameras: no lenses, no mirrors and a few microns thick
Does one thing lead to another? (June 8th 2017)
Some thoughts on quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and the nature of time and causality
Parsing gas (May 18th 2017)
Globally, 660m+ people rely on “unimproved” water. An intriguing way to make it safely potable
Stream slip (April 27th 2017)
That racy film you probably shouldn't have enjoyed on Netflix last week? New algorithms know what it was
— 2014 —
A big bet on small (TQ remix) (December 6th 2014)
Reprised for Technology Quarterly: has Lockheed unlocked the mystery of commercial nuclear fusion?
A diet to die for (November 29th 2014)
What are vultures dining on this Thanksgiving? You really don't want to know
Flight risk (November 15th 2014)
Do birds have some kind of gyroscope in their brain?
Grid unlocked (October 18th 2014)
Are "microgrids as a service" the future of power generation?
A big bet on small (October 17th 2014)
Can Lockheed Martin really make fusion power a reality within a decade?
Unsustainable energy (October 11th 2014)
Some thoughts on falling oil prices and panicking oil companies
Adapting to plug-ins (October 4th 2014)
Electric cars could help save power utilities from their death spiral
Caging the Li-ion (September 13th 2014)
A way forward for lithium battery technology
End-to-end game (September 6th 2014)
The commodities giants that nobody has heard of
In the moment of the heat (TQ remix) (September 6th 2014)
Now in the magazine's Technology Quarterly section: To save energy, heat people, not buildings
Shale game (August 30th 2014)
China's shale-gas dreams prove to be just that
Hot rocks (August 16th 2014)
Why geothermal energy may spark the next fracking debate
Picking up steam (August 2nd 2014)
A hot and steamy technology
Equal and opposite (July 8th, 2014)
Is the brain a quantum machine?
Time out of joint (July 8th, 2014)
How well will Android Wear wear?
The incorporated woman (June 27th, 2014)
How one woman is taking back control of her personal data
Go time or past time? (June 17th, 2014)
Will it be second-time lucky for GoDaddy's IPO?
In the moment of the heat (June 16th, 2014)
To save energy, heat people, not buildings
Cognitive dissonance (June 12th, 2014)
Exactly how do bees find their way hiveward?
First makers, now menders (June 9th, 2014)
The growing global network of repair cafés
The high-tech world of old-world watches (June 5th, 2014)
Mechanical watches are leaving their digital cousins in the dust with high-tech materials and cool designs
Yours to cut out and keep (TQ remix) (June 5th, 2014)
Now in the magazine's Technology Quarterly section: What if microscopes cost less than a dollar?
Divided we stand (May 22nd, 2014)
What can computer-security strategists learn from biodiversity?
An itch to twitch (May 22nd, 2014)
Why Google is interested in Twitch
Escargot to go (May 21st, 2014)
Is lobbing snails over your neighbour's fence a smart gardening strategy?
Wheeler dealing (May 15th, 2014)
Thoughts on the FCC's net-neutrality proposals
Camels and bats and MERS, oh my (May 14th, 2014)
Some musings on MERS
Beats nicked (May 13th, 2014)
What's really behind Apple's rumoured interest in Beats Electronics
Privet equity (May 8th, 2014)
How rosy is the future for America's corporate gardeners?
A GPS for ancestry (May 2nd, 2014)
Can your GPS find its way to 1,000 years in the past?
Unearthing a 13th-century multiverse (April 30th, 2014)
Unearthing a medieval multiverse: a morality tale for the STEM-education brigade
More equal than others (April 25th, 2014)
Some thoughts on the FCC's new net-neutrality plans
Robocopulation (April 25th, 2014)
On the use of robots to model evolution
Baked brains (April 16th, 2014)
The problem with recreational marijuana use
Yours to cut out and keep (April 14th, 2014)
What if microscopes cost less than a dollar?
Picking over the traces (April 3rd, 2014)
Human artefacts as technofossils
Big asspirations (April 1st, 2014)
Not an April Fool: a profile of one of America's most intriguing firms, Big Ass Solutions
Locking horns (March 28th, 2014)
A mini-story on dueling plants
Secrets and lies (March 22nd, 2014)
Why cyberbullying apps will fail
Through the sound barrier (March 19th, 2014)
Using metamaterials to create an acoustic invisibility cloak
A case of the vapers (March 17th, 2014)
Patent wars in the e-cigarette business
Slotting in an explanation (March 14th, 2014)
Why compulsive gamblers keep on shelling out
A perfect life (March 13th, 2014)
A tribute to Robert Ashley, one of the past century's most innovative composers
Anything you can do... (March 11th, 2014)
Prisoners think they are more honest than you are
It's the alcohol talking (March 6th, 2014)
How to communicate via an alcoholic haze
Innocence abroad (March 6th, 2014)
America's view of offshoring is off base
Even cows need study buddies (March 6th, 2014)
Cows are smart. Farmers need to help them stay that way
After Mt Gox (March 5th, 2014)
More troubles in Bitcoinland
Dead brand walking (March 4th, 2014)
RadioShack looks set to follow Circuit City into retail oblivion
Mt Gone (February 25th, 2014)
With the implosion of Mt Gox, Bitcoin's Wild West just got a whole lot wilder
Market madness (February 21st, 2014)
Turns out that stockmarkets really do drive you crazy
Massaged parlous (February 21st, 2014)
The new curiosity shops, and why they are failing
Undriven snow (February 13th, 2014)
Winter's way of calming traffic
Channelling Superman (February 12th, 2014)
Online games affect the way in which people act more than they think
Small but imperfectly formed (February 7th, 2014)
Some thoughts on nanomanufacturing in America
Mo’ Time for Motown (February 5th, 2014)
Shinola's attempt to make Detroit America's watchmaking capital
Slow food movement (January 30th, 2014)
A tale of moths and sloths
Breaking breaktime's rules (January 29th, 2014)
The value of a free-range childhood
We, robots (January 21nd, 2014)
Creating a hive mind for robots
Memory in plants (January 19th, 2014)
Plants not only learn from experience; they also remember what they've learned
Unsafe and sound (January 18th, 2014)
Ciphers can now be broken by listening to the computers that use them
OTHER STUFF
I also wrote these, among other things:
A metadata-based architecture for user-centered data accountability
Electronic Markets: The International Journal of Networked Business, February 2015
Atlantic Council, January 2015
Rebalancing Socioeconomic Asymmetry in a Data-Driven Economy
World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report 2014
IOS Press, November 2014
Technology Policy in an Age of Unknowledge
Atlantic Council, January 2014
Hacking the Internet of Everything
Scientific American, August 2013
In the Shadow of Forster's Room
Atlantic Council, August 2013
'Who Owns the Future?' Why Jaron Lanier Remains a Digital Optimist
[email protected], August 2013
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