It pleases me immensely to announce that Derek Thompson, one of my favorite writers, has finally left his full-time gig at The Atlantic and joined Substack! You can check out his inaugural post here:
Today, I’m leaving The Atlantic after almost 17 years to devote my daily writing life to Substack. It can be convenient, for the purposes of crafting an exciting departure note, to have a dramatic exit story: an explosive fight, a sudden firing, a long-simmering grievance, a shouting match with an editor that ended with me hurling a bunch of leather-bou…
5 days ago · 782 likes · 126 comments · Derek Thompson
I highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter, of course.
Few people know this, but Derek is actually the person who convinced me to become a paid opinion writer in the first place. Back in 2013, I was blogging for fun while working as a professor, and Derek got in touch with me and persuaded me to write a few posts for The Atlantic. That in turn led to me getting a job at Bloomberg. So you really have Derek to thank!
Derek joined me in a chat last week to talk about the move to Substack, as well as his by-now-extremely-famous book with Ezra Klein, Abundance. (In fact, I wanted to post the chat last week, but there were some technical difficulties.) We talk about what I see as Derek’s main strengths as a writer — especially 1) his ability to spot and understand important new social and economic trends before almost anyone else does, and 2) his ability to take stands on issues while still understanding all the various sides.
We also talk a lot about Abundance, of course, including the future of the movement, where it fits in to Democratic party politics, and why there was an immediate backlash from some parts of the progressive movement. Here are some more of Derek’s thoughts on those questions:
In the last three months, I’ve watched the reaction to Abundance play out in two arenas…
2 days ago · 246 likes · 33 comments · Derek Thompson
We discuss my argument that abundance liberals should concentrate their fire on Donald Trump, and Derek also addresses my question of what the U.S. government could do if it were unconstrained by self-regulation.
Anyway, Derek is a great guy and a great writer, and I’m very glad he’s now part of the new blogosphere. You’ll be seeing me quote him a lot more in the months and years to come!
Share
