Scott Carpenter Contributor Share on Twitter Scott Carpenter is Jigsaw’s Director of Policy and International Engagement. Prior to Google, Carpenter served as the Keston Family Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and as the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights. Authoritarian governments from twenty-one […]
How intensive modding ushered in China’s computer revolution
In my previous essay on TechCrunch, I examined the profound challenges which confronted the computer engineers trying to fit tens of thousands of Chinese characters in a memory system designed to handle a much smaller alphanumeric symbolic system. The engineering daring that led to the first Chinese personal computer Now, I turn to the question […]
The rapidly changing investor calculus on China’s tech giants
As wave after wave of regulatory crackdowns have dominated China tech news in 2021, one can be excused for losing track of what is being regulated, who is doing the regulating, and what exactly the regulations are. From fintech to data management to education, the rules of the game are being re-written by a range […]
Introducing the TechCrunch Global Affairs Project
Technology has never agreed with boundaries. Even the most detailed satellite snapshots of Earth show no borders. From the printing press to the airplane, the telephone to social media, technological progress has helped us transcend time and place. And when it hasn’t sent memes around the world, it has ignited revolutions. We’ve grown used to […]
I founded Nest. Here’s how startups can help solve climate change
Matt Rogers Contributor Share on Twitter Matt Rogers built the first machine-learning thermostat as the co-founder of Nest. He was previously an engineer at Apple, where he helped build ten generations of the iPhone and the first iPad. He currently splits his time between Incite.org and a new company that he is developing. The best […]
Decoupling tech supply chains would do more harm than good
Phil Levy Contributor Share on Twitter Dr. Phil Levy is Chief Economist for Flexport. Earlier in his career, he held international economic policy positions at the White House and the Department of State. For a technology sector that would much prefer to focus on growth over geopolitics, the push for U.S.-China “decoupling” poses an inescapable […]
Digital ID tech is moving fast. #GoodID will ensure it doesn’t break things
Robert Karanja Contributor Share on Twitter Robert Karanja is a Director of Responsible Technology and Africa Lead for Omidyar Network and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many technological shifts – how many of us knew what Zoom was before last spring? Rapidly-developed mRNA COVID vaccines are themselves a case study […]
The Automattic TC-1
Sixteen years in and now valued at $7.5 billion, Automattic has found a multitude of strides, even as it strives to own ever more of the media market.
It’s a big moment for climate change. Here are 4 books for autumn to understand what’s changing
We’re just weeks away from COP26, the big environmental policy confab where scores of world leaders will descend on Scotland and determine the future of the planet, answering the question, “Should we all die or live?” That’s meant a whole truckload of new books on the subject, as well as renewed attention to older works […]
Everything is accelerating in the exponential age
Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild ride. The pace of change over the last few decades is only set to accelerate in the coming years, as improvements in biology, medicine, spacecraft, manufacturing, software and more continue to transform the very foundations of society, economics and politics. We cover these innovations pretty much daily […]