I’m a contributing columnist for The New York Times where I write about politics, business, tech, and media, and you can read my columns here. I’m also the co-host of Slate’s Money podcast with Felix Salmon and Emily Peck which you can listen to here, and the co-author of Slate’s “Pay Dirt” advice column about money, which you can read here. Below are some prior columns and features in other newspapers and magazines:
The Airlines Know They Are Scamming Us. In a sense, the benefits of airline deregulation have been undermined by its downsides. The New York Times, December 20, 2022.
This Is How Elon Musk Will Kill Twitter. “Frog boiling in water” is the first metaphor that comes to mind, but it’s really more like looking at a Jenga tower from above as the game is being played. You know pieces are disappearing one by one and it’s making the whole thing more unstable. You understand that eventually, it’s going to all come crashing down. But it still looks whole on the surface. Fortune, December 8, 2022.
Marriage Is Hard. Just Ask Tom and Gisele. The contours of [their marriage] are familiar: One person in the marriage has forfeited a career to enable the other one’s success. Then the beneficiary of that trade-off is supposed to reciprocate, but doesn’t. In heteronormative marriage it is, with disappointing regularity, the woman’s career that suffers. The New York Times, November 3, 2022.
This Is What Happens When Tech Executives Start Believing Their Own Hype. To demand that some workers pass an “ideological purity test” regarding the benefits of cryptocurrency, as Mr. Powell was once quoted describing it, does not demonstrate an openness to diversity of thought. The New York Times, June 28, 2022.
Imagine A World Where Men Had to Breastfeed Their Babies. The judgment of mothers for feeding their babies formula is not really about self-sufficiency; it’s about justifying the suffering of women as a motherly virtue. The New York Times, May 18, 2022.
Let’s Be Clear About What It’s Like to Be Harassed On Twitter. [Musk] professes to have a healthy tolerance of criticism. “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” he tweeted. But the statements of free speech absolutists like Mr. Musk conflates harassment with criticism. The New York Times, April 27, 2022.
What Severance Gets Right About Infantilizing Office Perks. I’ve come to think of these corporate toys and rewards as the work equivalent of the cheap prizes you win at a carnival after emptying your wallet to play the games. The difference is that the point of the carnival is to have fun, and the prizes are incidental. In the workplace, this is just a laughably terrible trade-off. The New York Times, April 14, 2022.
I Was Adopted. I Know The Trauma It Can Inflict. I resent being used as a political football by the right. I believe that abortion is a form of health care, and that every woman should have access to it if she needs it. But perhaps more than that, I resent the suggestion by people like Justice Barrett that adoption is a simple solution. The New York Times, December 3, 2021.
How Cuomo Got Away With It For So Long. Perversely, his abrasiveness may have given him a sort of immunity to consequences until now, at least when it comes to his public image. Any time he exhibits terrible interpersonal behavior, it can be regarded as an intrinsic part of his personality. He’s established a reputation as a jerk who treats people badly, so people shrug when he proves, yet again, that he is a jerk who treats people badly. The New York Times, August 4, 2021.
Southern Baptists’ Losing Faith. Hardliners want to take over the convention and impose their ultra-conservative values—but they’re fighting over a shrinking franchise. Prosperity gospel megachurches are winning market share. The New York Review of Books, June 25, 2021.
Farewell to Trump’s Baby Sociopaths Good riddance to the fake redneck, the cancer-charity grifter, and the amoral Florida Woman. Goodbye to the adult Trump children. The New Republic, January 20, 2021.
Jerry Falwell Jr. and the Evangelical Redemption Story Jerry Falwell Jr., carnal sin, teenagering while Southern Baptist in rural Alabama, and a uniquely white and American Evangelical Christianity that disdains vulgarity more than it disdains injustice. The New York Review of Books Daily, August 20, 2020.
The Provocations of Elon MuskThe mercurial billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX regularly flouts the law with little fear of punishment. Elizabeth Spiers on why the rules don't apply to him. GQ, May 18, 2020. With support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
When a Narcissist in Chief Meets a Global Pandemic. Donald Trump put his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and xenophobic adviser Stephen Miller in charge of his coronavirus response—no wonder things are such a disaster. GQ. March 13, 2020.
I Loathe Bloomberg. But He’s Doing One Thing Right. He’s racist, misogynist, authoritarian… and smart about how to use media and money to promote himself. Democrats need to understand why his tricks work. The Daily Beast. February 18, 2020.
Trump is the ultimate sore winner. Now he’ll seek revenge. The answer to “will there be retribution?” is, of course, yes. There will be retribution, and it will be wide-ranging, an epic waste of taxpayer money, an incredible abuse of the executive branch and the resources that come with it, and contemptibly small-minded and petty. The Washington Post, February 6, 2020.
No, Jared Kushner, it was not okay to delete my journalists’ work I was editor in chief of The New York Observer when he allegedly had stories removed from the digital archive in secret. That would be a page out of his father-in-law's 'fake news' book. The Washington Post, August 9, 2018.
We expect Trump to be awful to women. It’s part of his brand. If Trump ever had any better angels, the general perception is that they’ve long since fallen — or perhaps never reported for duty in the first place. The Washington Post, February 20, 2018.