About Author

Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine and a weekly news analyst for NPR's "Here and Now." He was born in McLean, Va., in 1986, and he graduated from Northwestern University, in 2008, with a triple major in journalism, political science, and legal studies. He hasn't done much with the latter two. In 2015, he wrote the cover story "A World Without Work" about the future of jobs and technology. "Hit Makers," his first book on the secret histories of pop culture hits and the science of popularity, comes out in February 2017. He has appeared on Forbes' "30 Under 30" list and Time's "140 Best Twitter Feeds." He lives in Manhattan.