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Derek Thompson
Staff writer at The Atlantic, Host of “Plain English” podcast
Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about economics and the media. He is a regular contributor to NPR’s Here and Now and appears frequently on television, including CBS and MSNBC.
He is also the host of the podcast Plain English and the author of the national bestselling book Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction, which has been translated into a dozen languages.
Thompson was named to both Inc. magazine and Forbes‘ 30 Under 30 lists. He lives in New York City.
4 min
Are you cool or are you crazy? How sociologists define healthy rebellion
Is coolness wearing a leather jacket and slicking your hair back? Or is it "a measured rebellion" within established boundaries? One big thinker tells us that being "cool" is sort of like a cult, at least from a sociological standpoint.
4 min
Decoding popularity: Why successful people don’t try appealing to everyone’s tastes
History is littered with thousands of things that tried to appeal to everyone and yet failed miserably. If you want true success, try to appeal to a core group.
9 min
Why you believe lies the more often you hear them
Here's why your brain’s biases are a win for fake news, and a pay day for Facebook.
7 min
The science of successful things: Star Wars, Steve Jobs, and Google’s epic fail
So, how do you make something popular? Simple! You just update something old. This applies to storytelling, design, and even tech gadgets.