Hi, I’m Kevin. I’m a tech columnist and podcast host for The New York Times, and the author of three books.
My latest book, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, is a guide to surviving the technological future. I got worried a few years ago that I wasn’t ready for a world dominated by AI, automation, and mind-morphing algorithms. So I decided to do what reporters do: I interviewed experts, read a ton of books and papers, and went in search of answers. And I distilled my findings into 9 rules, all of which helped me (and I hope will help you) feel more confident about being happy and successful in a machine-filled future.
I’m also a host of two New York Times podcasts: “Hard Fork,” a weekly show with Casey Newton about the wild frontier of technology, and “Rabbit Hole,” an eight-part series about how the internet is influencing our beliefs and behavior.
My first job in journalism was a strange one: as a college student, I took a semester off and went undercover at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell’s hyper-conservative Christian school. The result was The Unlikely Disciple, a memoir of that strange and enlightening semester “abroad.”
Next, I joined The New York Times, followed by New York magazine, and wrote a second book: Young Money, which chronicled the lives of junior Wall Street bankers after the 2008 financial crisis.
Before rejoining The Times in 2017, I produced and co-hosted a TV documentary series about technology, called Real Future. I love reporting adventures, and the show allowed me to go on a bunch of them, from interviewing a revenge porn kingpin to volunteering to be hacked by a team of world-class hackers.
At The Times, I write about technology and its effects on society. Recently, that has meant a lot of coverage of companies like Facebook and YouTube, as well as profiles of internet personalities like PewDiePie, and social phenomena like online radicalization and workplace automation. But I’m interested in lots of things: phone addiction, scooters, TikTok. (You can read my entire NYT archive here; if you think you might have a story I’d want to cover, take a look at my Source FAQ.)
If you’re looking for a more official-sounding bio for conferences, podcast intros, etc., feel free to use this:
Kevin Roose is an award-winning technology columnist for The New York Times, and the bestselling author of three books: Futureproof, Young Money, and The Unlikely Disciple.
He is the co-host of “Hard Fork,” a New York Times podcast about technology and the future, as well as the host of “Rabbit Hole,” an 8-part audio series about internet culture. He writes and speaks regularly on many topics, including A.I., social media, and online extremism.
Before joining The Times, he was a writer at New York magazine, and a host and executive producer of "Real Future," a documentary TV series about technology and innovation.
He lives in the Bay Area.