Derek Thompson

I’m a writer, podcaster, and author. Abundance, the book I wrote with Ezra Klein, is a #1 New York Times bestseller on American politics and liberalism. After 17 years as a staff writer at The Atlantic, I left to start my own thing here on Substack in the summer of 2025. (I’m still a contributing writer at the magazine.) I’m the founder and host of the “Plain English”podcast with the Ringer Podcast Network. My previous books are Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction (2017), a national bestseller on the psychology of pop culture, and Derek Thompson On Work (2023), an anthology of my essays on the past and future of labor and technology. I live in Washington, D.C., with my wife, daughter, and dog Albie.