Jon Evans

Jon Evans

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weekend columnist since 2010. More posts by this contributor Our grimdark meathook cyberpunk now Living and working in a worsening world

Jon Evans is the CTO of the software consultancy HappyFunCorp, TechCrunch’s weekly opinion columnist, an award-winning and widely published novelist, a journalist who has traveled to more than 100 countries and reported from Iraq, Haiti, Colombia, and the Congo, a University of Waterloo electrical engineering alumnus, and the founding director of the GitHub Archive Program.

The Latest from Jon Evans

Our grimdark meathook cyberpunk now

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weeken

Living and working in a worsening world

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weeken

Why are people who cite videos always wrong?

I'm sure you've experienced it too. Some kind of discussion -- perhaps a dispute, perhaps just a friendly exchange of ideas -- arises online. People regurgitate what they know, or what they think they

Seven viral futures

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weeken

Let housing rise from the empty offices and malls

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weeken

Magic Leap’s $2.6 billion bait and switch

Intended or not — I assume it wasn't — Magic Leap became a $2.6 billion bait-and-switch, the consequences of which are now all too apparent.

How to make sense of the coronavirus chaos

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weeken

What do we do with the positives?

Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weeken

GrubHub/Seamless’s pandemic initiatives are predatory and exploitative, and it’s time to stop using them

Times are exceptionally hard, especially for local restaurants, which were always in a precarious business even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But when times are hard, people pull together, right?

Test and trace with Apple and Google

After the shutdown, the testing and tracing. “Trace, test and treat is the mantra … no lockdowns, no roadblocks and no restriction on movement” in South Korea. “To suppress and

Into and after the viral storm

The path forward now seems pretty clear. First we get through the grim month-and-more ahead, supporting health care workers in any way we can. (Tip: findthemasks.com lists where to donate PPE, persona

Our infected machine

We are handling the first real global crisis since the Cold War with staggering incompetence. People are already dying en masse. We all need to stay home and stay away from one another. If we wait unt

Burn the EARN IT Act

I want to talk about malignant incompetence on the part of our elected officials, and this isn’t even about the pandemic. Rather, it’s about the spectacularly misguided, counterproductive,

May we live in interesting times

It’s never a good sign when, in order to discuss the near future of technology, you first have to talk about epidemiology, but I’m afraid that’s where we’re at. A week ago I wr

What happens if a pandemic hits?

What happens if a COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic hits? What will the repercussions be if the virus spreads worldwide? How will it change how we live, work, socialize and travel? Don’t get all dis

DeFiance: billion-dollar finance, million-dollar hacks, and very little value

Over the last year or so, most of the cryptocurrency world has pivoted from the failure of “fat protocol” tokens and ICOs, and the faltering growth of “Layer 2” payments like L

The war against space hackers: how the JPL works to secure its missions from nation-state adversaries

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designs, builds and operates billion-dollar spacecraft. That makes it a target. What the infosec world calls Advanced Persistent Threats — meaning, general

Everyone loves the coronapocalypse

The 2019-nCoV coronavirus is a global public health emergency of significant concern. It is also, simultaneously, a fount of misinformation, wild conspiracy theories and both over and under-reactions.

Technology is anthropology

The interesting thing about the technology business is that, most of the time, it’s not the technology that matters. What matters is how people react to it, and what new social norms they form.

The marketplace of ideas is a weapons market now

The most interesting thing I saw online this week was Venkatesh Rao’s “Internet of Beefs” essay. I don’t agree with all of it. I’m not even sure I agree with most of it.
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