Noam Scheiber
I cover workers for the NY Times. New Book: "Mutiny, the Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class." us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610814…
- Apropos of today's big layoff announcement at Amazon, I have a piece about why tech workers at Amazon and other big companies continue to challenge their employers even as the companies aggressively cut jobs. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
- Great review today of Jason Zengerle's essential new book on Tucker Carlson www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/b...
- Seems like a consequential appointment by Mamdani www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/n...
- "Now it’s up to me to design some prophylaxis against any such future efforts.” An email from a manager at Snohetta, a prominent architecture firm accused by the NLRB of laying off 8 employees in retaliation for trying to unionize www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/b...
- The firm said that “All decisions regarding the work force reduction were driven by business considerations that started long before the unionization effort.”
- Some news: One of the country's highest-profile architecture firms, Snohetta, has been accused by the NLRB of ousting eight workers in retaliation for union organizing. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/b...
- In a discussion of the union campaign not long before the layoffs, a senior manager wrote in an email: “Now it’s up to me to design some prophylaxis against any such future efforts.”
- The firm said that “All decisions regarding the work force reduction were driven by business considerations that started long before the unionization effort.”
- One thing that would improve a lot of people's quality of life: an all-you-can-eat option for Substack. Or even a micro-payment option where you can just pay by the article. At any given time there are probably 15-20 Substacks I want to read, but I'm not going to pay for 15-20 subscriptions.
- Behold, the new RFK stadium complex. I have fond memories of going to the old RFK in the early 2000s. This version gives off some Empire Strikes Back vibes but still look forward to seeing it in person www.commanders.com/news/washing...
- Even if Trump persuades American oil companies to invest tens of billions in Venezuela, it's not clear how much that will help long-term. Venezuela and the oil companies tried that approach in the 1990s and it gave them ... Hugo Chavez www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/b...
- You often hear that Americans don't want to do back-breaking jobs like roofing. Ronda Kaysen and Rob Gebeloff have a great piece explaining how the jobs actually became lousy and low-paying first, *then* Americans no longer wanted to do them. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/u...
- Since 2022, tech companies have laid off hundreds of thousands of people and many tech execs have embraced the ruthless management style of Elon Musk. Yet tech workers keep picking fights with their bosses, including a recent strike at Kickstarter. Here's why www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
- I asked my publisher’s R&D dept to come up with alternative uses for my forthcoming book, and this was their best idea
- Over the past few years, tech companies have laid off hundreds of thousands while many tech executives have embraced the ruthless management style of CEOs like Elon Musk. Yet tech workers keep standing up to their bosses. What gives? I try to explain here www.nytimes.com/2025/12/26/b...
- A key development is that many in the tech industry now see themselves as regular workers, not co-owners or sought-after professionals or future executives and founders.
- Very interesting piece from @timothynoah.bsky.social on why so many House Republicans voted to restore federal workers' bargaining rights. Worth keeping an eye on how it plays out in the Senate newrepublic.com/article/2045...
- "Meta built the data center, but Blue Owl was on the hook for 80% of the financing. Meta agreed to 'rent' the data center from Beignet with a series of 4-year leases, allowing it to categorize the funding as operating cost, not debt." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/t...
- "Blue Owl primarily funded the project through a bond offering from Pimco, an asset management firm. Pimco sold the so-called 'Beignet bonds,' which mature in 2049, to its clients that include insurers, pension funds, endowments, financial advisers, BlackRock."
- Starbucks settles with NYC over violations of the city's fair scheduling law. Presumably the deal wasn't going to get better for Sbux under the administration of Zohran Mamdani, who has joined striking Starbucks union members on their picket lines www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/n...
- An alarming new data point in the return-to-office debate: Remote work seems to be raising unemployment for recent college grads www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/b...
- Interesting story from David Streitfeld about a writer whose critique of Silicon Valley came a few decades too early but is now landing www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
- Great conversation today on @kqedforum.bsky.social with @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social, Aki Ito and Alisia Gill about what's going on with white-collar layoffs www.kqed.org/forum/201010...
- Very interesting episode of the Decoder podcast, drilling down on the mechanics of circular AI-industry financing and what it looks bubble-like www.theverge.com/podcast/8196...
- One example: Chip-maker A invests money in Chip-buyer B. Chip-buyer B levers up on that money, and uses the borrowed money to buy chips from Chip-maker A.
- So Chip-maker A has turned a relatively small amount of its own money into a relatively large amount of demand for its own chips.
- From Tom Edsall www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/o...
- "Mamdani built an insurgency within the Dem Party primary electorate first by mobilizing traditionally quiescent young voters--many of whom have found that their B.A.s do not guarantee a good job or any job at all--and then drawing in nonwhite voters and more of the college-educated middle class."
- "In sharp contrast to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton & Biden, the Mamdani campaign was an intraparty insurrection seeking to displace what a dysfunctional and failed old guard. This semi-revolutionary element gave the Mamdani campaign its moral legitimacy: the reform of a moribund institution."
- “They are making $120,000, $140,000 a year, and that’s not enough to live an upper-middle-class life in New York at all. And that’s the Mamdani voter.” Great piece from Eliza Shapiro, with a nice assist from Jonathan Mahler. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/n...
- It's not that AI isn't coming for your job at some point. But the big shift toward automation of white-collar work is probably going to play out at small companies that grow into big ones, rather than at big established companies. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/b...
- Worth keeping an eye on congressional retirements after last night's results. Dems had a pretty high number of retirements in the months after the 2021 elections. (Normally a problem, though obviously didn't end up costing them much in the 2022 midterms). www.npr.org/2021/12/09/1...
- Great piece by @jbjudis.bsky.social on Zohran Mamdani's worldview and how it's the natural next step in the evolution of US socialism that began several decades ago. www.notus.org/perspectives...
- I have a profile up today of the transparency activist and Tesla skeptic Aaron Greenspan, who's unearthed lots of evidence undercutting Musk's claims about the company. This is what it’s like to devote yourself to taking on Musk and Tesla www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/b...
- Some actual NBA news www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...
- I'm working on a return-to-office story focused on people under 30. Would love to hear from anyone who fits that profile. Feel free to weigh in here: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/b...
- I'm working on a return-to-office story focused on people under 30. Would love to hear from anyone who fits that profile. Feel free to weigh in here: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/b...
- CA Gov Gavin Newsom signed a law today giving Uber and Lyft drivers the right to unionize: nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b... But they're still considered contractors not employees.
- “There was a string of layoffs ... We see how everything is abused, the risk to the overall system. How if this continues there’s a real chance that people who are born in America won’t be able to get jobs.” Tech workers on why the H-1B issue blew up now. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...
- Relatedly, @alecmac.bsky.social wrote a very good piece a few months back on a topic I touch on, which is the Potemkin job ads companies run when they're trying to secure a green card for a worker and are supposed to try to find a U.S. worker first.
- There is a real epidemic in this country of people telling you they're sending you an email from their desk. If you're sending an email, can we just assume there's a decent chance it came from your desk and skip that part?
- "The Magnificent Seven big tech companies—Alphabet, Amazon.com, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla—recently made up about 37% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, the highest share on record." www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...
- Well, kinda depends who you ask but I hear what you're saying. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/t...
- To understand why Democrats feel pressure to energize their base and not compromise to avoid a shut down, consider how weak their support is among Dem voters. A recent Gallup poll found only 73% of Dems have a favorable view of their party, vs 21% unfavorable. news.gallup.com/poll/692978/...
- By contrast, around this time in the previous cycle, Sept. 2023, 93% of Dems had a favorable view of their party vs 7% unfavorable. news.gallup.com/poll/511979/...
- And Republican views of the GOP remain strong. 91% favorable versus 8% unfavorable.
- Why are so many business leaders caving to Donald Trump? Because of the collapse of "the establishment," which had many good consequences and at least one dubious one: corporate America is no longer very good at collective action. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/b...
- "Through the 1960s, corporate lobbying was a collective enterprise--a large majority happened thru trade associations, not lobbyists that companies hired directly. That had flipped a generation later. By 1998, companies spent 63% of their lobbying money on their own lobbyists."
- "Since the overall number of [H1B] applications could drop drastically, Amazon, Google and other big companies may find that their bids have less competition than they used to." Great piece on the data behind H1Bs and the likely effects of Trump's changes. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
- A decade ago about 20% of the long-term unemployed were college grads. Today it's about 1/3. And the long-term unemployment rate for college grads has been rising pretty quickly the last two years. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/b...
