Coolest Folks I Discovered in 2022

In an order with no pattern, these are some brilliant people I discovered this year. Highly recommend going down the rabbit holes.

• Chris Arnade: the man who walks and blogs. Great insight, powerful yet easy writing style.

• James Somers: one of the best writers I have discovered in the last several years.

• Derek Thompson: incredibly clear writer and thinker. Great interviewer, check out his podcast.

• Emily Oster: Great writing about parenting, children, education and more. Data driven, which I like!

• Gary Marcus: disagreeable and very enjoyable AI writer.

• Robin Hanson: sprawling curiosity, well aimed.

• Kat Rosenfield: not afraid to be yelled at, writing about important topics.

• Ted Gioia: amazing writer, great taste in music and all things culture.

• Craig Mod: wrote one of my favorite essays of the year. Check it out.

• Maciej Cegłowski: just poke around his site, fascinating portals.

• Austin Vernon: incredible site where he writes deeply about technology and science.

• Amjad Masad: amazing founder of one of the most essential pieces of software I discovered in 2022, Replit.

• Suhail: awesome founder of Mighty and now going all in on AI.

• Molly Mielke: I’ve loved every one of the pieces of writing from Molly that I read in 2022.

• Alec Stapp + Caleb Watney: founded the Institute of Progress and have become a kind of moth light for cool people doing important things.

• Tony Fadell: one of the most fun podcast guests I have ever listened to. Basically the lead inventor of the iPod.

• Lee Cronin: doing weird cool things with computers and chemistry, and possibly something even weirder and bigger via Assembly Theory.

• Agnes Callard: asks wonderful questions and answers them very well!

• Sid Sijbrandij: Smart founder of GitLab, all in on asynchronous remote work.

• Dana Gioia: information billionaire, a joy to listen to.

• Stephanie Murray: wonderful writer I found via the Atlantic, investigating important cultural questions with precision.