Kevin Roose

Kevin Roose is an American author and journalist. He is the author of three books, and is a technology columnist and podcast host for The New York Times. He wrote a book about Liberty University, an evangelical Christian university known for strict rules imposed on students,^[2] and was included on the 2015 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.^[1]

Kevin Roose
Roose at South by Southwest 2019
Born	1987 or 1988 (age 37–38)[1]
Nationality	American
Education	Brown University
Occupation(s)	Writer, journalist
Notable credit	The New York Times
Website	www.kevinroose.com

Life and career

Roose is a graduate of Westtown School and Brown University.^[3] He worked as news director at Fusion.^[4][5]

In June 2017, he rejoined The New York Times.^[6] His column, "The Shift", focuses on the intersection of technology, business, and culture.^[7]

On March 24, 2021, Roose published a column in The New York Times announcing an auction for the column itself to be distributed as an NFT, or non-fungible token, with proceeds going to The New York Times's Neediest Cases Fund.^[8] The column sold the following day for $560,000.^[9][10] Immediately after the sale, Roose commented on Twitter, "I'm just staring at my screen laughing uncontrollably".^[11]

Kevin was given early access to Bing's ChatGPT-based chatbot and encountered a second personality of the chatbot named "Sydney".^[12] He has also written about his experiences with "vibe coding" to generate software without writing code.^[13]

Writing

Roose wrote The Unlikely Disciple while undercover at Liberty University, aiming to explore the culture of life at a fundamentalist evangelical university.^[14] Roose, raised in a secular and liberal environment, wanted to better understand conservative Christian culture.^[15]

Roose's second book, Young Money, follows the beginning of the career of eight financial analysts on Wall Street. It focuses on the difficult and strenuous work environments and what makes the financial industry different after the 2008 financial crisis.^[16]

Roose's third book, Futureproof: 9 Rules in the Age of Automation, examines how people and organisations can survive in the machine age. To survive, he believes in the need "to focus on the more human skills that machines can't replace."^[17]

Roose and three of his New York Times colleagues earned the 2018 Gerald Loeb Award for Breaking News for the story "Ouster at Uber."^[18]

Other work

Roose is the host of Rabbit Hole, an eight-part podcast from The New York Times "examining how the internet is changing us",^[19] and the cohost of The New York Times podcast "Hard Fork" with co-host Casey Newton.^[20]

Media appearances

Roose appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on February 27, 2014, to discuss Young Money.^[21]