Rebecca MacKinnon is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative to advance principles of freedom of expression and privacy in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) […]

Would you be happier working for a company or being your own boss?

The quantity of knowledge contained by humanity increases by about five billion bits per second, yet our poor understanding of how information systems work could spell disaster. 

Some Darwinians, such as Francis Fukuyama, Larry Arnhart, Jonathan Haidt and the late James Q. Wilson, openly and proudly acknowledge that the results of their research point in a moderately […]

Paypal founder Peter Thiel discusses how to think beyond professional tracks to find success.

George Soros last Sunday blamed Angela Merkel for the euro crisis - and gave her three months to fix it. Speaking at the 7th Festival of Economics in Trento (Italy), […]

Google's effort to map every street in the world has given the company troves of data it can use to create self-driving cars. Today, innovation means extracting data in novel ways. 

As Facebook considers extending its membership circle to include pre-teens, one parent is resolved to keep her kids off the social network so they can establish friendships in the real world. 

Industry and government are pushing back against commercial Internet tracking, but most consumers don't mind the intrusion too much. In fact, many even appreciate the tracking. 

As machines like drones and automobiles become more independent of their human operators, they will increasingly face moral dilemmas. Will they know right from wrong? 

I got a call from a friend last year. He had prostate cancer and wanted some help thinking through what to do. He had gone to his doctors for the […]

Why is democracy so difficult? Could be because it demands that each of us accept, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz said to me way back when I wrote this, "that […]

The future of film is collaborative storytelling, says Tiffany Shlain, filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards.

What's the Big Idea? There are not only wrong answers -- there are also wrong questions, says Slavoj Žižek, philosopher and author of Big Think's most recent Book of the Month. And sometimes […]

Monique Leroux managed to get herself elected (yes, elected) as the first female CEO in the organization’s history.

People in positions of power need to be committed to increasing the representation of women on boards and in other leadership roles, or it won't happen, says Monique Leroux.

On December 17, 2009 the US carried out a missile strike against what it believed to be an al-Qaeda training camp in the south Yemeni governorate of Abyan.  Unfortunately, what […]

Silicon Valley’s wage gap and income inequality between men and women must surely rank among the worst in the country.

Reflecting on creating a start up while providing for a family of four, Eric Farkas has created a list of priorities that kept his business plans on track while honoring the more important things.   

Today, the crisis in Europe has gotten worse for some countries; the recent U.S. employment rates are disappointing; China is looking strong, but will that last for long?  Four years ago, countries were able to devise a plan to help prevent a global depression, so why not now?