On academia, how open source works, code as a public good, and journalism.
Nadia Eghbal is trying to understand how people work. She’s a writer and researcher interested in infrastructure, governance, and the economics of the internet. Her latest book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, is about open source developers and what they tell us about the evolution of our online social spaces.
Nadia interviewed hundreds of developers while working to improve their experience at GitHub, and argues that open source code is a form of public infrastructure. It requires maintenance, and that offers us a model through which to understand the challenges faced by online creators on all platforms.
She’s now deep in research mode, exploring a new topic about philanthropy and the 2010s tech wealth boom.
She spent the last few years trying to understand parasocial communities and reputation-based economies, which she first explored as an independent researcher at Protocol Labs. Those ideas were put into practice when she joined Substack, where she worked until recently.