About Tim

Tim Carmody was born in Detroit and lives in Philadelphia with his wife Karen McGrane. He has written about technology and culture all over the web since 2004 on his personal blog, but more seriously beginning in 2008, when he started writing at Snarkmarket with Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. He graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in mathematics and philosophy, and in 2009, received a PhD in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010, he began writing for Wired's Gadget Lab and Epicenter blog and guest-blogging for Kottke.org. In 2012, he joined The Verge as a senior reporter and features writer. In 2014, he joined Medium's showcase vertical The Message, and wrote about advertising, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality for Adweek in 2018. He began writing the Amazon Chronicles in 2019 on Substack, moving the site to Revue in 2021 and Ghost in 2022. He's both a user and a critic of Amazon, but mostly is trying to understand the company's impact on the world — its users, its customers, its workers, its communities —and especially on the broader fields of tech, media, commerce, and the workplace.