About Documentation Required
DR provides weekly reporting and analysis of specific elements of broad topics like Work, Democracy, Money, Space, Media, and more, along with coverage about which members of the broligarchy are reaching their grubby little fingers into our shared cookie jar. That will usually mean stories that delve into techno-capitalism and its discontents.
Documentation Required readers can expect to be enlightened, surprised, and often enraged - but in the good way. The overarching goal of this newsletter, however, is to help readers use that clarity to take the right action. In an era when the wrong action could cost you a relationship, a retirement plan, or even a career, DR exists for the non-techie reader who suspects something is wrong, and deserves to know not only how and why, but also what to do about it.
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About Brian
Brian Culp is an author, journalist, and tech writer who has written professionally for 20 years. Originally from Kansas City, he now lives and works in Silicon Valley. (He still holds very strong opinions about BBQ.)
During his 7 years (and counting) in Silicon Valley, he has documented the inner workings of electric vehicle startups, municipal governments, and global corporations. His published works include Electric Cars For Dummies (Wiley), Windows Vista Administration (O’Reilly), and online courses taken by more than 250,000 students.
Most recently, he is the author of the forthcoming book Lies My Tech Bro Told Me.
During his time in the Bay Area, Brian has closely observed the industry’s most celebrated ideas, and began asking questions that few seemed interested in answering, namely, why so much money and attention gets directed at ideas that solve nothing, while urgent problems with ready solutions seem to go unfunded. His book, and this newsletter, was the result of a search for those answers.
A long time ago, he was a mediocre baseball player, first at Kansas State, and then in the minor leagues of the Colorado Rockies. His wife is a software engineer, and the two of them discuss tech and its impact probably more than is healthy.
He has two dogs who look tough but are not. Please don’t tell anyone.
AI Policy
Zero, zilch, nada. 100% human-created. If we ever want you to read chatbot output, we’ll just send you the prompt. Saves everyone a step.
