Susan Rigetti

Susan Rigetti is an author, journalist, screenwriter, the editor of Future Tense at Slate, and a Professor of Practice in the Department of English at Arizona State University. She was formerly an editor at The New York Times and was the founding editor-in-chief of Increment Magazine. Her critically-acclaimed memoir Whistleblower was published in 2020 by Viking Press; her debut novel Cover Story was published in 2022 by William Morrow, and was named by TIME one of the must-read books of 2022; and she is also the author of Production-Ready Microservices, a book about software architecture and engineering. She has written for The New York Times, Slate, TIME, Vanity Fair, and more.

Before her career in journalism, Susan worked as a software engineer at various companies in Silicon Valley. She is widely known for publishing a blog post in 2017 documenting the harassment and discrimination she experienced while working as a software engineer at Uber. The New York Times called the movement that followed her piece “a watershed for women in tech,” as it drew attention to the systemic harassment and discrimination that plagued not only Uber but most of Silicon Valley, ultimately leading to the ousting and resignation of Uber’s CEO, as well as the resignation of many other CEOs and investors accused of harassment.

Susan has been named a “Person of the Year” by TIME, The Financial Times, and the Webby Awards, and has appeared on Fortune’s “40 Under 40” list, Vanity Fair’s New Establishment List, Marie Claire’s New Guard list, the Bloomberg 50, the Upstart 50, the Recode 100, and many more. She has been profiled in The New York Times, TIME, and many other publications.

She was raised in rural Arizona and studied philosophy at ASU. She graduated with degrees in physics and philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also worked on experimental high energy (particle) physics and was a member of the ATLAS Experiment. An obsessive life-long learner, she loves to spend her free time learning new things and taking classes (including at ASU, where she is currently studying art history, just for the fun of it). She lives with her husband Chad and their two children in Los Angeles, California.