Wait But Why

Last updated
Wait But Why
Available inEnglish, Chinese
EditorTim Urban
URL waitbutwhy.com
Launched2013;11 years ago (2013)
Current statusOnline

Wait But Why (WBW) is a website founded by Tim Urban and Andrew Finn and written and illustrated by Urban. The site covers a range of subjects as a long-form blog. [1] Typical posts involve long-form discussions of various topics, including artificial intelligence, outer space, and procrastination, using a combination of prose and rough illustrations. [2] [3] [4]

On May 21, 2014, Urban posted "The Fermi Paradox", a post that became extremely popular. [5] [6] A 2016 Ted Talk by Urban on procrastination, based on concepts from the blog, had garnered over 70 million views by March 2024. [7] A post on the blog about Elon Musk and Neuralink was produced with involvement from Musk himself. [8]

In 2019, Marie Boran of The Irish Times summarized the website as a collection of "lengthy, thoughtful and well-written blog posts", praising them for being an "accessible and entertaining primer on human nature". [9]

In 2023, Urban published What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies, analyzing what Urban sees as the major problems with politics as a whole. The book was endorsed by Elon Musk on Twitter. [10]

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References

  1. Davis, Noah (30 October 2014). "How Do You Make a Living, Email Newsletter Writer?". Pacific Standard . Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  2. Roberts, David (27 August 2015). "Tech nerds are smart. But they can't seem to get their heads around politics". Vox. Vox Media . Retrieved 4 September 2016.
  3. Grothaus, Michael (5 March 2015). "The Secrets Of Writing Smart, Long-form Articles That Go Absolutely Viral". Fast Company . Retrieved 22 December 2015.
  4. Eyal, Nir (10 August 2021). "The Behavioral Economics Diet: The Science of Killing a Bad Habit". Psychology Today . Retrieved 16 August 2021.
  5. "The Fermi Paradox - Wait But Why". Wait But Why. 2014-05-21. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  6. Klein, Ezra (2020-02-10). ""We're in the climax of a movie": Tim Urban on humanity's wild future". Vox. Retrieved 2020-04-25.
  7. Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator | TED , retrieved 2023-03-01
  8. Welsh, Caitlin (17 July 2019). "Elon Musk claims robot surgeon will sew electrodes into human brains in 2020". Mashable . Retrieved 16 October 2021.
  9. Boran, Marie (17 September 2019). "Weblog: Wait But Why offers long and thought-provoking reads". The Irish Times . Retrieved 16 October 2021.
  10. Quiggle, Jeffrey. "Elon Musk Just Gave This Book a Glowing Endorsement". TheStreet . Retrieved October 31, 2023.