Sheelah Kolhatkar

New York

Staff Writer at The New Yorker

Fellow at New America

Staff Writer at The New Yorker, Bestselling Author of BLACK EDGE, @NewAmerica fellow

Articles

What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain? | The …

Apr 1, 2024 | archive.is | Sam Knight |Keith Gessen |Rebecca Mead |Sheelah Kolhatkar

And so stupid things happened. Since 2010, forty-three per cent of the courts in England and Wales have closed. No one thinks that this was a good idea. For years, the Conservatives cut prison funding and staffing while encouraging longer jail times. “You kind of had a mismatch,” Gauke, who later served as the Justice Secretary, admitted.
Has Capitalism Been Replaced by “Technofeudalism”?

Mar 24, 2024 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

“I never planned to be a politician. Never. Not in my wildest nightmares,” the economist and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said the other day. He was fighting his way toward the exit at Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall, where he’d just spoken at a conference on sustainable development. A man blocked his path: “Five minutes, Professor?” He introduced himself as a U.N. employee. “I’m Italian,” he said.
The EB-5 program - The Rural Ski Slope Caught Up in an International Scam

Jan 31, 2024 | matr.net | Sheelah Kolhatkar

SBA 504 Loans offered statewide! Real estate and equipment, acquisitions, renovation, and new construction. Low, fixed-rates up to 25 years with as little as 10% down.
The Rural Ski Slope Caught Up in an International Scam

Jan 28, 2024 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

As the general manager of the Jay Peak ski resort, Bill Stenger rose most days around 6 A.M. and arrived at the slopes before seven. He’d check in with his head snowmaker and the ski-patrol staff, visit the two hotels on the property, and chat with the maintenance workers, the lift operators, the food-and-beverage manager, and the ski-school instructors—a kind of management through constant motion.
Revenge of the Luddites!

Oct 22, 2023 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

“I’m absolutely a Luddite,” the author and columnist Brian Merchant said the other day at an outdoor café in Brooklyn. He has long, brown hair and a goatee, and was wearing a plaid shirt over a T-shirt that read “The Luddites Were Right.” On the chair next to him sat an HP printer. Merchant feels that the original Luddites, early-nineteenth-century cloth-makers who raided British factories and destroyed the new machines that were replacing them, have been getting a bad rap lately.
The First Week of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Criminal Trial

Oct 8, 2023 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

A little less than a year ago, Bankman-Fried had been ascendant. Thanks to the successful cryptocurrency businesses he founded, he was estimated to be worth billions of dollars; he mused about one day buying Goldman Sachs. At the same time, as a vocal adherent of effective altruism, the quasi-utilitarian philanthropic movement, he pledged to give most of that money away.
The F.T.C. Finally Takes On Amazon

Oct 3, 2023 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

Khan’s argument against the dominance of the consumer-welfare standard rested on an analysis of the business practices of Amazon—which she called “the titan of twenty-first century commerce,” and which now, according to some estimates, controls about half of the U.S.’s online-shopping market. Despite the fact that Amazon offered low prices, she wrote, its dominance was still detrimental to the economy.
Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Family Bubble | The New Yorker

Sep 25, 2023 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

The young crypto billionaire was raised by law-school professors who specialized in ethics and fairness. Now that he stands accused of a historic act of fraud, all three of them are scrambling for legal escape routes, Sheelah Kolhatkar writes.
The Real Stakes of the Google Antitrust Trial

Sep 11, 2023 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

At the time, residential Wi-Fi connectivity was rapidly expanding across America, and, in the quaintly titled “browser wars,” Netscape Navigator, a popular browser released by Mosaic Communications Corporation in 1994, fought Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the growing class of Web-connected consumers. Microsoft, the D.O.J. alleged, had attempted to crush Netscape by making deals with Internet-service providers that prioritized Explorer access at Netscape users’ expense.
A Setback in the F.T.C.’s Fight Against Big Tech

Jul 26, 2023 | newyorker.com | Sheelah Kolhatkar

Throughout the proceedings, Khan seemed unperturbed. At times, she wore a tight facial expression that suggested she was trying not to smile. But the hearing comes at a challenging moment for Khan and her ambitious agenda for the F.T.C., which has launched a campaign to restrain the economic reach of tech giants—institutions, such as Meta and Amazon, that Khan and many other members of the Biden Administration believe harm the economy and threaten democracy.