The Future of Publishing: A festival in New York City

Infinite Books and Interintellect invite you to a unique conversation on the future of publishing and reading, editing and writing. Talks and panels with Coleman Hughes, Renee DiResta, Jim O’Shaughnessy, Kyla Scanlon, Shadi Hamid, Tina He, Sahil Lavingia, Tara Isabella Burton, and many more!

April 13, 2024, New York City
Pratt Mansion, Marymount School of New York
2:30 pm to 7 pm

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Interintellect Member Tickets

As a thank you to our Interintellect Members and Hosts, we are offering exclusive deals for Interintellect’s first ever LIVE festival.

If you’re an ii Subscriber or Super : click below for a member ticket with discount! Save over $60!

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What if we brought together heads of tech platforms, old and established publishing houses, founders and authors, journalists and academics to investigate the new tools, new audiences, and overall future of publishing? Join us for our inaugural The Future of Publishing festival — for conversation, connection, and cocktails!

As publishing and the press forged new industries in the 20th century and the internet and new writing technologies transformed those models in the 21st century, one point of continuity through these and earlier eras is people consuming information.

We decided to bring together…

• established publishing houses seeking to reach new audiences
• technologists who are building new platforms
• authors experimenting with new possibilities in forms such as community building and AI

Let’s open up new perspectives, new collaborations, and lay the foundations for a better publishing landscape!

Join us for a unique experience in the heart of New York City, or around the world via livestream for Interintellect community members.

Schedule

2:30 PM – 3:00 PM – Mingling

3:30 PM – 4:30 PM – Talks and Panels

4:30 PM – 5:00 PM – Coffee Break

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM – Talks and Panels

6:00 PM – 7:00 PM – Cocktail Hour

The Future of Publishing Speakers

*All speakers are subject to change. 

Speaker Bios

Block 1: Panel (3 pm – 4:30 pm) 

The Reader of Tomorrow

Tara Isabella Burton is an author and theologian. She received her doctorate in theology from Oxford University and is a Visiting Fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. She is the author of multiple books, including the forthcoming novel “Here in Avalon” & “Self-Made: Curating Our Image from Da Vinci to the Karshshians”. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Washington Post, & The Wall Street Journal. 

Jennifer Banks is the Senior Executive Editor for Religion and the Humanities at Yale University Press. As an editor, she has edited many New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, & MacArthur’s Genius Grant award-winning authors. She is the author of “Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth”, an exploration of the philosophical, political, and spiritual dimensions of birth. 

Nathan Baschez is the Founder and CEO of Lex, a collaborative word processor with powerful AI editing tools. Previously, Nathan co-founded Every, was the first employee at Substack, and led product at Gimlet Media. Lex is a collaborative word processor with powerful AI editing tools built-in, used by hundreds of thousands of writers worldwide for everything from brainstorming and research to editing and proofreading. The creative tools we use inevitably shape our creative output, therefore Lex’s goal is to build the ultimate writing tool for professionals that matches their demand for excellence.

Renee DiResta is the technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching, and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies. Renee researches the spread of narratives across social and media networks, with an interest in understanding how platform algorithms and affordances intersect with user behavior and factional crowd dynamics. Her writing has been featured by The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, and The Economist

Independent Publishers 

Jimmy Soni is an author and former managing editor of The Huffington Post. His writing explores everything from ancient history to modern companies, and covers stories of innovation, endurance, curiosity, and creativity. He is the author of four books: The Founders, A Mind at Play, Jane’s Carousel, and Rome’s Last Citizen. 

Eric Jorgenson is CEO of Scribe Media, a professional publishing company that helps entrepreneurs, executives, and experts write, publish, and market impeccable books. He is also the author of three books: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, The Anthology of Balaji, and the forthcoming The Book of Elon Musk.

Saeah Lee Wood is the founder and creative director of Oterpine, a full service indie author support agency, where she specializes in helping people publish and distribute their books independently. In past lives, Saeah has been a marine engineer, writer, photographer, editor, officer in the Navy, researcher, and content marketer, but her life-long love for books has ultimately brought her to helping people publish their books. 

Jesse Finkelstein is the co-founder and Principal of Page Two, an innovative publishing firm that helps authors, business leaders, subject-matter experts, and organizations, publish game-changing books. Prior to co-founding Page Two, she held several management roles at publishing houses including D&M Publishers and Raincoast Books. 

Pixels vs Paper

Dylan O’Sullivan is a writer and Media Specialist at O’Shaughnessy Ventures. He has a Master’s Degree in New Media and Digital Culture from University of Amsterdam. His writing has been published in magazines such as The Spectator and Areo, and is the creator of Essayful, a Substack dedicated to becoming a “new home for writing”. 

Shadi Hamid is an author and political scientist, who is currently a columnist and member of the Editorial Board at The Washington Post. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books including The Problem of Democracy, an exploration of the nature of democracy and how to fix it. He is also the co-founder of Wisdom of Crowds, a newsletter with the mission of exploring the most difficult political and social problems of our time in a space that encourages disagreement and healthy debates. 

Bria Sandford is the Editorial Director of Sentinel and an Executive Editor with Portfolio, both imprints of Penguin Random House. In these two roles, she acquires and edits a wide range of commercial non-fiction. Since starting out with Penguin Random House in 2012, Bria has edited fifteen New York Times bestsellers. 

Tamara Winter is the Commissioning Editor at Stripe Press and a board member at the Institute for Progress. Previously, she was head of strategy at the Charter Cities Institute & as a program associate for the Study of American Capitalism at the Mercatus Center. She is also the host of “Beneath the Surface”, a Strip Press podcast about infrastructure. 

Block 1 Speaker’s Lounge (3 pm – 4:30 pm)

Niko McCarty is a founding editor at Asimov Press, a publishing venture focused on biotechnology. He is also the co-founder of Ideas Matter, a writing fellowship for scientists, and a Curriculum Specialist at MIT where he is helping develop an undergraduate curriculum in genetic engineering. 

Dr. Alice Albrecht is the CEO and founder of re:collect a tool for augmenting human intelligence by enabling knowledge creators to access and connect their ideas. She is a seasoned entrepreneur and data professional with experience building products, leading teams, and advising startups, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profits on how to grow their data and machine learning (AI) capabilities. She holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Yale and completed her post-doctoral work at UC Berkeley. She also actively advises companies in the neurotech space and is dedicated to mentoring rising scientists, data professionals, and entrepreneurs from underrepresented and underserved groups.

Andrew McLuhan directs The McLuhan Institute, an organization dedicated to preserving and carrying forward the McLuhan tradition of exploring and understanding the nature and effects of technologies. Andrew writes the McLuhan Newsletter, a publication that aims to provide access to McLuhan work in culture and technology

Lisa Wehden is the CEO & Co-founder of Plymouth, an organization advancing technological and scientific progress by supporting the world’s top talent with faster, more straightforward immigration services. Since launching in 2022, Plymouth has helped hundreds of individuals across artificial intelligence, climate technology, and healthcare. Previously, Lisa worked as an investor at Bloomberg Beta, a venture capital firm with $375M AUM. At Bloomberg Beta, Lisa created an evening course on ethics, public policy, and technological change with Stanford University. Her work on technology and ethics has been featured in TechCrunch. Before moving to San Francisco, Lisa launched Entrepreneur First’s Berlin office and studied at the University of Oxford, where she was elected President of the Oxford Union.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a data scientist, New York Times bestselling author, and sought-after keynote speaker. Seth received his PhD in economics from Harvard, and has worked as a data scientist, a visiting lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a consultant for top companies. His latest book, “Don’t Trust Your Gut”, explores how people can use data to achieve their life goals and in his 2017 book, “Everybody Lies”, Seth uses data to explore questions related to who we are and the state of society. 

Eugene Wei is a writer and technologist. Eugene has led product at companies such as Amazon, Hulu, Flipboard, & Oculus. His popular blog, Remains of the Day, explores the intersection between media and technology.

Block 2 Panel: The Future of Publishing (5 pm – 6 pm) 

Tina He is a writer, designer, and entrepreneur exploring new cultural and economic possibilities enabled by markets, networks and technologies at the frontier. She is the co-founder and CEO of Station Labs, a company that creates infrastructure for decentralized networks and communities. She was previously an investor at Pace Capital and NEA. 

Coleman Hughes is a writer, podcaster, and musician. Coleman has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, & Quillette, on topics related to the intersection of race and politics. His book, “The End of Race Politics: Arguments or a Colorblind America”, explores the current paradigms of race relations in Western politics and argues for a color-blind approach and a return to the ideals of the American Civil Rights movement.

Sahil Lavingia is the founder and CEO of Gumroad, an e-commerce platform that allows creators to sell products directly to their audience, as well as an active investor and writer. He is the author of “The Minimalist Entrepreneur”, a roadmap for entrepreneurs who would rather build great businesses than big ones, based on his experience of building Gumroad into a sustainable company that solves meaningful problems for creators.

Kyla Scanlon is a writer, video creator, and podcaster, who is focused on educating the world on the economy and macro-economic issues while using a human-focused lens. Kyla has written for the New York Times, New York Magazine, and Bloomberg Opinion, and has spoken at universities including MIT and UC Berkeley. In her upcoming book, “In This Economy?”, she uses her witty illustrations and creative analogies to explain how it is that money and markets really work.

Block 2 Speaker’s Lounge (5 pm – 6 pm) 

Brian Gallagher is an associate editor at Nautilus, a science and culture magazine. He writes and edits feature stories, and produces Nautilus’ newsletter, which goes out to over 130,000 subscribers. He also used to manage communications at Ethical Systems, a non-profit housed at NYU that aims to merge systems thinking, psychology, and economics to improve the ethical functioning of organizations. He studied philosophy at UC Santa Barbara and journalism at Columbia University. He lives in Berkeley, CA, with is wife, two children, and one dog

Susannah Black Roberts is a Senior Editor of Plough and has written for publications including First Things, Fare Forward, Front Porch Republic, Mere Orthodoxy, and The American Conservative. She is the editor, with Anne Snyder, of the forthcoming book “Breaking Ground: Charting Our Future in a Pandemic Year”

Nick Whitaker is the founder and editor of Works in Progress, an online magazine now part of Stripe. Works in Progress publishes new and underrated ideas to improve the world. His writing and research focuses on AI policy and coffee science, among other things. In the past, Nick has been a teacher for Progress Studies for Young Scholars and is an Emergent Ventures grant recipient.

Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist and assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. His work explores the political economy of the knowledge professions. His first book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite will be published by Princeton University Press on October 8.

Anna Gát is the founder and CEO of Interintellect, a global community of thinkers dedicated to hosting the most important conversations on the internet. Anna has years of experience as an accomplished writer, journalist, editor, translator, screenwriter, and playwright. Anna founded Interintellect in 2016 with the goal of creating a new public square, one that lives on the internet but facilitates a real-world exploration of the world’s most important problems. Anna is an Emergent Ventures grant winner. 

Jim O’Shaughnessy is an investor and venture capitalist, currently serving as the CEO of O’Shaughnessy Ventures.

Michael Graham Richard – known as “Liberty” – is a writer, editor, and Director of Infinite Media at O’Shaughnessy Ventures. In addition to his role at O’Shaughnessy Ventures, Liberty writes the “Liberty’s Highlights” newsletter, where he explores topics related to business, investing, science, technology, and the arts. 

This event will be recorded and photographed.