Nadia Asparouhova

Trying to understand how people work. I try to engage in both theory and practice, which means I'm always cycling between writing to understand a topic, then finding ways to test those ideas in the "real world."

I'm currently researching what the new tech elite will look like, with a grant from Emergent Ventures.

Previously, I explored parasocial communities and reputation-based economies as an independent researcher at Protocol Labs. I put those ideas into practice by joining Substack as their second employee, focused on the writer experience.

I spent many years exploring the funding, governance, and social dynamics of open source software. I put those ideas into practice at GitHub, where I worked to improve the developer experience. I also published a book about open source developers, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software (Stripe Press).

If you're curious about this website's meta-ethos, check out this Q&A.

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(Note: I recently changed my last name; you can also find my work under Nadia Eghbal.)

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