Nitasha Tiku

San Francisco

Tech culture reporter based in San Francisco

Education: Columbia University, BA in English; New York University, MA in Journalism

Nitasha Tiku is The Washington Post's tech culture reporter based in San Francisco. Before joining The Post in 2019, Tiku had a decade of experience helping readers understand how Silicon Valley thinks and operates. Most recently, she was a senior writer for WIRED, where she wrote a magazine cover story about turmoil inside Google during the Trump administration based on interviews with dozens of current and former employees. Tiku has also worked as a staff writer at BuzzFeed News, the Verge, Valleywag, NYmag.com and other places.
Latest from Nitasha Tiku

OpenAI hits pause on video model Sora after artists leak access in protest

OpenAI shut down its highly anticipated video generation service Sora, after artists invited to test its capabilities staged a protest that allowed anyone to use it.

November 26, 2024

Silicon Valley eyes a windfall from Trump’s plans to gut regulation

Some tech start-ups and investors anticipate a golden era when Donald Trump returns to office, thanks to government contracts and deregulation.

November 14, 2024
Observers watch as workers prepare SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster in April 2023.

Silicon Valley protested Trump in 2016. Now it wants to work with him.

Tech executives were upbeat about Donald Trump’s win this week, after an industrywide shift toward more pragmatic politics.

November 11, 2024
People watch Donald Trump speak on television on election night in San Francisco.

More than 10,500 actors, musicians and authors protest tech’s AI data grab

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, actress Julianne Moore and novelist Kazuo Ishiguro joined creatives protesting use of their work to train algorithms without consent.

October 22, 2024
Julianne Moore, Thom Yorke and Kazuo Ishiguro are among the more than 10,500 stars and creative professionals who signed an open letter condemning unauthorized use of content for AI development.

Inside the Harris campaign’s blitz to win back Silicon Valley

Key members of Kamala Harris’s inner circle are deploying across the country for fundraisers, private meetings and meals as part of an aggressive charm offensive to win back the support of the tech industry leaders who say they felt burned by President Joe Biden.

October 20, 2024
Democrats in San Francisco rally at city hall for Kamala Harris in July after President Joe Biden ended his bid for reelection.

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton awarded Nobel Prize in physics

One laureate recognized for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning warns of “possible bad consequences” of artificial intelligence.

October 8, 2024
The winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, are announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on Tuesday.

Inside the bro-ification of Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg has remade his image from a dorky, democracy-destroying CEO into a cool, athletic AI visionary in the eyes of Silicon Valley tech founders.

October 4, 2024

OpenAI gets $6.6 billion in new funding, valuing company at $157 billion

The maker of ChatGPT announced it received $6.6 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $157 billion — one of the most valuable start-ups ever.

October 2, 2024
Sam Altman, chief executive of ChatGPT's parent company, OpenAI.

OpenAI funding and restructuring plans renew pressure on AI’s top start-up

The ChatGPT maker is raising funding that would value the company at $150 billion but also dealing with executive exits and considering a major restructuring.

September 29, 2024

OpenAI hit by staff exits as it seeks to restructure and raise new funds

Chief technology officer Mira Murati and two research leaders announced their departures Wednesday. The company is exploring a new structure that could help raise new funding.

September 26, 2024
Mira Murati, right, and Sam Altman during the Wall Street Journal's conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., on Oct. 17.