Bobby Allyn
Bobby Allyn is a business reporter at NPR based in San Francisco. He covers technology and how Silicon Valley's largest companies are transforming how we live and reshaping society.
He came to San Francisco from Washington, where he focused on national breaking news and politics. Before that, he covered criminal justice at member station WHYY.
In that role, he focused on major corruption trials, law enforcement, and local criminal justice policy. He helped lead NPR's reporting of Bill Cosby's two criminal trials. He was a guest on Fresh Air after breaking a major story about the nation's first supervised injection site plan in Philadelphia. In between daily stories, he has worked on several investigative projects, including a story that exposed how the federal government was quietly hiring debt collection law firms to target the homes of student borrowers who had defaulted on their loans. Allyn also strayed from his beat to cover Philly parking disputes that divided in the city, the last meal at one of the city's last all-night diners, and a remembrance of the man who wrote the Mister Softee jingle on a xylophone in the basement of his Northeast Philly home.
At other points in life, Allyn has been a staff reporter at Nashville Public Radio and daily newspapers including The Oregonian in Portland and The Tennessean in Nashville. His work has also appeared in BuzzFeed News, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.
A native of Wilkes-Barre, a former mining town in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Allyn is the son of a machinist and a church organist. He's a dedicated bike commuter and long-distance runner. He is a graduate of American University in Washington.
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More than 600 Google workers have joined a union in a move that is a rarity in Silicon Valley. The group says it hopes to change both workplace culture and the company's role in society. -
The move is the most severe punishment any social media company has taken in response to Trump, who used online platforms to encourage the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on Wednesday. -
The order, which takes effect in 45 days, says the apps use "personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers" to "access and capture vast swaths of information from users." -
Microsoft previously said it was among thousands of companies that discovered malware on its systems. But now it is revealing the attack allowed hackers to access its closely guarded source code. -
The tech giant's researchers say the dismissal of renowned researcher Timnit Gebru has "had a demoralizing effect" on one of the most prestigious units in the company. -
Thousands of Airbnb hosts received an email invitation to buy company stock ahead of its initial public offer. Many, though, didn't take the email seriously. -
The short-tem rental company says it's actually seeing an increase in its business because people are less inclined to stay at hotels and are choosing to "work from any home" during the pandemic. -
Sundar Pichai addressed employees in an internal email after thousands of them publicly criticized the tech giant for pushing out a top artificial intelligence researcher. -
The state and federal officials say Facebook's acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram violated competition laws and served to stifle rivals by giving the social network an unfair advantage. -
The San Francisco startup has doubled its writers since the pandemic started. Some high-profile journalists have left full-time jobs at major publications to give it a go at the buzzy newsletter.
