Hi folks, Matt here and this week bringing you something different.

The Atlantic has a brand new show and today you'll hear the first episode.

It's called Crazy Genius and it's hosted by the Atlantic Staff writer Derek

Thompson.

Over eight episodes, Derek will talk to a host of fascinating leaders in different fields,

all to answer eight bold questions about how technology is changing the world.

I'll be back next week with my esteemed co-hosts for a Rolicking Radio-Atlantic conversation.

For now, enjoy Crazy Genius, and if you like it it make sure to subscribe.

Where does the story of Facebook start?

A lot of people might say 2012, the month that became a public corporation. Others might say 2004, the year Mark Zuckerberg

launched the first version of his site at Harvard. But I want to start the story a little farther

back.

There is a really critical moment in the 1830s.

This is Tim Wu.

I'm a professor at Columbia University

and author of the attention merchants.

The story he told me starts in 1833, New York City,

with an ambitious young publisher named Benjamin Day.

He wanted to start a newspaper.

So he founded a paper called the New York Sun.

Newspapers in the 1830s were an elite product.

At the time that meant they sold for all of six cents.

...