Wait But Why

Wait But Why (WBW) is a website founded by Tim Urban and Andrew Finn and written and illustrated by Urban. The site covers a range of subjects as a long-form blog. Typical posts involve long-form discussions of various topics, including artificial intelligence, outer space, and procrastination, using a combination of prose and rough illustrations.
History.
Early in the site's history, it focused on social media and funny quips about technology such as "7 Ways to Be Insufferable on Facebook" and "11 Awkward Things About Email", but over time Urban focused on deeper, more data-driven topics. On May 21, 2014, Urban posted "The Fermi Paradox," a post that became extremely popular.
The site's original slogan was "New post every Monday and Thursday". As post lengths increased and the content became more detailed only weekly updates were possible, and the slogan became "New post every Tuesday" at first, "New post every Tuesday(ish)" later, and "New post every sometimes" since 2015.
With the new focus on science and technology, "Wait But Why" gained the attention of Elon Musk, which led to the series of posts on Musk. In June 2015, Elon Musk asked Urban if he would be willing to write about his companies and their surrounding industries, leading to a four-part series of Wait But Why posts on Musk and his companies. Urban interviewed Musk multiple times, and the two discussed sustainable transport, solar energy, and the future of space exploration. On April 20, 2017, Urban posted the first deep look at Musk's transhumanist brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, after Musk had asked Urban to write an explanatory article about a month and a half before.
Content has been syndicated on "The Huffington Post", "Lifehacker", as well as being referenced on other sites.
In February 2016, Urban gave a TED talk on procrastination, which was the fifth most viewed TED main stage talk as of March 2021.
Creators' backgrounds.
Tim Urban (not to be confused with singer / actor Tim Urban) was born in 1981 and grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. from Harvard University, graduating cum laude with a major in Government, and prior to starting Wait But Why he worked at tutoring nearly every academic subject, as well as preparing students for the SAT, SAT Subject Tests, ACT, GRE and ISEE tests. Before establishing Wait But Why, Urban dabbled in blogging on blogspot with a blog called Underneath the Turban (Turban being a play on T. Urban's name).
Andrew Finn graduated with high distinction from University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and is an occasional guest speaker at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business.
Wait But Why was not the first project Urban and Finn started together. In 2007 they developed another project called ArborBridge which had the purpose of preparing students for US college admissions and helping them attain better grades.