Adam Thierer

Adam Thierer a senior FIRE fellow and a resident senior fellow with the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute in Washington, D.C. Since 1991, he has covered the policy implications of the digital revolution and published books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, media regulation, and federalism. His most recent books include Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom (2016), and Evasive Entrepreneurs and the Future of Governance: How Innovation Improves Economies and Governments (2020).

Before joining the R Street Institute in 2022, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He also served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation and previously worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute. He testifies regularly before Congress and state legislatures on online speech and innovation policy issues.

Adam has served on several blue-ribbon online safety commissions including the Harvard University Internet Safety Technical Task Force and the congressionally created Online Safety Technology Working Group, where he served as chair of the subcommittee on parental controls technologies. In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.” Adam has a master’s degree in international business management and a bachelor’s degree with a double major in political science and journalism.

Recent writings

• “AI and Technologies of Freedom in the Age of “Weaponized” Government,” R Street Analysis, Feb. 8, 2026.
• “How state AI regulations threaten innovation, free speech, and knowledge creation,” The Eternally Radical Idea, April 3, 2025 (with Dean Ball & Greg Lukianoff).
• “Defending Technological Dynamism & the Freedom to Innovate in the Age of AI,” University of Texas at Austin Civitas Institute, Dynamism Outlook, June 4, 2025.
• “The New Information Control,” R Street Analysis, Sept. 3, 2024. (with Jonathan Cannon)
• Testimony on “The Telecommunications Act of 1996: 30 Years Later,” before the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, Committee on Energy and Commerce, March 26, 2026.
• “It’s Time for Congress To End the FCC’s Escalating War on Free Speech,” R Street Analysis, March 18, 2026. (with Spence Purnell)
• “‘Humanism’ and Ethics in the Age of AI: Why the Relentless Negativity?” Substack, Dec. 1, 2025.
• “Winning the AI Future: Why America Should Double Down on the Freedom to Innovate,” R Street Institute In the News, Aug. 28, 2025.
• “Trump’s ‘Woke AI’ Efforts Should Focus on the Real Problem,” R Street Analysis, Aug. 1, 2025. (with Spence Purnell)
• “The Policy Origins of the Digital Revolution & the Continuing Case for the Freedom to Innovate,” R Street Real Solutions, Aug. 15, 2024.
• Testimony on “AI at a Crossroads: A Nationwide Strategy or Californication?” before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet, Sept. 18, 2025.