Dave Merrill

Stay informed with Dave Merrill’s coverage and analysis for Fortune.

Firefighter and helicopter fight LA wildfire

Useless high-voltage power lines risk sparking California fires

By Mark Chediak, Dave Merrill, and others

In this aerial photo, a parcel of land recently purchased by Flannery Associates is seen from above near Rio Vista, California on September 15, 2023. A stealth campaign by Silicon Valley elites with a dream of turning a swath of California farmland into a new age city has ranchers who live here challenging their tactics as well as their motives. The project first surfaced when a mysterious buyer started gobbling up parcels of land in this rural outback between San Francisco and Sacramento. The buyer, first revealed by the New York Times in August, turned out to be a secretive outfit called Flannery Associates. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Silicon Valley billionaires are done buying land for their planned tech utopia after spending $800 million and starting a legal war

By Nadia Lopez, Dave Merrill, and others