Philipp Staab is Professor of „Sociology of the Future of Work“ at Humboldt-Universität Berlin and at Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF). He studied sociology, political science and psychology at the universities of Kassel and Paris X, Nanterre. He received his PhD in sociology in 2013. As a researcher he has worked at the Hamburg Institute for Social Sciences, the Institute for the History and Future of Work as well as the chair „macrosociology“ (Heinz Bude) at the university of Kassel. Before taking the position at Humboldt University and ECDF, he was a substitute professor for technology studies at the university of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

As a sociologist he works on topics of technology, work, political economy and social inequality. In his research over the past few years, he focused on leading companies of the commercial internet such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Alibaba, and Tencent, as well as various startups. In 2019 he published the book „Digitaler Kapitalismus. Markt und Herrschaft in der Ökonomie der Unknappheit“ for which he won the Matthöfer Price for economic thinking (Wirtschaftspublizistik) in 2021. As a public sociologist, Philipp engages in many discussions beyond academia, for example as a co-organizer of Friedrich-Ebert-Foundations yearly conference on digital capitalism.