[1] Rivlin grew up in North Woodmere, New York, and graduated from George W. Hewlett High School and Northwestern University.
[1][2] His second book, Drive By, was published in 1995 while he worked for the East Bay Express, where he served as a staff writer and then executive editor.
"[2] Rivlin then wrote two books about technology, The Plot to Get Bill Gates and The Godfather of Silicon Valley.
[4] In 2010, he published Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc. — How the Working Poor Became Big Business, which The New Yorker's James Surowiecki described as a "blistering new investigation of the subprime economy.
"[1] In it, Rivlin explored how payday lenders, pawn shops, and check cashers exploit the impoverished in the United States.