David Kirkpatrick (author)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Kirkpatrick | |
|---|---|
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| Born | January 14, 1953 |
| Alma mater | Amherst College |
| Occupation(s) | journalist, technology writer |
David Kirkpatrick (born January 14, 1953) is a technology journalist, author, and organizer of technology-oriented conferences.[1]
He is the author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World.[2] Published in 2010, Kirkpatrick's book chronicles the history of the company since its inception in 2004 and documents Facebook's global impact.[3]
Formerly Senior Editor of Internet and Technology at Fortune magazine, Kirkpatrick was until the end of 2022 the editor-in-chief of Techonomy Media Inc., a tech-focused conference company which he founded in 2011.[1][4]
Kirkpatrick graduated from Amherst College in 1975 with a degree in English, and also studied painting at the New York Studio School for Drawing, Painting and Sculpture for two years.[1] He began his career with Time Inc. in 1978 as a copy clerk while working as a video artist. (A video artwork he co-produced was exhibited in New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1978). In 1983, he started at Fortune magazine as a reporter, becoming a writer in 1989, and then began writing exclusively about technology in January 1991.[5] From 2002-2008, he wrote a weekly tech column called "Fast Forward."[1][6] Kirkpatrick also developed and hosted Fortune's Brainstorm conference, an annual gathering in Aspen, Colorado, which began in August 2001. Brainstorm attendees during the conference's 5 years included President Bill Clinton (who attended and spoke at the conference three times), Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, Senator John McCain, FBI Director Robert Mueller, ecologists Paul Ehrlich and Amory Lovins, Under-Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and venture capitalist John Doerr.[7]
Kirkpatrick has written profiles of Jack Dorsey and Sean Parker in Vanity Fair, and writes articles about technology and society for Forbes magazine.[8][9] He is regularly ranked one of the world's top technology journalists, and has been a member of the World Economic Forum's International Media Council, consisting of 100 global media leaders, since 2006, as well as a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.[1][10]
The Facebook Effect
After meeting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in September 2006, Kirkpatrick began writing frequently about Facebook in Fortune.[1][11][12] In January 2008 Zuckerberg agreed to cooperate on a book about the company. Kirkpatrick left Fortune in August that year to begin work on the book, which was published in June 2010.[13] The New York Times best-selling book is the only profile on which Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg have officially cooperated, and is a best-seller in countries including Taiwan, Japan, and China. It has been published in 32 languages, including Vietnamese, Croatian, and Catalan.
