David Kirkpatrick

Techonomy created conversations and content about the centrality of tech-based transformation to the world and to business. It was an aspirational series of events, articles, and videos. Techonomy's ethos was that business must unequivocally proceed with purpose towards improving everyone's lives, and that technology needs to be more willfully employed towards that end. After 12 years and over 30 major conferences, my final flagship Techonomy conference was November 2022 in Sonoma, California… Show more

Techonomy created conversations and content about the centrality of tech-based transformation to the world and to business. It was an aspirational series of events, articles, and videos. Techonomy's ethos was that business must unequivocally proceed with purpose towards improving everyone's lives, and that technology needs to be more willfully employed towards that end. After 12 years and over 30 major conferences, my final flagship Techonomy conference was November 2022 in Sonoma, California. I was proud to launch Techonomy Climate in 2022 in Silicon Valley, a conference that continues. We also hosted a meaningful conference called The Health+Wealth of Our Planet, during 2022 Climate Week in New York, at City Winery at Chelsea Piers. The company was sold to Jim McCann of 1-800-FLOWERS in 2018, and in 2023 it became a brand of Worth Magazine. Show less

In 2010 I co-founded the Techonomy Conference as an LLC, then in 2011 I founded it again as a corporation. Techonomy was a conference and media series that organized conferences including our annual flagship Techonomy Conference. and published extensive articles and video at www.techonomy.com on the role of technology in business and social progress. We hosted dinners and other events throughout the year, often with partners. We hosted flagship Techonomy retreats every year 2011-2019. For four… Show more

In 2010 I co-founded the Techonomy Conference as an LLC, then in 2011 I founded it again as a corporation. Techonomy was a conference and media series that organized conferences including our annual flagship Techonomy Conference. and published extensive articles and video at www.techonomy.com on the role of technology in business and social progress. We hosted dinners and other events throughout the year, often with partners. We hosted flagship Techonomy retreats every year 2011-2019. For four years we hosted one-day Techonomy Detroit conferences, and for five years Techonomy New York. We also did conferences called Techonomy Health, Techonomy Bio, and Techonomy Climate. Show less

Covered all the big tech companies, the rise of the Internet, and how technology intersected with other business for Fortune's print magazine, and in 2003 began writing a weekly online and email column entitled Fast Forward, the last years of which can be found at https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fastforward/index.html

Spearheaded the creation and programming of this invitation-only conference on the future for Fortune beginning in 2001. Our initial event debuted less than a month before 9/11, and many were struck that one of our closing speakers had predicted a serious terrorist attack on the United States--albeit in his opinion it would be a bio-terror attack. The conference, which was not a tech event but was founded on attendees who were mostly from the tech industry, continued with one year omitted… Show more

Spearheaded the creation and programming of this invitation-only conference on the future for Fortune beginning in 2001. Our initial event debuted less than a month before 9/11, and many were struck that one of our closing speakers had predicted a serious terrorist attack on the United States--albeit in his opinion it would be a bio-terror attack. The conference, which was not a tech event but was founded on attendees who were mostly from the tech industry, continued with one year omitted through summer 2006. Attendees included President Bill Clinton (three times), Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Bill Joy, Marc Benioff, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch, Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund, Meg Whitman, Scott Cook, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain, the foreign minister of Poland, and numerous other luminaries from business, tech, government, the sciences, and academia. Though the event was profitable, Fortune killed it finally, over my objections, in the belief that a more explicitly "tech" conference would serve the needs of the magazine better. Thus Fortune Brainstorm Tech was born. I helped launch that event originally in 2007 with the name Fortune iMeme, and it took the name it retains to this day beginning summer 2008 with the debut at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay. The creation of Brainstorm remains one of my proudest accomplishments. Show less

Covered technology exclusively since January 1991. Wrote cover stories on Apple, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and feature stories on many other companies and topics.

Did a lot of fact-checking, reporting for others' stories, and over time more and more writing. In those days this was an entry-level position in which there was little glory, but lots of work. It was a good laboratory for learning journalism, together with many of the best in the business. During this period I also wrote cover stories on topics like "Will You Be Able to Retire" (July 31, 1989) which was nominated that year for a National Magazine Award in feature writing. It was the magazine's… Show more

Did a lot of fact-checking, reporting for others' stories, and over time more and more writing. In those days this was an entry-level position in which there was little glory, but lots of work. It was a good laboratory for learning journalism, together with many of the best in the business. During this period I also wrote cover stories on topics like "Will You Be Able to Retire" (July 31, 1989) which was nominated that year for a National Magazine Award in feature writing. It was the magazine's only nomination that year. Yet I was still merely a reporter, who had not been able to be promoted largely because of my activism in the Newspaper Guild. But the absurdity of getting the magazine's only NMA nomination while still being a mere reporter finally led the editors to, perhaps grudgingly, promote me to writer. Show less