“Speaker, futurist, technologist, entrepreneur, publisher of Gigaom. Author of “Infinite Progress” and the upcoming “Fourth Age”.”
An accomplished high-tech trailblazer, author, inventor, entrepreneur, and eternal optimist, Byron Reese delivers audiences and readers an infectious sense of possibility and wonder. Byron employs his perspective as a historian, futurist, and technologist to illuminate how the technology of today can solve some of our most daunting global challenges.
“The new challenge for humanity will not be how to chip away at the old problems,” says Byron, “but what to do in a world where we can do anything.” His first book, “Infinite Progress: How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War” has been called “a prophetic book,” “an essential road map,” and “an antidote to the harmful gloom and moralizing that pervades most discussions of the future.”
Referring to his time as Chief Innovation Officer at Demand Media, Bloomberg Businessweek credits Byron with having “quietly pioneered a new breed of media company.” Wired Magazine described him as “a tall Texan who … created the idea-spawning algorithm that lies at the heart of Demand’s process.” The Financial Times of London reported that he “is typical of the new wave of internet entrepreneurs out to turn the economics of the media industry on its head.” And Business Insider concluded that Byron “seems like a kooky – and awesome guy … We’d love to buy him a beer.”
Byron started his first business as an undergraduate at Rice University. He later founded and sold two companies: Hot Data, ultimately to Pitney Bowes; and PageWise to Demand Media. Byron currently is the publisher and CEO of Gigaom, a technology research and analysis firm helping business leaders understand the implications of emerging technologies and their impacts on business, media, and society.