Curated playlist
American technology writers
- Eberhard ReesWernher von Braun personally chose Eberhard Rees to lead the Marshall Space Flight Center.
- Vernor VingeWhat happens when machines get smarter than the people who built them? Vernor Vinge kept asking.
- Bill GatesBill Gates and Paul Allen wrote software for a computer they did not have. Their Altair demo worked the first time.
- Eric SchmidtEric Schmidt ran Google while taking a base salary of just $1 a year. That pay lasted from 2004 through 2010.
- Nick SzaboIn 1998, Nick Szabo designed a digital currency called bit gold. It was never built but is called a Bitcoin precursor.
- Andrew NgA neural network taught itself to recognize cats from YouTube videos. Andrew Ng cofounded Google Brain.
- Ray KurzweilRay Kurzweil's team built a machine that read printed pages aloud for blind people. It was unveiled in January 1976.
- Donald KnuthDonald Knuth, an American computer scientist born in 1938, pays $2.56 to anyone who finds a mistake in one of his books. The number is deliberate. As he explains it, 256 pennies make one hexadecimal dollar. A smaller reward of $0.32 goes…
- David M. EwaltIn 2009, David M. Ewalt co-created the first Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People.
- Wernher von BraunWernher von Braun's V-2 rocket cost more lives to build than it took as a weapon.
- Virgil GriffithThe U.S. State Department denied Virgil Griffith the validation he needed to visit North Korea.
- Lewis MumfordLewis Mumford argued the clock, not the steam engine, drove the Industrial Revolution. He never finished college.
- Mark CubanIn 2002, Mark Cuban told the world that the NBA's manager of officials, Ed T. Rush, "wouldn't be able to manage a Dairy Queen." The restaurant chain took offense. Its management answered with an invitation to prove the point. Cuban…