My first column as editor in chief of WIRED ran in issue 21.03, exactly four years ago. I didn’t train as a writer, but I’ve found real creative pleasure in these issue notes—though the actual words never come as easily as I (or my editor) wish they might. This is the hardest one yet, because it’s my last.
WIRED is a place designed to find the future, and my final issue is all about the future of what we do here every day: the news. We set out, as always, to avoid navel-gazing clichés and instead to understand what’s actually going to change in light of 2017’s new challenges and dangers. You’re going to read important thinking—Gabriel Snyder on the technology that drives The New York Times, Samanth Subramanian on the Macedonian trolls who propagate fake news, and Andy Greenberg on how Edward Snowden is protecting journalists and sources. The world continues to change, and WIRED continues to cover that change even as it plays a part in it.
I have never not marveled at the sheer journalistic talent and raw human genius assembled at this place, which, 25 years after its founding, is a Silicon Valley institution—older than most of the companies and many of the people we cover. I started at WIRED as creative director in 2006, left to run digital strategy for our parent company, Condé Nast, in 2010, and came back 24 months later as editor in chief. But the truth is, I fell in love with WIRED early on, from afar. When you’re a sci-fi nerd with design and engineering aspirations, it’s hard not to be swept up in talk of planetary-scale computing and autonomous flying robots.
For me, this job has been the all-consuming, always-on, little-sleep kind, and I’ve loved it. When we were at our best—interviewing a fugitive Snowden in a Moscow hotel room, attempting to make sense of three days of violence captured on social media last summer, or passing the WIRED mic to a president of the United States—we looked around corners and saw futures that were amazing and optimistic.
That’s why this farewell isn’t really a goodbye. Sure, I’m changing my address, moving a few blocks down the road here in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. I’m partnering with my friend Patrick Godfrey to join the ranks of the startups WIRED has so thoughtfully covered these past two and a half decades. My new firm will be dedicated to helping leaders and companies use strategy, exceptional design, and captivating stories to thrive in a world of constant transformation—a WIRED world.
I always hoped to leave WIRED better and stronger than it was when I arrived. I think I have, even though the subjects we cover, and journalism itself, are experiencing radical economic and philosophical trauma. WIRED will continue to fulfill its mission, and I hope you’ll make the new editor, Nicholas Thompson, as welcome as you’ve made me as he continues this critical work.
Nick’s lucky—he’s joining a team of the smartest editors, writers, designers, creatives, and thinkers on the planet. They made my years here the most professionally and personally rewarding of my life. I will miss it dearly. It may indeed be true that the future is already here, but even if it’s unevenly distributed, there’s a disproportionate amount of the stuff in the WIRED office. I’m taking a little of it with me; the rest stays with you.
This article appears in the March 2017 issue. Subscribe now.
