Keynote - Dan Lyons

Dan Lyons (Forbes)

Other · Keynote

Tuesday, 09:00, 1 hour | Grand Ballroom FGHABC |

Dan Lyons

Will Google rule the world? Is Microsoft doomed? What’s Apple up to? In this talk, Dan Lyons expands upon the world of his satirical Apple-centric blog to answer these questions, and to examine the way that profound changes in technology continue to shape our lives, both at work and at home. He delivers a fresh approach to covering news from Silicon Valley, bringing the flair of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show to the staid world of business journalism. He also discusses how technology has rewritten the rules of the media business, drawing on his own history, from the world of magazines to the furious world of Internet publishing. It's a lively tale of disruption and survival, one that clearly illustrates how the media operates; it will also help companies explore new ways to manage communications in an increasingly digitized world.

In grand style, The New York Times finally outed Fake Steve Jobs: it’s Dan Lyons, the popular tech columnist at Forbes . At his blog, fakesteve.blogspot.com, Lyons has captured the Zeitgeist, from perhaps the one place it is clearest—the point of view of Steve Jobs. In the tradition of Jonathan Swift and The Onion, he uses a pitch-perfect satirical style to deliver trenchant social commentary, reflecting on everything from the Cult of Steve and the rise of Apple ("Dude, I invented the friggin' iPhone. Perhaps you've heard of it!") to the ubiquitous influence of the tech industry on our everyday lives.

In his new book, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, he writes an epic takedown of Silicon Valley, Hollywood and Washington, D.C., as viewed by a central character who exists, to his immense self-satisfaction, at the crossroads of all three worlds: "It's like in one of those movies where a guy realizes he's got telekinetic powers and it's just too bad if he doesn't want them, he's got them. Likewise, I have this gift. It's who I am."

Dan Lyons is a senior editor at Forbes. His articles have also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, and The Boston Globe, and he is the author of two previous novels, The Last Good Man and Dog Days. Lyons also taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Toledo.