Biography
Dan Lyons is an author, journalist, satirist, and screenwriter whose credits include two seasons working on HBO’s hit comedy, Silicon Valley. Recently, Dan partnered with Onda Entertainment in Los Angeles to produce a screenplay based on his book, Disrupted. That book tells the story of Dan’s hilariously catastrophic 18-month stint at a software startup run by millennials.
Dan spent 10 years at Forbes, then was tech editor of Newsweek, a columnist at Fortune, and an op-ed writer for the New York Times. As a satirist Dan became known in the late 2000s as the creator of a blog called The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, where he wrote under the pen name, “Fake Steve Jobs.” At its peak this incredibly silly blog drew 1.5 million readers a month, and led to someone calling Dan “the Mark Twain of Silicon Valley,” and “a Jonathan Swift for our own digital age.”
Dan has spoken at dozens of conferences and events around the world. He has a B.A. from Bradford College and an M.F.A. from University of Michigan.
Speech Topics
The Future of Work: Unlocking Human Potential
The future of work is all about flexibility, but the shift to new models is creating headaches and confusion for organizations. Is remote work really better? How do we do it? Dan Lyons explains—with concrete, actionable ideas—how companies can use remote work to gain competitive advantage and unlock human potential. Dan has spent the past decade writing about the tech-driven workplace and even embedding himself inside tech companies to gain a first-hand perspective. He thinks remote work could be as disruptive and impactful as the Internet itself.
Much of this talk is derived from research for his new book (Spring 2023) with some of the cutting edge people involved in remote work, with people who run companies that have been remote since the beginning. He’s also conferenced with “digital nomads” and interviewed government officials in the Canary Islands(!) who are competing to get remote workers. And if that’s not enough, Dan has worked as a contractor and consultant for 2 tech companies to get an experience of what it’s like for an actual employee to be a remote worker. One of those companies? Twitter.
Dan’s best-selling book, Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble, became a Silicon Valley classic by blending a laugh-out-loud personal story with influential insights that have helped companies create happy, productive workplace cultures. Dan has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, NPR and the BBC. In addition to authoring six books, Dan has consulted with tech companies, written for HBO’s hit comedy series, “Silicon Valley,” and led technology coverage for Newsweek. His energetic, story-driven, takeaway-laden presentations get rave reviews.
5G and AI: Promise and Peril
What is machine learning, how does it work, and how is it changing our lives? Is the combination of machine learning and 5G mobile telephony a danger or a blessing? Will new technologies lead to dangerous geopolitical upheaval or to marvelous new apps that make our lives immeasurably better? The answer is both. Tech journalist, author and research consultant Dan Lyons explains the promise and peril of two new technologies whose impact will be greater than the Internet itself, and why you should care.
Techlash: How Tech Tools Destroy Productivity, and Why Even Some Tech Companies Have Started Banning Them
Here’s the dirty little secret that technology companies don’t want you to know: technology tools don’t make companies more efficient, but instead destroy productivity. Tech companies know this and that’s why some have been banning certain tools, like Slack and shared calendars, and restoring sanity to the workplace.
New York Times best-selling author Dan Lyons writes about the backlash against technology — aka, the “techlash” — as well as the new economy workplace in two books, Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, and Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us. In the age of the Internet, Silicon Valley startups believed they could boost productivity by building tech-centric, “data-driven” workplaces, where algorithms were king. Instead the new compact has led to workaholism, burnout, stress and unhappiness among workers. Worst of all, it doesn’t work: these startups operate at light speed but never manage to become profitable. That has led to a “techlash,” a backlash against Silicon Valley companies and their business model. In Lab Rats, Lyons traveled corporate America and discovered a counter-revolution led by a new generation of startup CEOs. These pioneers are doing something really strange and counter-intuitive — they’re ripping technology out of their workplace, having come to believe that these tech tools don’t make workers more efficient and in fact have been destroying productivity. Instead, they’re focusing on people, and building human-centric workplaces. It’s working. They’ve boosted productivity and are delivering real profits, building sustainable companies with healthy, happy employees. When it comes to using technology in the workplace, people are starting to realize that less is more.
