Biography
Dan Lyons is a journalist and author best known for his sharp critiques of Silicon Valley. He’s been called the Tom Wolfe of tech, and “the Jonathan Swift for our own digital age.”
His 2016 memoir, Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble, an account of being a fifty-something worker at a startup, was both a hilarious romp and a stunning exposé. It became an instant New York Times best-seller and has been translated into a dozen languages. The Los Angeles Times called Disrupted “the best book about Silicon Valley today.”
Dan’s new book, Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us, picks up where Disrupted left off. Today, he’s the expert on the culture of work and how it’s changing business and lives.
Dan was a screenwriter and producer on HBO’s hit comedy series, Silicon Valley. He also has been a columnist at Fortune, the technology editor at Newsweek, and a reporter at Forbes. He created The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, an anonymous blog that terrorized Silicon Valley and attracted millions of readers during its three-year run.
Dan follows emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics. He has appeared as a guest on Al Jazeera, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, Bloomberg TV, Fox Business News and National Public Radio, and has written for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Vanity Fair, Wired and the New Yorker.
In addition to his work as a journalist, Dan has published three works of fiction. His satirical novel, Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, was published in 2007 to critical acclaim. His previous books are Dog Days, a novel, and The Last Good Man, a story collection.
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 FAMILY FEELING: WHAT DOES A HEALTHY CULTURE LOOK LIKE?
The past decade has produced an explosion in billion-dollar “unicorns.” These new companies have brought tremendous innovation but also a great deal of dysfunction, especially in the way they treat employees. An industry that prides itself on being progressive has in many ways moved backward, eroding a century of progress in worker rights. Bro culture, bias, and stress have become hallmarks of this new workplace. The collateral damage includes growing income inequality and anger at the voting booth around the world.
But the age of unicorns is drawing to a close, and the world is ready for a reset. The next generation of startup founders will start fresh and build a different kind of company, with new values and priorities. In this talk, Dan Lyons lays out a vision for how startups can make the world a better place by starting with their own employees, and presents examples of people who are working to create this reality.
WHY START-UPS WIN
Across every industry, from retail to media to finance, incumbent market leaders face the threat of disruption and are racing to reinvent themselves. Many are looking to Silicon Valley for inspiration. In this talk, Dan shares the perspective of a tech industry veteran who spent two years working inside a fast-growing startup “unicorn” as a kind of “corporate anthropologist,” and explains the key things that make these organizations nimble, flexible and able to achieve rapid growth.
How do startups foster innovation? What is a “conversational culture”? How do startups use social media, externally and internally? How can an established company change its culture without wrecking the things that made it successful in the first place? Which perks really matter? What do Millennials really want? How do we manage a multi-generational workforce? Do we really have to get a foosball table? Really?
Dan’s talk draws on case studies as well as his own experience. He blends self-deprecating humor with insight about how the workplace is changing and how the right culture creates a healthy, agile, competitive, and sustainable organization.
STORY TELLING FOR CONTENT MARKETING
From myths, fables, and fairy tales that are thousands of years old to classic Hollywood movies and timeless classic novels — there’s a reason why great stories endure and why they move us in such a powerful way. That’s also why great storytelling can be the key to building a brand and connecting with customers. Content marketing has become wildly popular in the corporate world, more than doubling in size in the past six years. In this talk, Dan Lyons — best-selling author, Hollywood screenwriter, and marketing guru — explains how to do it right.
How can you can harness the power of storytelling to boost your business? What are the elements of a great story? How do you spot one? And how do you tell it? In an entertaining, laugh-out-loud presentation loaded with real examples of great corporate storytelling, Dan answers these questions and more. He’s also available to run half-day or full-day storytelling workshops with your employees.
WHO NEEDS PEOPLE? HOW AI WILL TRANSFORM OUR WORLD
Imagine having an AI program that tells you which candidates to hire, or which employees to fire, or even an AI-based “iCEO” that can run a company better than Jack Welch, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos put together. Imagine an AI program that can sift through genomic data to save the life of a newborn baby who suffers from a disease so rare that doctors can’t diagnose the problem. Such programs already exist and are being used today.
In this talk, Dan Lyons — former Technology Editor at Newsweek, best-selling author, and modern workplace culture guru — draws on research from his latest book, “Lab Rats,” covers the good and bad aspects of AI, and explains how breakthroughs in AI and robotics will soon transform every aspect of our lives. How can organizations harness the power of these cutting-edge technologies? How many jobs will be lost, and which ones? How can employees avoid (or stay ahead of) the destruction? What will it be like to work alongside (and even take orders from) artificial intelligence?
Some anticipate a dystopian world where humans become unnecessary. Dan argues that in a world powered by artificial intelligence, humans might become more valuable than ever. One highlight of the talk is the story of Dr. Paul McDonagh, a researcher in Cambridge, Mass., whose AI software has been saving lives of newborn babies. (You might shed a few tears when you hear the story.) This is a talk loaded with concrete, real-life examples, a dose of humor, and an ultimately optimistic, hopeful message about the future.
