Discover the Best Books Written by John Markoff

John Markoff joined The New York Times in March 1988 as a reporter for the business section. He now writes for the science section from San Francisco. Prior to joining the Times, he worked for The San Francisco Examiner from 1985 to 1988. 

Markoff has written about technology and science since 1977. He covered technology and the defense industry for the Pacific News Service in San Francisco from 1977 to 1981; he was a reporter at Infoworld from 1981 to 1983; he was the West Coast editor for Byte Magazine from 1984 to 1985, and wrote a column on personal computers for The San Jose Mercury from 1983 to 1985.

He has also been a lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley School of Journalism, and an adjunct faculty member of the Stanford Graduate Program on Journalism. The Times nominated John Markoff for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995, 1998, and 2000. The San Francisco Examiner nominated him for a Pulitzer in 1987. 

In 2005, with a group of Times reporters, John received the Loeb Award for business journalism. In 2007 he shared the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Breaking News award. In 2013 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting as part of a New York Times project on labor and automation.

In 2007 John became a member of the International Media Council at the World Economic Forum. Also, in 2007, he was named a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, the organization’s highest honor. In June of 2010, the New York Times presented him with the Nathaniel Nash Award, which is given annually for foreign and business reporting.

Born in Oakland, California, on October 29, 1949, John Markoff grew up in Palo Alto, California, and graduated from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, in 1971. He attended graduate school at the University of Oregon and received a master's degree in sociology in 1976.

Markoff is the co-author of The High Cost of High Tech, published in 1985 by Harper & Row. More recently, he wrote Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier with Katie Hafner, which was published in 1991 by Simon & Schuster. 

In January of 1996, Hyperion published Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America’s Most Wanted Computer Outlaw, which he co-authored with Tsutomu Shimomura. What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry was published in 2005 by Viking Books. Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest For Common Ground Between Humans and Robots, by HarperCollins Ecco, will be published in August 2015. He is married and lives in San Francisco.