Robert X Cringely

Biography

Mark Stephens was born in 1953, in Apple Creek, Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster in Ohio in 1975 and a Master's degree in Communication from Stanford University in 1979, where he also pursued work toward a doctorate. He has claimed he was employee #12 at Apple, Inc., though Daniel Kottke also claims this number.

Stephens was the third author to contribute to Infoworld under the Cringely pseudonym, the first two being Rory J. O'Connor and then Laurie Flynn. The original column, the first computer "gossip" column, was started by Mark Garetz and called According to Garetz; it was later taken over by John Dvorak. During Stephens' lengthy tenure (1987–1995), the character of Cringely changed dramatically (morphing from a private eye type to a slick, womanizing tech insider) and became an increasingly popular tech pundit after he published the book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can't Get a Date (1992, ISBN 0-88730-855-4).

After a financial disagreement in 1995, Stephens was dismissed from Infoworld and was promptly sued by IDG to prevent him from continuing to use the Cringely trademark. A settlement was reached out of court that allowed him to use the name, so long as he did not contribute to competing technology magazines.

Consequently, Stephens' writing as Robert X. Cringely regularly appears in publications such as Forbes, Newsweek, Success, The New York Times, Upside, and Worth. Stephens has also appeared as Cringely in two documentaries based on his writings: Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996) and Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet (1998) and in a three-part documentary on PBS called Plane Crazy, in which he attempted to build an aircraft in 30 days and fly it when completed. As Cringely, Stephens produced and hosted an Internet television show called NerdTV (2005–06) for PBS and, until late 2008, wrote an online column for the PBS website called I, Cringely: The Pulpit. On November 14, 2008, Stephens announced that he would stop contributing columns to PBS as of that December 15. He indicated that the move was his own decision "and not that of PBS, which has been nothing but good to me these many years". He also blogged for the Technology Evangelist site during 2007.

Today, his writings can be found at his own I, Cringely site and at Adam Smith's Money World. InfoWorld.com continues to publish the "Robert X. Cringely" Notes From the Field column as a blog, written by technology journalist Daniel Tynan.

Personal life

Stephens and his wife, Mary Alyce, have three sons, as of Christmas 2009: Channing, Cole, and Fallon. They moved from Charleston, South Carolina to Santa Rosa, California around the end of July 2011.

On July 5, 2017, Stephens announced that he was effectively blind due to cataracts. Although he suggested that his eyesight would be restored in 10 days, as of August 14, 2017, he claimed he was still blind.

Stanford

In 1998, it was revealed that Stephens had falsely claimed to have received a Ph.D. from Stanford University and to have been employed as a professor there. Stanford's administration stated that while Stephens had been a teaching assistant and had pursued course work toward a doctoral degree, he had never held a professorship nor had he been awarded the degree. Stephens then stated that while he had received a master's degree from the department of Communications and completed the classes and tests required for the Ph.D., he acknowledged that he failed to complete his dissertation. Asked about the resulting controversy, Stephens told a reporter: "[A] new fact has now become painfully clear to me: you don't say you have the Ph.D. unless you really have the Ph.D."

Kickstarter

Beginning on September 29, 2015, Stephens and his three sons ran a Kickstarter project to produce the Mineserver, a $99 custom Minecraft server. The funding period ran until October 21, 2015 with a goal of raising $15,000. Stephens, as Cringely, promoted the project on his popular I, Cringely blog and it raised more than double its goal, reaching $35,452 coming from 388 backers. The Mineservers were reportedly ready to ship, once parts were ordered and assembled, but a series of delays meant the devices were not shipped in time for Christmas and in fact, as of June 2, 2017 (More than a year and a half from the date the project was funded and more than six months since the last Kickstarter update), backers were still waiting for their rewards and promised updates. On May 22, 2017, Stephens published an update on his personal blog claiming that he had run out of money and had decided to turn the project into a startup. As of 2 June 2017 This update was not posted to the Kickstarter project page.