Ed Zitron

{{Short description|English technology writer and public relations specialist}}

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| name = Ed Zitron

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| birth_name = Edward Benjamin Zitron

| birth_date = {{Birth based on age as of date|38|2025|03|10|slash=1}}

| birth_place = England

| education = Aberystwyth University

| occupation = {{hlist|Technology writer|public relations specialist}}

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Edward Benjamin Zitron (born {{Birth based on age as of date|38|2025|03|10|noage=1}}) is an English technology writer, podcaster, and public relations specialist. He is a critic of the technology industry, particularly of artificial intelligence companies and the 2020s AI boom. He hosts the Better Offline podcast, and writes the Where's Your Ed At newsletter.

Career

Zitron began his career as a journalist, writing for a London-based video games magazine. He later worked for PC Zone until around 2008, during which time he also began working in public relations.{{Cite interview |last=Zitron |first=Ed |interviewer=Zach Schonfeld |title=A Conversation With the World's Most Self-Loathing PR Person |url=https://www.newsweek.com/why-pr-industry-conversation-ed-zitron-295589 |access-date=March 26, 2025 |work=Newsweek |date=December 30, 2014}} He later worked for a New York City-based public relations firm and served as communications director for a company called Hometalk.com.{{Cite web |last=Strauss |first=Karsten |date=August 30, 2013 |title='Reporters Hate PR People, And They Should' |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/08/30/reporters-hate-pr-people-and-they-should/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Forbes |language=en}} In 2013, he founded the public relations agency EZPR, where he is the CEO.{{Cite web |last=Zitron |first=Ed |date=July 29, 2021 |title=Why Managers Fear a Remote-Work Future |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/work-from-home-benefits/619597/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}} In the following years, he published two books about public relations.{{Cite web |last=Zitron |first=Ed |date=June 22, 2015 |title=A Brit plays the tech PR game in America |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/22/ed-zitron-tech-pr-england-london-new-york-san-francisco/29127855/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=USA Today |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Bort |first=Julie |last2=Kosoff |first2=Maya |date=September 11, 2014 |title=The 50 Best Public Relations People In The Tech Industry In 2014 |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/the-pr-50-2014-9#no-7-ed-zitron-ez-pr-444 |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Business Insider |language=en-US}}{{Cite news |last=Peleg |first=Oren |date=March 10, 2025 |title=Can Artificial Intelligence Stir-Fry? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/03/17/can-artificial-intelligence-stir-fry |access-date=March 26, 2025 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}} He has also been a critic of the PR industry.{{Cite web |last=Schonfeld |first=Zach |date=December 30, 2014 |title=The World's Most Self-Loathing PR Person |url=https://www.newsweek.com/why-pr-industry-conversation-ed-zitron-295589 |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Newsweek |language=en}}

Zitron began writing a newsletter about the tech industry in 2020, titled Where's Your Ed At, which had more than 50,000 subscribers {{As of|2025|02|lc=y}}.{{Cite news |last=Kirshner |first=Alex |date=February 2, 2025 |title=One of Big Tech's Angriest Critics Explains the Problem |url=https://slate.com/technology/2025/02/ed-zitron-interview-big-tech-ai-criticism.html |access-date=March 26, 2025 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339}} Zitron laid out his thesis that technology firms have focused on growth above all else, stifling innovation and harming consumers, in a 2023 newsletter issue titled "The Rot Economy". The post went viral. Zitron's "rot economy" theory has been likened to Cory Doctorow's concept of "enshittification".{{Cite web |last=MacLeod |first=Riley |date=July 10, 2024 |title=Welcome To Xbox's Rot Economy |url=https://aftermath.site/xbox-game-pass-rot-economy |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Aftermath |language=en}} In April 2024, a post titled "The Man Who Killed Google Search" sparked outcry about the company after Zitron accused Google CTO Prabhakar Raghavan of "killing" Google's search product by prioritizing profits for Google's advertising business over delivering relevant results.{{Cite web |last=Colomé |first=Jordi Pérez |date=May 4, 2024 |title=The day Google started to get worse: 'We are getting too close to money' |url=https://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-05-05/the-day-google-started-to-get-worse-we-are-getting-too-close-to-money.html |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=El País English |language=en-us}}

In 2023, Cool Zone Media invited Zitron to create a podcast on their network. The podcast, called Better Offline, focuses on Silicon Valley and the tech industry, and particularly on the AI boom.

Zitron is writing a book about the ossification of major technology companies and the need for startups to challenge them, titled Why Everything Stopped Working.{{Cite web |last=Bellan |first=Rebecca |date=March 5, 2025 |title=Growth at all costs is destroying the internet. PR maven Ed Zitron says that's an opportunity for startups. |url=https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/05/growth-at-all-costs-is-destroying-the-internet-pr-maven-ed-zitron-says-thats-an-opportunity-for-startups/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US}}

Views

Alex Kirshner writing for Slate has described Zitron as "one of the most pugnacious critics of Big Tech". Zitron has been described as an "AI skeptic" or "AI critic",{{Cite web |last=Tangermann |first=Victor |date=January 29, 2025 |title=OpenAI Hit With Wave of Mockery for Crying That Someone Stole Its Work Without Permission to Build a Competing Product |url=https://futurism.com/openai-mockery-stole-work-deepseek |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Futurism}} and has criticized both technology companies and the media for contributing to what he views as unwarranted hype around large language models. He has called the 2020s AI boom a bubble, and predicts it will pop.{{Cite interview |last=Zitron |first=Ed |interviewer=Brooke Gladstone |title=Brooke Talks AI With Ed Zitron |url=https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/brooke-talks-ai-with-ed-zitron?tab=transcript |access-date=March 26, 2025 |work=On the Media |date=January 29, 2025}}

In 2021 and 2022, Zitron wrote several articles defending remote work.{{Cite web |last=Ongweso Jr |first=Edward |date=July 19, 2022 |title=Good News: Economy Sucks, You're Screwed, and It's All Your Fault, Economists Say |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/good-news-economy-sucks-youre-screwed-and-its-all-your-fault-economists-say/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Vice |language=en-US}} In an article for The Atlantic, he argued that executives and middle managers advocating for mandatory in-office work feared remote work would make their jobs obsolete.{{Cite web |last=Cai |first=Delia |date=September 6, 2022 |title=The Professional Try-Hard Is Dead, But You Still Need to Return to the Office |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/09/the-professional-try-hard-is-dead |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Vanity Fair |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |last=Miall |first=Laurence |date=November 20, 2021 |title=Remote Work Won't End Exploitation |url=https://jacobin.com/2021/11/remote-work-from-home-covid-pandemic-essential-workers-labor |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Jacobin |language=en-US}} Speaking to Vanity Fair, he explained, "I believe there is a large chunk of extremely performative work that is having a midlife crisis right now."

Personal life

Edward Benjamin Zitron was born in England, and lived in London for much of his early life. He attended a private secondary school in Hammersmith.{{Cite web |last=Zitron |first=Ed |date=February 2, 2021 |title=Living With Feeling Stupid |url=https://www.wheresyoured.at/living-with-feeling-stupid/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At |language=en}} He then attended Aberystwyth University in Aberystwyth, Wales,{{Cite news |date=November 11, 2012 |title=Jillian Knapp, Edward Zitron |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/fashion/weddings/jillian-knapp-edward-zitron-weddings.html |access-date=March 26, 2025 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} spending one year as an exchange student at Pennsylvania State University.{{Cite web |last=Zitron |first=Ed |date=July 18, 2022 |title=Living In The Actual Global Village |url=https://edzitron.medium.com/living-in-the-actual-global-village-40c15cbcdbc8 |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Medium |language=en}} He later moved to the United States, and lives in New York City and Las Vegas, Nevada.{{Cite web |last=Zitron |first=Ed |date= |title=About Where's Your Ed At |url=https://www.wheresyoured.at/about/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At |language=en}} In 2012 he married psychology professor Jillian Knapp; they later divorced.{{Cite web |last=Zitron |first=Ed |date=May 29, 2021 |title=Divorce in the digital age |url=https://www.dailydot.com/debug/divorce-in-the-digital-age/ |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=The Daily Dot |language=en-US}}

Zitron has developmental coordination disorder and ADHD. He is a fan of the Las Vegas Raiders.{{Cite web |last=Roth |first=David |date=January 16, 2025 |title=The Future Feels Like The Raiders, With Ed Zitron |url=https://defector.com/the-future-feels-like-the-raiders-with-ed-zitron |access-date=March 26, 2025 |website=Defector |language=en}}

Bibliography

Zitron, Ed (2013). This Is How You Pitch: How To Kick Ass In Your First Years of PR.
Zitron, Ed (2018). Fire Your Publicist: The PR and Publicity Secrets That Will Make You and Your Business Famous.