Josh Quittner
{{Short description|American journalist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Josh Quittner
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1957|02|12}}
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| nationality = American
| other_names =
| known_for =
| occupation = Journalist
}}
Josh Quittner (born February 12, 1957){{cite web|title=So What Do You Do, Josh Quittner? The Business 2.0 editor on his career, his magazine, and life in San Francisco|first=Jesse|last=Oxfeld| work= Media Bistro| url=http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a1153.asp|date=2004-02-03| accessdate=2001-02-05}} is an American journalist. He is CEO of Decrypt Media, a website which covers cryptocurrencies, NFTs and Web3.{{Cite web|title=Your guide to Bitcoin, Ethereum & Web 3.0|url=https://decrypt.co/manifesto|access-date=2022-02-10|website=Decrypt|language=en-US}}
Early life and education
Born in Manhattan, Quittner grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/columnist/quittner/bio.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011111163935/http://www.time.com/time/columnist/quittner/bio.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 11, 2001|year=2001|accessdate=2011-02-05|magazine=Time|title=Biography: Josh Quittner}} He is married to Michelle Slatalla and has three daughters, including Ella Quittner, who is also a journalist and screenwriter.
Career
He has co-authored five books with his wife, including Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace (Harper-Collins, 1995) about the New York-based hacker group Masters of Deception, Speeding the Net: The Inside Story of Netscape and How it Challenged Microsoft (1998), Mother's Day (1993), Flame War: A Cyberthriller (1998), and Shoofly Pie to Die (1992).
Quittner spent the first twelve years of his career as a newspaper reporter. He was a crime reporter and a general assignment writer before he started to write about technology from the consumer side at Newsday in 1992. Quittner then freelanced for Wired Magazine and was the original domain-name holder of mcdonalds.com, which he registered for an early Wired piece on domain-name squatting.{{Cite magazine| volume = 2| issue = 10| last = Quittner| first = Joshua| title = Billions Registered| magazine = Wired| accessdate = 2011-02-06| date = October 1994| url = https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html}} He later turned the domain over to Mcdonald's after they donated 3,500$ to a public school in Brooklyn, New York for computers and internet access at his request.{{Cite web |last=Novak |first=Matt |date=2014-11-21 |title=5 Domain Name Battles of the Early Web |url=https://gizmodo.com/5-domain-name-battles-of-the-early-web-1660616980 |access-date=2024-02-14 |website=Gizmodo |language=en}} Quittner also freelanced for the webzine HotWired, which ran his manifesto of the "Info Revolution" titled "The Birth of Way New Journalism,"{{Cite news| last = Quittner| first = Joshua| title = The Birth of Way New Journalism| work = HotWired| accessdate = 2011-02-06| date = July 1995| url = http://www.hotwired.com/i-agent/95/29/waynew/waynew.html |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/19990503195745/http://www.hotwired.com/i-agent/95/29/waynew/waynew.html |archivedate = 1999-05-03}} a riff on New Journalism that "became an instant cliché."{{Cite news| last = Futrelle| first = David| title = Why the new media won't save the world — or even displace the old media| work = Salon| accessdate = 2011-05-31| date = January 1997| url = http://www.salon.com/jan97/media970113.html| url-status = dead| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20110703214129/http://www.salon.com/jan97/media970113.html| archivedate = 2011-07-03}}
He joined Time Inc. as a staff writer in 1995. During his initial seven years at Time Magazine he worked for Pathfinder, Time Inc.'s first independent online presence, where he launched the Netly News,{{Cite magazine| volume = 4| issue = 11| last = Quittner| first = Joshua| title = Web Dreams| magazine = Wired| accessdate = 2008-02-26| year = 1996| url = https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.11/web_dreams_pr.html}} one of the web's first daily news publications. He then became the editor of Time's spinoff technology supplement Time Digital, later called ON Magazine.
From April 2002 until September 2007 Quittner was the editor of Business 2.0.{{cite news|first=Stacy D.|last=Kramer| title=Josh Quittner Comes Full Circle, Returns to Time; Will Blog at Time.com |work=Paid Content |date=2008-04-16 |accessdate=2011-02-05 |url=http://paidcontent.org/article/419-industry-moves-josh-quittner-comes-full-circle-returns-to-time-will-blo/}} Quittner briefly revived "Netly News" as the name of a Business 2.0 blog. He also owns the domain name roofmagazine.com, which currently Roof, a sporadically updated real-estate blog.
After Business 2.0, he served briefly as an executive editor at Fortune Magazine, working at its San Francisco bureau, before rejoining Time in April 2008 as an editor-at-large.
From 2011-2018, he was the editorial director at Flipboard.{{cite news|url=http://www.adweek.com/internet-week-blog/flipboards-quittner-talks-about-role-explains-ad-platform-140588|title=Flipboard's Quittner Talks About Role, Explains Ad Platform|first=Charlie|last= Warzel|work=Adweek|date=May 16, 2012|accessdate=August 29, 2012}}
In 2018, Quittner and Ryan Bubinski co-founded Decrypt, an online news website focused on blockchain, Web3 and artificial intelligence.{{cite news |date=3 May 2022 |title=Decrypt Raises $10M in Funding and Spins Out from ConsenSys Mesh |journal=Business Wire |url=https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220503005440/en/Decrypt-Raises-%2410M-in-Funding-and-Spins-Out-from-ConsenSys-Mesh |access-date=30 March 2025 |archive-date=30 March 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250330185243/https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220503005440/en/Decrypt-Raises-%2410M-in-Funding-and-Spins-Out-from-ConsenSys-Mesh |url-status=live}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quittner, Josh}}
Category:Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni
Category:American technology writers