Silicon Valley investor Roger McNamee mentored Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the early days of the company. Still a large shareholder, he now thinks Facebook is destroying our democracy. The author of “Zucked” discusses the existential threat he believes the social network poses to society.
Roger McNamee has been a Silicon Valley investor for 35 years. He co-founded successful funds in venture, crossover and private equity. His most recent fund, Elevation, included U2’s Bono as a co-founder. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Roger plays bass and guitar in the bands Moonalice and Doobie Decibel System. He is the author of “Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,” as well as “The New Normal” and “The Moonalice Legend: Posters and Words, Volumes 1-9.” He has served as a technical advisor for seasons two through five of HBO’s “Silicon Valley” series and was also responsible for raising the money that created the Wikimedia Foundation.
Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, a non-profit providing online instruction to people all over the world. He began by tutoring his cousins remotely by video. The videos attracted a large YouTube following. Today, Khan Academy is an online learning platform which includes practice exercises, instructional videos, analytics and teacher tools with 15 million registered users.
Martin Baron is Executive Editor of The Washington Post, overseeing the Post’s print and digital news operations. Before joining the Post, Baron was editor of The Boston Globe for 11 years. During his tenure, the Globe won six Pulitzer Prizes. Baron has also held top editing positions at The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Miami Herald.
Joel Klein has been called one of the most influential people in public education. He was chancellor of New York City schools for eight years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He was the CEO for Amplify, the educational division of News Corp.
One of the best-known and most respected presidential historians, Doris Kearns Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for her book “No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.” Her 2006 best-seller, “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” was adapted into the Oscar-nominated 2012 film “Lincoln” by Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner.
Sebastian Junger is a journalist and filmmaker. He has authored several best-selling books and his film “Restrepo” was nominated for an Oscar. Junger’s film “Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington” was released in 2013.
David Maraniss is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter and best-selling author whose biographies of Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi and Roberto Clemente are both definitive and compelling. His biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” was published in 2012.
