Howard Rheingold

A lifelong fascination with mind augmentation and its methods led Rheingold to the Institute of Noetic Sciences and Xerox PARC. There he worked on and wrote about the earliest personal computers. This led to his writing Tools for Thought in 1985, a history of the people behind the personal computer. Around that time he first logged on to influential early online community The WELL. Publications include Whole Earth Review, Net Smart, Mind Amplifier, and many more. In 2008, Rheingold became the first research fellow at the Institute for the Future, with which he had long been affiliated. He retired from teaching at Standford University in 2015.