Meet the Expert: Tim O’Reilly and David Heinemeier Hansson

Tim O’Reilly has a history of convening conversations that reshape the computer industry. In 1998, he organized the meeting where the term “open source software” was agreed on and helped the business world understand its importance. In 2004, with the Web 2.0 Summit, he defined how “Web 2.0” represented not only the resurgence of the web after the dot-com bust but a new model for the computer industry, based on big data, collective intelligence, and the internet as a platform. In 2009, with his Gov 2.0 Summit, Tim framed the conversation about the modernization of government technology that has shaped policy and spawned initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels and around the world. He has now turned his attention to implications of the on-demand economy, AI, robotics, and other technologies that are transforming the nature of work and the future shape of the economy. He shares his thoughts about these topics in his book, WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us (Harper Business, October 2017). Tim is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media and a partner at O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (OATV). He sits on the boards of Maker Media (which was spun out from O’Reilly Media in 2012), Code for America, PeerJ, Civis Analytics, and POPVOX.

David Heinemeier Hansson is the creator of Ruby on Rails, cofounder and CTO at Basecamp, best-selling author, Le Mans class-winning racing driver, frequent podcast guest, and family man.