David Pogue, The Most Prolific Technology Critic In The World, Cannot Say No
David Pogue is as well known a technology critic as you’ll find in
the world. He is a master of both old and new media. He is best known
for technology column in the New York Times, but he also has a column in Scientific American.
He’s the host of “NOVA ScienceNow” and other science shows on PBS, and
he’s been a correspondent for “CBS Sunday Morning” since 2002. Pogue has
nearly one and a half million followers on Twitter and writes four to
five books per year, with over three million of his books in print. He’s
won an Emmy, a Loeb award for journalism, and an honorary doctorate in
music.
What may be most remarkable for someone who has among the strongest personal brands that you will find is how little planning he has put to developing that brand. Rather, he has largely been reactive as opposed to proactive in his career. When he arrived at the New York Times in 2000, others saw in him an ability to make the esoteric accessible, and thus offers arrived to get involved in other media to continue to pontificate about technology as well as to explain other adjacent fields, such as science. As he mentions below, he has simply continued to answer the phone and say, “yes.”
Peter High: David, you have quite a non-traditional path to the perch you currently occupy. You were a music major at Yale who dreamt of a career in music. What was your relationship to technology during your formative years?
David Pogue: The key to understanding my career is that I was never into technology. From the beginning, I brought an outsider’s point of view, which is why I write for a layman’s publication. My interest was magic, believe it or not. I became an amateur magician and did something like 400 magic shows through my teen years. My little self-analysis is that consumer technology is the closest thing we have to magic. You push a button and something happens at your command. The things that get me fired up the most have always been the things that seem the most magical. For example, take Siri, handwriting recognition, and Microsoft Kinect.
PH: For a time, you pursued your passion for music on Broadway, and then in 1988, you began writing for Macworld. Describe, if you would, the pivot from music to writing about technology.
DP: My music and writing careers actually overlapped for many years. A running theme in my life is my inability to say no to anything. My first job I got after college was as a part-time office manager for the New York Mac User Group (NYMUG). I emptied the post office box, distributed the mail, and paid bills. They had an eight-page newsletter that they wittily called the “Mac Street Journal.” One day, I bemoaned to the editor that I wanted the world’s first ever sheet music software, called Finale, which cost $1,000. The editor, to whom I owe my entire career, suggested that I write the company and say that I was the reviewer of technology for our publication, and that they should send me a review copy. That is exactly what I did, and a light-bulb went off. They sent me a copy, and I reviewed it. That same editor said, “This is probably not in my best interest, but you could probably get paid for this.” I packaged my Mac Street Journal writings and sent them to the glossy magazines, and that is how I came into contact with Macworld. They happened to be looking for someone who could do music and art software at that time. It was lucky timing.
I should note that I was not and am not an especially technical person. I can’t take apart a computer and put it back together again. I don’t code. I don’t pretend to be a computer engineer. If I have a virtue, it’s that I can bring the layman’s point of view to assessing technology.
PH: You covered Apple as part of Macworld during that company’s nadir through to the return of Steve Jobs. What was this period like?
DP: I’ve always been a champion for elegance and simplicity. Apple in particular paid attention to design and sweated the details. The Zen of design and knowing what to leave out; I’m a huge believer in that philosophy no matter the company. It was really disappointing to me that my fellow Americans could not embrace what was clearly artistically a superior philosophy. Just because people could buy a Dell for $400, it shut down any meaningful conversation about craft and art.
PH: A key move in your career came in 2000 when you began writing for the New York Times. What was the genesis of that relationship?
DP: The tech columnist at the time was Peter Lewis. He created this column and was terrific at it. He got an offer from a magazine, which created an opening at the Times. I believe he submitted my name as a candidate. He had been a reader of my Macworld column. I’d done some writing for the Times as a book reviewer. It was a six-month-long process in which I met with ten editors and was asked to write four sample columns. In the end, it was the biggest anticlimax in the world: the technology editor emailed and said that my last sample column would run, and he suggested that if I wanted to keep writing as the columnist, I could. It has been the greatest job in the world.
PH: How do you determine what to review and what not to?
DP: I adhere to the original assignment for the column from 13 years ago, even though I’m on my fourth editor. First, in choosing what to review, the emphasis is on news. Therefore, I review “the first,” “the smallest,” “the fastest,” “the best,” “the most unusual.” If I hear about one more Bluetooth speaker, I’m going to slit my wrists! For me to review it, it would have to be solar powered, operable under water, the size of your fingernail but as powerful as a full-sized model, etc…
The other part of the assignment is not to write just about technology, but rather about the intersection of technology and society, culture, and people. So I typically don’t cover bus speeds and size in gigabytes. Instead, I focus on how you will use it and how it fits into your life. That can also be a source of humor. When I reviewed a 27-inch Lenovo touchscreen tablet, I asked my readers what they thought about handing the child in the backseat a 19-pound tablet.
What may be most remarkable for someone who has among the strongest personal brands that you will find is how little planning he has put to developing that brand. Rather, he has largely been reactive as opposed to proactive in his career. When he arrived at the New York Times in 2000, others saw in him an ability to make the esoteric accessible, and thus offers arrived to get involved in other media to continue to pontificate about technology as well as to explain other adjacent fields, such as science. As he mentions below, he has simply continued to answer the phone and say, “yes.”
Peter High: David, you have quite a non-traditional path to the perch you currently occupy. You were a music major at Yale who dreamt of a career in music. What was your relationship to technology during your formative years?
David Pogue: The key to understanding my career is that I was never into technology. From the beginning, I brought an outsider’s point of view, which is why I write for a layman’s publication. My interest was magic, believe it or not. I became an amateur magician and did something like 400 magic shows through my teen years. My little self-analysis is that consumer technology is the closest thing we have to magic. You push a button and something happens at your command. The things that get me fired up the most have always been the things that seem the most magical. For example, take Siri, handwriting recognition, and Microsoft Kinect.
PH: For a time, you pursued your passion for music on Broadway, and then in 1988, you began writing for Macworld. Describe, if you would, the pivot from music to writing about technology.
DP: My music and writing careers actually overlapped for many years. A running theme in my life is my inability to say no to anything. My first job I got after college was as a part-time office manager for the New York Mac User Group (NYMUG). I emptied the post office box, distributed the mail, and paid bills. They had an eight-page newsletter that they wittily called the “Mac Street Journal.” One day, I bemoaned to the editor that I wanted the world’s first ever sheet music software, called Finale, which cost $1,000. The editor, to whom I owe my entire career, suggested that I write the company and say that I was the reviewer of technology for our publication, and that they should send me a review copy. That is exactly what I did, and a light-bulb went off. They sent me a copy, and I reviewed it. That same editor said, “This is probably not in my best interest, but you could probably get paid for this.” I packaged my Mac Street Journal writings and sent them to the glossy magazines, and that is how I came into contact with Macworld. They happened to be looking for someone who could do music and art software at that time. It was lucky timing.
I should note that I was not and am not an especially technical person. I can’t take apart a computer and put it back together again. I don’t code. I don’t pretend to be a computer engineer. If I have a virtue, it’s that I can bring the layman’s point of view to assessing technology.
PH: You covered Apple as part of Macworld during that company’s nadir through to the return of Steve Jobs. What was this period like?
DP: I’ve always been a champion for elegance and simplicity. Apple in particular paid attention to design and sweated the details. The Zen of design and knowing what to leave out; I’m a huge believer in that philosophy no matter the company. It was really disappointing to me that my fellow Americans could not embrace what was clearly artistically a superior philosophy. Just because people could buy a Dell for $400, it shut down any meaningful conversation about craft and art.
PH: A key move in your career came in 2000 when you began writing for the New York Times. What was the genesis of that relationship?
DP: The tech columnist at the time was Peter Lewis. He created this column and was terrific at it. He got an offer from a magazine, which created an opening at the Times. I believe he submitted my name as a candidate. He had been a reader of my Macworld column. I’d done some writing for the Times as a book reviewer. It was a six-month-long process in which I met with ten editors and was asked to write four sample columns. In the end, it was the biggest anticlimax in the world: the technology editor emailed and said that my last sample column would run, and he suggested that if I wanted to keep writing as the columnist, I could. It has been the greatest job in the world.
PH: How do you determine what to review and what not to?
DP: I adhere to the original assignment for the column from 13 years ago, even though I’m on my fourth editor. First, in choosing what to review, the emphasis is on news. Therefore, I review “the first,” “the smallest,” “the fastest,” “the best,” “the most unusual.” If I hear about one more Bluetooth speaker, I’m going to slit my wrists! For me to review it, it would have to be solar powered, operable under water, the size of your fingernail but as powerful as a full-sized model, etc…
The other part of the assignment is not to write just about technology, but rather about the intersection of technology and society, culture, and people. So I typically don’t cover bus speeds and size in gigabytes. Instead, I focus on how you will use it and how it fits into your life. That can also be a source of humor. When I reviewed a 27-inch Lenovo touchscreen tablet, I asked my readers what they thought about handing the child in the backseat a 19-pound tablet.
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