Contact

email: RLBrandt@gmail.com
linkedin: Richard Brandt
facebook: Richard L Brandt
twitter: @rlbrandt

I've been a journalist since 1981. I'm older than I look. I write about science, technology and business. Mostly I'm writing books, primarily for Portfolio, a division of Penguin (USA). But I keep my eye out for freelance opportunities. Or any opportunities requiring someone with a talent for words. I do the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle every week.

My latest book is “Inside Larry and Sergey's Brain,” about the founders of Google. Really, even though the cover doesn't say so (talk to Portfolio about that) it is about Google. It is now available at fine retailers everywhere. You can get it for ten bucks at Amazon.com if you know where to click.

It is, fortunately, being published in nine different languages (Spanish and German are the first to come out) and the foreign publishers are putting the name Google on the cover.

My next book will be "One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Triumph of Amazon.com" (renamed from “Inside Jeff's Brain,") about the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Not that this one actually says "Amazon.com" on the cover. It'll be out in late 2011, I hope in time for Christmas, if not Chanukkah.

I'd really like to write a biased book that takes a hard, honest look at the science and technology of global warming. What do we really know, what do we not know, and how do we decide what to do about it. I'm not sure if there's a market for a book that doesn't take one extreme position or the other. What do you think? (Opinions always welcome at RLBrandt@gmail.com) I want to title it “Everybody talks about the weather.”

I also have a few other good book ideas, for which I am seeking publishers.

I also co-authored of “Capital Instincts: Life as an Entrepreneur, Financier and Athlete” (John Wiley & Sons, 2003.) It's about Thomas Weisel, an investment banker, art collector, and friend of cycling legend Lance Armstrong. Interesting guy, but I wouldn't really recommend the book.

I started my career as a science and technology journalist at Business Week magazine in 1981. I joined Upside magazine in 1995 and became editor-in-chief in 1996. No really, I was sort of in charge, but hated the politics.

I've written articles for Science magazine, Technology Review magazine, Science/Business magazine, Stanford magazine, and L’Express, among others. I'm always looking for good freelance ideas and publications that actually still pay for them. Or, as I said, any writing assignments.

Believe it or not, I've won many awards: A National Magazine Award, for example, which is really quite prestigious. Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't believe me. I've also won a Deadline Club Award, a Washington Monthly Award, an Atlantic Monthly Award, several Computer Press Association Awards, several Acer/Boston Computer Museum Awards and several Maggie awards, which aren't as prestigious as National Magazine Awards but are still pretty good.

I got into journalism after studying math and engineering at Harvey Mudd college (no, really!) then transferring to UC Santa Barbara to study marine biology, even though I really wanted to be a journalist but didn't know I'd actually be good at it. Harvey Mudd didn't have a biology department back then. I got a BA in biology at UCSB, then kicked around at odd jobs, like becoming a chemical engineering technician at a DuPont engineering site. I was really good at it. I built scaled-down versions of new designs of factory systems, including an attempt at making a new valve to control the flow of radioactive waste for the Savannah River nuclear plant, and a new process to more efficiently make Kevlar. I then ran them for weeks to see if they would work. None of them did.

But I had gotten back into studying engineering again at the University of Delaware, where I finally decided to take Journalism 101. I ended up getting a Science Journalism Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, even though the only journalism experience I had was writing for the U of Delaware student newspaper. I don't know how that happened. I did do one interesting story for the student paper about plans to open a topless joint near the campus. The AAAS fellowship placed me at Business Week for a summer internship even though my first choice was Newsweek. But I ended up getting a lot more opportunity to write articles at Business Week, was hired at the end of the summer and stayed for 14 years. I think that Bloomberg buying Business Week for bird feed and laying off a bunch of great reporters really sucks.

I also won a mid-career Science and Technology Journalism Fellowship from the Knight Foundation, which allowed me to spend a year studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I got my first in-depth lessons about global warming there. I also wanted to see Russia just as the Soviet Union was being dismantled, so I studied the language, hooked up with an environmental conference in Moscow that an MIT professor was running, and paid for the trip by selling an article about the death of Soviet environmentalism to Science magazine. Am I boring you? Sorry.

When I was employed at real publications, I used to speak as an "expert" for TV and radio programs. BBC, CNN, CNBC, NPR, Yahoo Finance Vision. Remember that one? If you visit the "Radio and TV" section of this site, you'll find programs where I got to talk about my book. I also used to speak at industry events, I think including Comdex. But it was all so long ago.

Do I sound maudlin? I'm really quite youthful for my age. I've always used a lot of sunscreen. I run, scuba dive, play with my dog and my 13-year old daughter, dabble at wood working -- I built my own wooden kayak and sometimes paddle it in the ocean off the shores of San Francisco. I think parenthood is the greatest joy one could ever experiences, and I love writing and interviewing and traveling. Just saddened by the state of my industry right now. I also wonder about such thing as, "Do the Black-Eyed Peas know that 'I gotta feeling' is the most popular song on the bar- and bat-mitzvah circuit this year?"

What do you think?