DAN LYONS
The expert on transformation and the tech-driven workplace
Author of Disrupted, Lab Rats & STFU; and Writer on Silicon Valley
Dan has a unique perspective on the tech industry and the ways it is shaping our world. With his engaging style and witty sense of humor, Dan is a natural storyteller who captivates audiences with his insights and anecdotes.
Dan Lyons has been called “the Mark Twain of Silicon Valley,” and “a Jonathan Swift of our own digital age,” as well “the expert on the culture of work, and how it’s changing business and lives,” according to Dave Ramsay, who runs the legendary “Ramsay Talks” series in Toronto. He’s a sharp-eyed pundit in the spirit of Dave Barry, P.J. O’Rourke, Jon Stewart, and Bill Maher. But instead of politics, Dan aims his laser-sharp wit at the world of business, and especially the culture of Silicon Valley. Over the past decade Dan has done more than 100 keynotes and corporate events, entertaining audiences with his irreverent, insightful takes on how technology is transforming the modern workplace—for better and worse. He has also consulted with tech companies and his ideas have helped companies create happy, productive people-centric cultures. He is the author of several books, including STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World (2023).
Exclusively represented by BrightSight Speakers bureau, Dan’s career as a satirist began when he created the Fake Steve Jobs blog, a smart-funny website where he spoofed the persona of Apple’s legendary founder and established his reputation as a gifted humorist and savvy critic of how technology shapes our culture. He wrote for HBO’s hit series Silicon Valley, and published Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble, a rollicking New York Times best-selling memoir about his time working inside a cult-like tech startup run by Millennials. He published Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us in 2018. Dan has written for the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, Newsweek, and many others. He’s quick on his feet, loves doing Q&A, and will have your audience in stitches with his rapid-fire delivery and self-deprecating wit. He aims to entertain but also to inform, leaving your audience with new ideas and a fresh perspective
Follow him on Twitter @realdanlyons
Speech topics
Listen Up: The Secret Superpower that Will Radically Improve Your Life
Bestselling author Dan Lyons spent a year teaching himself how to talk less and listen more, and ended up developing a set of practices, which he calls a “listening mindset,” that radically improved his life and might also help define the future of work. In his new book, STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World, Dan tells the story of his journey of personal transformation and explains how mastering the art of listening can make you happier, healthier, more successful, and even a better parent and partner. Better yet: organizations can do the same. Dan draws on personal experience as a business journalist and consultant to tech companies, plus mountains of research—including interviews with scientists, psychologists and even a former CIA case officer—to reveal how the superpower of a listening mindset can strengthen your organization’s culture and boost its performance. Dan’s past books include Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble, a hilarious international bestseller about his time working in a startup run by Millennials. He was a writer on HBO’s hit comedy, Silicon Valley, and a journalist at Forbes, Fortune and Newsweek.
The Future of Work: Unlocking Human Potential
The big conversation about remote work is important, but there's a much bigger story that most of us are missing. New ways of working will transform society and the global economy, redirecting the way wealth is distributed around the world and changing the definition of the corporation itself, with all the usual disruptive implications for incumbents. Most important, we are creating new opportunities for people who have been shut out, and we're unlocking human potential. Dan Lyons has spent the past decade explaining how technology is transforming the workplace. His best-selling book, Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble, became a Silicon Valley classic, blending a laugh-out-loud personal story with influential insights that have helped companies create happy, productive workplace cultures. Dan has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian, NPR and the BBC. In addition to authoring six books, Dan has consulted with tech companies, written for HBO’s hit comedy series, “Silicon Valley,” and led technology coverage for Newsweek. His funny, energetic, story-driven, takeaway-laden presentations get rave reviews.
Books
STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World
Susan Cain meets Mark Manson in New York Times bestselling author Dan Lyons’s STFU—a desperately needed wake-up call for a world that demands we keep tweeting, posting, and podcasting that proves the most important thing might be to shut the f*ck up!
Please don't take this the wrong way, but Dan Lyons is here to tell you that you really need to shut the f*ck up.
What do Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Jeff Bezos, and Anna Wintour all have in common? Yes, power, fame, and prestige, but they all know the importance of shutting up. RBG’s clerks learned to count for two seconds after asking her a question, allowing moments of quiet to fill the room before she chose her perfectly clear argument. Anna Wintour’s steely silences in meetings have earned her the nickname “Nuclear Wintour,” and Jeff Bezos handles any corporate complaints he receives with a direct email forward to the person at fault with an ominous single “?” These leaders know that in silence there is power, and in listening there is strength.
Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us
Dan Lyons exposes how the "new oligarchs" of Silicon Valley have turned technology into a tool for oppressing workers in this "passionate" (Kirkus) and "darkly funny" (Publishers Weekly) examination of workplace culture.
Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
An instant New York Times bestseller, Dan Lyons' "hysterical" (Recode) memoir, hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "the best book about Silicon Valley," takes readers inside the maddening world of fad-chasing venture capitalists, sales bros, social climbers, and sociopaths at today's tech startups.