Alex Wright is a writer, designer, and researcher who has held leadership positions at The New York Times, Google News, Hearst Corporation, Instagram, Etsy, and IBM, among others. He has also worked as a consultant for clients including the Internet Archive, the Long Now Foundation, and Microsoft, among others.
His latest book Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper was published by Basic Books in 2026 and received positive reviews in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Kirkus, and elsewhere. His previous book Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age (Oxford University Press, 2014) was reviewed in The New Yorker, Harpers, Nature, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly, among others. His first book Informatica: Mastering Information Through the Ages ( originally published as Glut in 2007 by National Academies Press), was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “a penetrating and highly entertaining meditation on our information age and its historical roots.” Alex’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Believer, Salon.com, The Wilson Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, The Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Magazine, and Library Journal, among others.
From 2008-2019 he was a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts’ MFA program in Interaction Design. He has also guest-lectured at Stanford University, UC-Berkeley, Columbia University and The Institute of Design-Chicago. He speaks regularly at industry events and conferences, including SxSW, UXStrat, Gartner Group, and the World Future Society. His work has won numerous industry awards, including a Webby, Cool Site of the Year, and an American Graphic Design Award.
Alex divides his time between Brooklyn, New York, and the Hudson Valley.
See also: Curriculum Vitae
