About Nick Denton

For organizers of speaking engagements and other events, here is a headshot and basic bio. Photo c. Benedict Evans.

Nick Denton is an internet media pioneer. His most significant influence has been the introduction of a conversational tone of writing to professional media, through Gawker Media Group, the only digital media company to get to scale without external investment. Leaders in categories such as technology, video games and sports, the company’s lifestyle properties — Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Deadspin, Jezebel, Kotaku and Jalopnik — have been acquired by Univision for $135m. The Gawker flagship, one of the most freewheeling and provocative sites on the web, was shuttered after a legal campaign funded by one of the tech billionaires it covered — and provoked.

During the first internet boom, Nick created Europe’s most important meeting place for investors and entrepreneurs, the First Tuesday events business. Another venture, Moreover Technologies, an automated news aggregator based in San Francisco, was sold to Verisign in 2005. Before Nick’s business career, he was a journalist for The Economist and Financial Times, covering the revolutions in Eastern Europe, investment banking and technology. He is co-author of All That Glitters, an account of the rogue trader who brought down the UK’s most storied investment bank. Nick is a graduate of Oxford University, where he studied politics, philosophy and economics.

In journalism and management, GMG was known for its commitment to radical transparency. Nick’s work was inspired by the early vision of the internet as an open forum for people — not just public figures and the press — to share information, debate ideas and come closer to mutual understanding. He still believes that the truth will set us free.