SmackerNews

Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died

945 points · 221 comments · 5 days ago · paveworld

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49949438

I heard from a friend of the family that Bob passed away in his sleep early Saturday. Very sad news. Bob, who's real name was Mark Stevens, was an early employee of Apple and was best known for his PBS documentaries, especially "Triumph of the Nerds". He will be missed.

JKCalhoun5 days ago
I liked his "Plane Crazy: Building a Plane in 30 Days" on PBS.
Watching him try (and fail) to build a composite airplane says so much about the allure of modern techniques (I won't spoil the end, but old-school gets the last laugh). I've been less than enthusiastic about modern composites ever since seeing this show.
Bob's attempt (and short temper) reveals a good deal of hubris on his part.
The documentary is a fascinating failure and a masterclass in attempting to salvage a show when the whole premise for the show completely collapses.
[1] https://youtu.be/FSNzF-KSGiw
tjansen5 days ago
Damn. I've loved Bob and his writings ever since I read Accidental Empires as a kid. He went through some crazy shit over the last few years (lost his house, almost blind). And when he started blogging again this year (https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/27/where-the-heck-have-i-be...), the stories got even worse (lost his son, heart attack, stroke). RIP.
tuna745 days ago
He was a very entertaining blogger! RIP.
However, he was also ripping people off and making up stuff: https://www.jeremyreimer.com/rockets-item.lsp?f=true&p=272
kickingvegas5 days ago
Rest in peace Robert X. Cringely. For those interested, the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" is available on the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/triumph_of_the_nerds
icee5 days ago
I was a big fan of this guy's work. Great documentaries. Triumph of the Nerds was a great watch — I gifted this to several people. I also watch the lost Steve Jobs documentary every few years for inspiration. Accidental Empires was a great read — I always think of Larry Ellison doing the NYT Crossword puzzle when I read about all the Paramount drama. He'll be missed.
bestham4 days ago
I remember watching "Triumph of the Nerds" as a appx. 10 year old (it aired some years later in Norway). Two quotes stuck with me from that. The first is Ballmer mocking IBMers for bragging about how many KLOCs they had written every day. He's point being that the code is not the product. The other was Ellison complaining about the software distribution models at the time. "Don't put software on plastic discs, plastic discs in cardboard box, cardboard box in a warehouse and later in a store. Instead put the software on the net." I remember calculating how long it would be to download the full Windows 95 disc on my 28.8 modem, and thinking that it would be long time until that was feasible.
dewarrn15 days ago
A shame. I encountered his work in a couple of places (with the caveat that I don't know which Cringely was which):
PBS website: He wrote a column that their site no longer hosts, but the Wayback Machine has it snapshotted frequently, including just after his final submission for the outlet in 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20081223220604/http://www.pbs.or...
NerdTV: In an era of nascent web video, he produced long-form video interviews with tech types, and clipped what might now be called "Shorts/Tiktoks" from the conversations, pulling out the of "the juicy bit" and "the nerdy bit". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NerdTV (h/t to u/Keyframe)
And obliquely, Cringely's columns or videos were the first place I recall hearing about foveated approaches to video compression for streaming. I thought it sounded like a terrible idea, but I guess Valve delivered, 20 years on, using the technique to good effect with the Steam Frame. Chalk one up for Cringely; RIP.
exitb5 days ago
Incredibly sad news. I first learned of him and watched his documentaries just a few years ago. It’s difficult to understate, if you happen to be a tech nerd, how much fun “Triumph of the Nerds” and “Nerds 2.0.1” are to watch, even nowadays.
havaloc5 days ago
When searching to verify the veracity of this, this post made me laugh: https://www.cringely.com/2020/01/23/not-dead-yet-what-bob-cr... (Circa 2020).
someperson5 days ago
This is a famous documentary from him: https://youtu.be/toSRmKKiosQ?is=kj1fkHSfpGsLoBVf
mscarpino5 days ago
I loved the book Accidental Empires, and it inspired me to become a programmer. RIP Bob. You were the best.
Keyframe5 days ago
Sad to hear that, apart things already mention I'd like to point out his NerdTV interviews - especially Dan Drake one (Autodesk co-founder). I always suspected, but that interview kind of validated how Autodesk went after competition as a strategy (to buy them outright). You can watch them all here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NerdTV
kbutler5 days ago
I had thought he had passed away earlier this year, but it was John C. Dvorak, who wrote the Infoworld industry news column before (/contemporaneously with) Mark Stephens, who adopted the name Robert X. Cringely. https://www.wired.com/1998/12/cringely/
John Dvorak passed July 20, 2026 Mark Stephens/Robert X. Cringely October 3, 2026
avadiax5 days ago
Just to confirm ... this Bob Cringely?
https://www.cringely.com/bout-bob/
pizlonator5 days ago
His “Lost Interview” with Steve is incredible.
Listening to Steve talk about the benefits of object oriented programming is something else
wormius5 days ago
RIP. Damn and Dvorak died earlier this year? What a sad year for legendary computer columnists.
gramie5 days ago
My favourite article he wrote was "Stranger in a Strange Land", about Homer Sarasohn (not Deming) rebuilding the Japanese electronics industry -- and to some extent, culture! -- after the war.
https://web.archive.org/web/20001015151303/http://www.pbs.or...
dhosek5 days ago
I remember religiously reading his Infoworld columns back in the day.
WheelsAtLarge5 days ago
I truly enjoyed his Triumph of the Nerds. I thought he had a pretty good handle on tech and looked forward to his opinion pieces. He regularly had a different take on tech, which helped to broaden my views. RIP, you will be missed.
acomjean5 days ago
Sad.
Early employee at Apple who was offered to be paid in stock. He “held out for the cash”.
I really like the triumph of the nerds series. Getting bill Gates, Balmer, Jobs and those IBMers to explain how it all came together and how MS who didn’t have an OS ended up getting one to sell to IBM.
The transcripts are a good
https://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html
fouc5 days ago
I've got fond memories of reading "The Little Engine That Could", his article on the wonders of mesh networking, potentially cheaply by flashing Linksys WRT54G with OpenWRT
...the WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040608142623/http://www.pbs.or...
TuckerBMorgan5 days ago
Reading accidental empires is how i learned that the tech industry even existed
jimbokun5 days ago
Future generations will have a better understanding of the personalities and history of the personal computer industry because of his work.
api5 days ago
I remember in the very early days of ZeroTier him stopping by our tiny coworking office in SoCal (we weren't scattered all over yet). He said it piqued his interest because it was "something that should have been built 10 or 15 years ago." (I'm paraphrasing. This was around 2015.)
He belongs to the old Silicon Valley. I wasn't there in those days and have never lived there, but I miss it.
It was back when SV was genuinely creative and largely positive in its attitude toward people and the future. It emerged from the ethos of places like SRI's "augmented human intelligence" lab and things like the Whole Earth Catalog and the Homebrew Computer Club.
Of course I'm well aware of the other origin story, the one that goes back to WWII and the defense industry. They're both true in different ways, but I think the ideas I mentioned above were the ones that came to dominate for a while.
I'd say until the mid-late 2000s.
I have this goofy speculation that the old Silicon Valley more or less went bankrupt in the dot.com crash in 2001. After that it was bought out and taken over by different interests with different goals. Probably bullshit, but it'd make a good novel plot or something.
jleyank5 days ago
Somebody who has chronicled and commented on the business for a long time. I enjoyed his work, and chuckled at some of the for-and-against it caused. Sorry to hear and I hope his family is ok. There’s a whole lotta water that’s passed under the bridge that we’ve not really noticed.
flowerlad5 days ago
Loved his book, and documentary.
BTW, there are 2 "Robert X. Cringely", one owned by InfoWorld, one owned by Mark Stephens.
https://www.wired.com/1998/12/cringely/
sm0014 days ago
I want to offer my condolences to his family and business partner(s). I read his columns for many years. Loved his style and smarts. I particularly enjoyed reading some of the comments and his answers, often as enlightening as the column itself. This sudden death could happen to me, so I am more appreciative of being alive today.
cantrevealname5 days ago
As far as I've been able to find, this is the last thing that Bob Cringely wrote publicly, 79 days before he passed away:
https://www.cringely.com/2026/07/16/the-auditors-opinion/
chang14 days ago
_Triumph of the Nerds_ was what got me interested in pursuing a career in software. It is the one documentary that's had the biggest influence on my life. I still have the VHS recording of it when it first aired on PBS in 1995. Even though it's on YouTube, I'll find my VCR and watch my old recording every few years.
In 2012, I saw a screening of _Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview_[1] in San Francisco when it was released in theaters, and subsequently bought the DVD a few years ago. Highly recommend it if you like _Triumph of the Nerds_.
RIP Bob
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs%3A_The_Lost_Intervi...
k7peak5 days ago
I remember watching him on PBS. There was something great about turning on the TV and finding someone who thought computers, and the people behind them, were interesting enough to spend a whole evening on. Sorta rare at that time.
ericflo5 days ago
Damn. I've been re-watching his documentaries recently. He was one of the greats.
donatj5 days ago
Ah man...
Hadn't heard from him in years. Then he posted that he was going to start writing again and I was so very glad to hear it... And now...
The dude was to me what tech journalism was. Between Cringely and Dvorak leaving us, we're losing the old guard. I'm bummed.
https://smackernews.com/item/48236501 HN
DoesntMatter225 days ago
Oh man this is really sad to me. End of an Era. His documentaries fueled me so much in the 90s and 2000s. I loved his stuff and his blogs.
Did an amazing job documenting the computer revolution and the internet revolution.
bcrescimanno5 days ago
Oh man...this one hit me tonight! I remember watching Triumph of the Nerds in high school and loving every second of it! I read his column on PBS for years and followed him to his blog later...and kinda fell off as I fell off of so many things. Bob was influential in turning my childhood passion for computers into my career.
It's especially tragic for his family as Bob had announced that his son Cole, aged 21, had passed away back in April. Condolences to all those who knew Mark, Cole, and their loved ones. RIP.

TheGrassyKnoll5 days ago

https://www.cringely.com/bout-bob/

  On How You Can Reach Him to Tell Him He’s a Dipstick
  Robert X. Cringely
  (707) 525-9519
  (707) 525-9517 (fax)
  bob@cringely.com

  Bob, bob, bob...you freeeeking dipstick.
  You're not supposed to die that young. That wasn't part of the deal.

tiernano5 days ago
one of his articles that i read that i remember came out in July 2003 titled "The son of napster" [https://web.archive.org/web/20040619084432/http://www.pbs.or...].
hardbass4 days ago
It seems this news is not yet verified and I can't find it anywhere other than hackernews and a Threads thread that links to here. We must wait independent confirmation. But condolences if true of course.
eob5 days ago
Rest in peace Bob. One of the great early tech writers. The feeling of his writing -- the blend of fact and opinion and sense of humor, and more than anything the sense the really cared -- always felt to me like one of the seeds that developed into the blogosphere.
elviejo5 days ago
Had to login to pay my respects. His blog "this rag" as he used to call it was foundational in my professional life. And I still typed cringley.com by hand to read his posts. He had a several tragedies in his life... But now his soul can be with his children.
RIP hacker from a bygone era..
indymike5 days ago
His death was far too early. It's hard to explain how much influence Cringely had over the years, how many minds were influenced by him - and how much his humor has been assimilated into the tech industry. He will be missed.
etc-hosts4 days ago
My last memory of him writing was he claimed he has definitive authoritative inside info that Google was going to start charging up to a $1 for each search request on the website.
1potato4 days ago
If true, this is very sad. I’ve read Cringely’s work for around 20 years — not as long as some here, I’m sure — and always appreciated the perspective of someone who had been involved in the industry in some capacity since the beginning.
Unfortunately, the site became more difficult to read in later years when it turned out that a lot of what he was saying was evidently false. Even more so when he switched over to AI-generated content.
Still, Triumph is an amazing documentary that I’ve watched many, many times.
burntcaramel5 days ago
I greatly enjoyed his book Accidental Empires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires
mrcwinn5 days ago
His documentary gave me a kind of access to Apple, a company I loved dearly as a kid, even as it was dying. Like WarGames, it seemed impossible to me all of its footage existed. I’m a stranger indebted. RIP.
sgt5 days ago
Dang - black ribbon please
tomaskafka5 days ago
I all Bob would do would be writing Accidental Empires, and inspiring Simon Wardly to adapt his Commandos, Infantry and Police into Pioneers, Settlers and Town planners framework, it would still be enough to achieve immortality. Thank you, Bob!
https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/03/on-pioneers-settlers-to...
FrankWilhoit5 days ago
De mortuis and all that, but someone has pointed out the poor track record of his later initiatives and I think the reasons for those failures are an important part of the picture. Look at his last few blog posts, outlining a radical alternative to LLMs. Read closely, and at the heart of that idea we find "assume enterprise search". But the willingness to consider radical alternatives is part of the right way to think.
jofla_net4 days ago
Sad, and to go in a similar way to his son who he spoke about this year on his site, what are the chances.
A great a free thinker.
4pkjai4 days ago
Sad to hear this, I watched "Triumph of the Nerds" multiple times when I was at University.
UncleOxidant4 days ago
Is this confirmed? Wikipedia shows him still alive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
musha68k5 days ago
I remember my mother buying me "Accidental Empires" from a bargain bin at the local bookstore as a tween. I must have read it multiple times. Dot product that with "The Cuckoo's Egg" and any technical books and magazines I could get hold of, and you have the formative reading of my career.
edderly5 days ago
RIP Bob. Triumphs of the Nerds and Accidental Empires captured the time it was written and the future.
lylo5 days ago
Sad news. I’ve read his blog for forever, Bob was a total industry legend. Best wishes to his family
driverdan5 days ago
That's sad. I watched the first two parts of Nerds 2.0.1 earlier this year and haven't gotten around to part three. Triumph of the Nerds and Nerds 2.0.1 are a fantastic look at 90's tech. He managed to interview most of the top people.
jdswain5 days ago
I liked his frequently contrarian views. Pre-internet his Cringely column (which he took over from someone else) was a great source of information for those of us living far away from Silicon Valley. RIP.
linguae5 days ago
This is sad news. I was born in 1989 and thus I don’t remember Cringely’s articles, but I remember watching Triumph of the Nerds in the mid-2000s. I love that documentary; it’s a nice capture of the early days of personal computing and of Silicon Valley culture of the era. I wish there were a follow-up that covered the 2000s and beyond, particularly the rise of social media, the gig economy (Uber, Lyft, AirBNB), cloud computing, big data, cryptocurrency, and generative AI.
robertxbishop5 days ago
Bob was a dear friend and co-conspirator on many an adventure. He and I did everything from moonshots to nano manufacturing. I am shocked to see that he is gone. God speed Bob!
Robert X Bishop
momocowcow5 days ago
What a great storyteller. Im surprised Triumph is mostly forgotten today. I remember being disturbed by his accounting of how Microsoft gave birth to DOS.
sno65 days ago
First time i’ve heard of bob (born late 90s I guess). Had a great afternoon watching his videos. Thanks for the fun, best wishes to the family.
zyk_computer5 days ago
I honestly hadn't heard of him before, and it's sad to be learning about him this way. I'll be watching Triumph of the Nerds tonight. RIP.
[deleted]
louiem35 days ago
RIP. I loved Triumph of the Nerds as a teenager.
jnaina5 days ago
Dvorak, Om and Robert. Damn. Their takes on tech taught me a lot and shaped how I think about this industry. RIP.
jeffhwang5 days ago
Sad news. Reading his columns post dotcom bubble was always interesting even when I disagreed—which was often!
wmat5 days ago
Very sad news. My VHS box set of "Triumph of the Nerds" resides proudly on my bookshelf.
KyleSanderson5 days ago
His takes on IBM were always interesting, especially during that turbulent time with Ginny. He is missed.
YoyoyoPCP5 days ago
Triumph of the nerds is the reason I work in high tech. RIP to a legend.
slater5 days ago
RIP.
cantrevealname5 days ago
I find it sad that he never got rich. Someone so energetic, articulate, and connected with the Who’s Who of Silicon Valley, getting the inside track on everything (especially in his early years), didn’t become fabulously wealthy. There may have been opportunities for him to be an early investor in a meteoric startup, or becoming a co-founder or adviser or board member. But didn’t happen.
bariswheel4 days ago
I read Accidental Empires when I was younger, RIP Bob.
kyledrake5 days ago
Triumph of the Nerds was my introduction to computer history as a kid. I had a dentist that learned I was into computers and he borrowed me his VHS copy. I probably would have had a very different world if I hadn't watched that, because it really turned me on to the potential. Thanks Bob (and my dentist).
russellbeattie5 days ago
This is really sad - Triumph of the Nerds played a big part in my move to California from the East Coast at the beginning of my career in the 1990s and I've rewatched the series regularly ever since... RIP Bob.
JeremyReimer2 days ago
There now appears to be confirmation of Mark Stephens' passing in the form of an online obituary, here: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/mark-stephens-obit...
duckiec4 days ago
Thats incredibly unfortunate RIP...
tehnoslow4 days ago
Damn, that’s heartbreaking. Rest in peace.
[deleted]
reenorap5 days ago
I immigrated to the US to work in Silicon Valley directly because of Triumph of the Nerds that I watched in PBS. I have a life that I could never have achieved in my home country and I am grateful to Bob Cringely for this. May he rest in peace.
KingOfCoders5 days ago
I loved "I, Cringely"
QuantumAtom5 days ago
May his memory be a blessing
Martin_Silenus5 days ago
Yeah, "Triumph of the Nerds" was a wonderful adventure. Now, "Triumph of the Lamers" is taking over.
RIP
rfcdot4 days ago
Rest in peace bob...
andrewstuart5 days ago
What?
He was only in his early 70’s.
This hits hard. Bob meant a lot to me I exchanged emails with him back in the 1990s and he gave me advice on a software project.
slfisher3 days ago
Stephens.
alizaki4 days ago
I’m very sorry to hear. An old copy of Accidental Empires was one of my introductions technology + capitalism
hoihoihoi4 days ago
RIP..
frrrree5 days ago
Oh no. RIP!!
anaaysampat5 days ago
:(
louiem35 days ago
RIP
Haeuserschlucht5 days ago
That's cringe.
k3105 days ago
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
```
  Born Mark Stephens 
    January 28, 1953 (age 73)
    Apple Creek, Ohio, U.S.
```
JUST updated. I had 8 minutes left to edit this.
Died October 3, 2026 (aged 73)
tclancy5 days ago
.
Danox5 days ago
RIP…

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Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died

945 points · 221 comments · 5 days ago · paveworld

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49949438

JKCalhoun5 days ago
I liked his "Plane Crazy: Building a Plane in 30 Days" on PBS.
Watching him try (and fail) to build a composite airplane says so much about the allure of modern techniques (I won't spoil the end, but old-school gets the last laugh). I've been less than enthusiastic about modern composites ever since seeing this show.
Bob's attempt (and short temper) reveals a good deal of hubris on his part.
The documentary is a fascinating failure and a masterclass in attempting to salvage a show when the whole premise for the show completely collapses.
[1] https://youtu.be/FSNzF-KSGiw
tjansen5 days ago
Damn. I've loved Bob and his writings ever since I read Accidental Empires as a kid. He went through some crazy shit over the last few years (lost his house, almost blind). And when he started blogging again this year (https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/27/where-the-heck-have-i-be...), the stories got even worse (lost his son, heart attack, stroke). RIP.
tuna745 days ago
He was a very entertaining blogger! RIP.
However, he was also ripping people off and making up stuff: https://www.jeremyreimer.com/rockets-item.lsp?f=true&p=272
kickingvegas5 days ago
Rest in peace Robert X. Cringely. For those interested, the documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" is available on the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/triumph_of_the_nerds
icee5 days ago
I was a big fan of this guy's work. Great documentaries. Triumph of the Nerds was a great watch — I gifted this to several people. I also watch the lost Steve Jobs documentary every few years for inspiration. Accidental Empires was a great read — I always think of Larry Ellison doing the NYT Crossword puzzle when I read about all the Paramount drama. He'll be missed.
bestham4 days ago
I remember watching "Triumph of the Nerds" as a appx. 10 year old (it aired some years later in Norway). Two quotes stuck with me from that. The first is Ballmer mocking IBMers for bragging about how many KLOCs they had written every day. He's point being that the code is not the product. The other was Ellison complaining about the software distribution models at the time. "Don't put software on plastic discs, plastic discs in cardboard box, cardboard box in a warehouse and later in a store. Instead put the software on the net." I remember calculating how long it would be to download the full Windows 95 disc on my 28.8 modem, and thinking that it would be long time until that was feasible.
dewarrn15 days ago
A shame. I encountered his work in a couple of places (with the caveat that I don't know which Cringely was which):
PBS website: He wrote a column that their site no longer hosts, but the Wayback Machine has it snapshotted frequently, including just after his final submission for the outlet in 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20081223220604/http://www.pbs.or...
NerdTV: In an era of nascent web video, he produced long-form video interviews with tech types, and clipped what might now be called "Shorts/Tiktoks" from the conversations, pulling out the of "the juicy bit" and "the nerdy bit". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NerdTV (h/t to u/Keyframe)
And obliquely, Cringely's columns or videos were the first place I recall hearing about foveated approaches to video compression for streaming. I thought it sounded like a terrible idea, but I guess Valve delivered, 20 years on, using the technique to good effect with the Steam Frame. Chalk one up for Cringely; RIP.
exitb5 days ago
Incredibly sad news. I first learned of him and watched his documentaries just a few years ago. It’s difficult to understate, if you happen to be a tech nerd, how much fun “Triumph of the Nerds” and “Nerds 2.0.1” are to watch, even nowadays.
havaloc5 days ago
When searching to verify the veracity of this, this post made me laugh: https://www.cringely.com/2020/01/23/not-dead-yet-what-bob-cr... (Circa 2020).
someperson5 days ago
This is a famous documentary from him: https://youtu.be/toSRmKKiosQ?is=kj1fkHSfpGsLoBVf
mscarpino5 days ago
I loved the book Accidental Empires, and it inspired me to become a programmer. RIP Bob. You were the best.
Keyframe5 days ago
Sad to hear that, apart things already mention I'd like to point out his NerdTV interviews - especially Dan Drake one (Autodesk co-founder). I always suspected, but that interview kind of validated how Autodesk went after competition as a strategy (to buy them outright). You can watch them all here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NerdTV
kbutler5 days ago
I had thought he had passed away earlier this year, but it was John C. Dvorak, who wrote the Infoworld industry news column before (/contemporaneously with) Mark Stephens, who adopted the name Robert X. Cringely. https://www.wired.com/1998/12/cringely/
John Dvorak passed July 20, 2026 Mark Stephens/Robert X. Cringely October 3, 2026
avadiax5 days ago
Just to confirm ... this Bob Cringely?
https://www.cringely.com/bout-bob/
pizlonator5 days ago
His “Lost Interview” with Steve is incredible.
Listening to Steve talk about the benefits of object oriented programming is something else
wormius5 days ago
RIP. Damn and Dvorak died earlier this year? What a sad year for legendary computer columnists.
gramie5 days ago
My favourite article he wrote was "Stranger in a Strange Land", about Homer Sarasohn (not Deming) rebuilding the Japanese electronics industry -- and to some extent, culture! -- after the war.
https://web.archive.org/web/20001015151303/http://www.pbs.or...
dhosek5 days ago
I remember religiously reading his Infoworld columns back in the day.
WheelsAtLarge5 days ago
I truly enjoyed his Triumph of the Nerds. I thought he had a pretty good handle on tech and looked forward to his opinion pieces. He regularly had a different take on tech, which helped to broaden my views. RIP, you will be missed.
acomjean5 days ago
Sad.
Early employee at Apple who was offered to be paid in stock. He “held out for the cash”.
I really like the triumph of the nerds series. Getting bill Gates, Balmer, Jobs and those IBMers to explain how it all came together and how MS who didn’t have an OS ended up getting one to sell to IBM.
The transcripts are a good
https://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html
fouc5 days ago
I've got fond memories of reading "The Little Engine That Could", his article on the wonders of mesh networking, potentially cheaply by flashing Linksys WRT54G with OpenWRT
...the WRT54G with Sveasoft firmware is all you need to become your cul de sac's wireless ISP. Going further, if a bunch of your friends in town had similarly configured WRT54Gs, they could seamlessly work together and put out of business your local telephone company.
https://web.archive.org/web/20040608142623/http://www.pbs.or...
TuckerBMorgan5 days ago
Reading accidental empires is how i learned that the tech industry even existed
jimbokun5 days ago
Future generations will have a better understanding of the personalities and history of the personal computer industry because of his work.
api5 days ago
I remember in the very early days of ZeroTier him stopping by our tiny coworking office in SoCal (we weren't scattered all over yet). He said it piqued his interest because it was "something that should have been built 10 or 15 years ago." (I'm paraphrasing. This was around 2015.)
He belongs to the old Silicon Valley. I wasn't there in those days and have never lived there, but I miss it.
It was back when SV was genuinely creative and largely positive in its attitude toward people and the future. It emerged from the ethos of places like SRI's "augmented human intelligence" lab and things like the Whole Earth Catalog and the Homebrew Computer Club.
Of course I'm well aware of the other origin story, the one that goes back to WWII and the defense industry. They're both true in different ways, but I think the ideas I mentioned above were the ones that came to dominate for a while.
I'd say until the mid-late 2000s.
I have this goofy speculation that the old Silicon Valley more or less went bankrupt in the dot.com crash in 2001. After that it was bought out and taken over by different interests with different goals. Probably bullshit, but it'd make a good novel plot or something.
jleyank5 days ago
Somebody who has chronicled and commented on the business for a long time. I enjoyed his work, and chuckled at some of the for-and-against it caused. Sorry to hear and I hope his family is ok. There’s a whole lotta water that’s passed under the bridge that we’ve not really noticed.
flowerlad5 days ago
Loved his book, and documentary.
BTW, there are 2 "Robert X. Cringely", one owned by InfoWorld, one owned by Mark Stephens.
https://www.wired.com/1998/12/cringely/
sm0014 days ago
I want to offer my condolences to his family and business partner(s). I read his columns for many years. Loved his style and smarts. I particularly enjoyed reading some of the comments and his answers, often as enlightening as the column itself. This sudden death could happen to me, so I am more appreciative of being alive today.
cantrevealname5 days ago
As far as I've been able to find, this is the last thing that Bob Cringely wrote publicly, 79 days before he passed away:
https://www.cringely.com/2026/07/16/the-auditors-opinion/
chang14 days ago
_Triumph of the Nerds_ was what got me interested in pursuing a career in software. It is the one documentary that's had the biggest influence on my life. I still have the VHS recording of it when it first aired on PBS in 1995. Even though it's on YouTube, I'll find my VCR and watch my old recording every few years.
In 2012, I saw a screening of _Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview_[1] in San Francisco when it was released in theaters, and subsequently bought the DVD a few years ago. Highly recommend it if you like _Triumph of the Nerds_.
RIP Bob
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs%3A_The_Lost_Intervi...
k7peak5 days ago
I remember watching him on PBS. There was something great about turning on the TV and finding someone who thought computers, and the people behind them, were interesting enough to spend a whole evening on. Sorta rare at that time.
ericflo5 days ago
Damn. I've been re-watching his documentaries recently. He was one of the greats.
donatj5 days ago
Ah man...
Hadn't heard from him in years. Then he posted that he was going to start writing again and I was so very glad to hear it... And now...
The dude was to me what tech journalism was. Between Cringely and Dvorak leaving us, we're losing the old guard. I'm bummed.
https://smackernews.com/item/48236501 HN
DoesntMatter225 days ago
Oh man this is really sad to me. End of an Era. His documentaries fueled me so much in the 90s and 2000s. I loved his stuff and his blogs.
Did an amazing job documenting the computer revolution and the internet revolution.
bcrescimanno5 days ago
Oh man...this one hit me tonight! I remember watching Triumph of the Nerds in high school and loving every second of it! I read his column on PBS for years and followed him to his blog later...and kinda fell off as I fell off of so many things. Bob was influential in turning my childhood passion for computers into my career.
It's especially tragic for his family as Bob had announced that his son Cole, aged 21, had passed away back in April. Condolences to all those who knew Mark, Cole, and their loved ones. RIP.

TheGrassyKnoll5 days ago

https://www.cringely.com/bout-bob/

  On How You Can Reach Him to Tell Him He’s a Dipstick
  Robert X. Cringely
  (707) 525-9519
  (707) 525-9517 (fax)
  bob@cringely.com

  Bob, bob, bob...you freeeeking dipstick.
  You're not supposed to die that young. That wasn't part of the deal.

tiernano5 days ago
one of his articles that i read that i remember came out in July 2003 titled "The son of napster" [https://web.archive.org/web/20040619084432/http://www.pbs.or...].
hardbass4 days ago
It seems this news is not yet verified and I can't find it anywhere other than hackernews and a Threads thread that links to here. We must wait independent confirmation. But condolences if true of course.
eob5 days ago
Rest in peace Bob. One of the great early tech writers. The feeling of his writing -- the blend of fact and opinion and sense of humor, and more than anything the sense the really cared -- always felt to me like one of the seeds that developed into the blogosphere.
elviejo5 days ago
Had to login to pay my respects. His blog "this rag" as he used to call it was foundational in my professional life. And I still typed cringley.com by hand to read his posts. He had a several tragedies in his life... But now his soul can be with his children.
RIP hacker from a bygone era..
indymike5 days ago
His death was far too early. It's hard to explain how much influence Cringely had over the years, how many minds were influenced by him - and how much his humor has been assimilated into the tech industry. He will be missed.
etc-hosts4 days ago
My last memory of him writing was he claimed he has definitive authoritative inside info that Google was going to start charging up to a $1 for each search request on the website.
1potato4 days ago
If true, this is very sad. I’ve read Cringely’s work for around 20 years — not as long as some here, I’m sure — and always appreciated the perspective of someone who had been involved in the industry in some capacity since the beginning.
Unfortunately, the site became more difficult to read in later years when it turned out that a lot of what he was saying was evidently false. Even more so when he switched over to AI-generated content.
Still, Triumph is an amazing documentary that I’ve watched many, many times.
burntcaramel5 days ago
I greatly enjoyed his book Accidental Empires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires
mrcwinn5 days ago
His documentary gave me a kind of access to Apple, a company I loved dearly as a kid, even as it was dying. Like WarGames, it seemed impossible to me all of its footage existed. I’m a stranger indebted. RIP.
sgt5 days ago
Dang - black ribbon please
tomaskafka5 days ago
I all Bob would do would be writing Accidental Empires, and inspiring Simon Wardly to adapt his Commandos, Infantry and Police into Pioneers, Settlers and Town planners framework, it would still be enough to achieve immortality. Thank you, Bob!
https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/03/on-pioneers-settlers-to...
FrankWilhoit5 days ago
De mortuis and all that, but someone has pointed out the poor track record of his later initiatives and I think the reasons for those failures are an important part of the picture. Look at his last few blog posts, outlining a radical alternative to LLMs. Read closely, and at the heart of that idea we find "assume enterprise search". But the willingness to consider radical alternatives is part of the right way to think.
jofla_net4 days ago
Sad, and to go in a similar way to his son who he spoke about this year on his site, what are the chances.
A great a free thinker.
4pkjai4 days ago
Sad to hear this, I watched "Triumph of the Nerds" multiple times when I was at University.
UncleOxidant4 days ago
Is this confirmed? Wikipedia shows him still alive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
musha68k5 days ago
I remember my mother buying me "Accidental Empires" from a bargain bin at the local bookstore as a tween. I must have read it multiple times. Dot product that with "The Cuckoo's Egg" and any technical books and magazines I could get hold of, and you have the formative reading of my career.
edderly5 days ago
RIP Bob. Triumphs of the Nerds and Accidental Empires captured the time it was written and the future.
lylo5 days ago
Sad news. I’ve read his blog for forever, Bob was a total industry legend. Best wishes to his family
driverdan5 days ago
That's sad. I watched the first two parts of Nerds 2.0.1 earlier this year and haven't gotten around to part three. Triumph of the Nerds and Nerds 2.0.1 are a fantastic look at 90's tech. He managed to interview most of the top people.
jdswain5 days ago
I liked his frequently contrarian views. Pre-internet his Cringely column (which he took over from someone else) was a great source of information for those of us living far away from Silicon Valley. RIP.
linguae5 days ago
This is sad news. I was born in 1989 and thus I don’t remember Cringely’s articles, but I remember watching Triumph of the Nerds in the mid-2000s. I love that documentary; it’s a nice capture of the early days of personal computing and of Silicon Valley culture of the era. I wish there were a follow-up that covered the 2000s and beyond, particularly the rise of social media, the gig economy (Uber, Lyft, AirBNB), cloud computing, big data, cryptocurrency, and generative AI.
robertxbishop5 days ago
Bob was a dear friend and co-conspirator on many an adventure. He and I did everything from moonshots to nano manufacturing. I am shocked to see that he is gone. God speed Bob!
Robert X Bishop
momocowcow5 days ago
What a great storyteller. Im surprised Triumph is mostly forgotten today. I remember being disturbed by his accounting of how Microsoft gave birth to DOS.
sno65 days ago
First time i’ve heard of bob (born late 90s I guess). Had a great afternoon watching his videos. Thanks for the fun, best wishes to the family.
zyk_computer5 days ago
I honestly hadn't heard of him before, and it's sad to be learning about him this way. I'll be watching Triumph of the Nerds tonight. RIP.
[deleted]
louiem35 days ago
RIP. I loved Triumph of the Nerds as a teenager.
jnaina5 days ago
Dvorak, Om and Robert. Damn. Their takes on tech taught me a lot and shaped how I think about this industry. RIP.
jeffhwang5 days ago
Sad news. Reading his columns post dotcom bubble was always interesting even when I disagreed—which was often!
wmat5 days ago
Very sad news. My VHS box set of "Triumph of the Nerds" resides proudly on my bookshelf.
KyleSanderson5 days ago
His takes on IBM were always interesting, especially during that turbulent time with Ginny. He is missed.
YoyoyoPCP5 days ago
Triumph of the nerds is the reason I work in high tech. RIP to a legend.
slater5 days ago
RIP.
cantrevealname5 days ago
I find it sad that he never got rich. Someone so energetic, articulate, and connected with the Who’s Who of Silicon Valley, getting the inside track on everything (especially in his early years), didn’t become fabulously wealthy. There may have been opportunities for him to be an early investor in a meteoric startup, or becoming a co-founder or adviser or board member. But didn’t happen.
bariswheel4 days ago
I read Accidental Empires when I was younger, RIP Bob.
kyledrake5 days ago
Triumph of the Nerds was my introduction to computer history as a kid. I had a dentist that learned I was into computers and he borrowed me his VHS copy. I probably would have had a very different world if I hadn't watched that, because it really turned me on to the potential. Thanks Bob (and my dentist).
russellbeattie5 days ago
This is really sad - Triumph of the Nerds played a big part in my move to California from the East Coast at the beginning of my career in the 1990s and I've rewatched the series regularly ever since... RIP Bob.
JeremyReimer2 days ago
There now appears to be confirmation of Mark Stephens' passing in the form of an online obituary, here: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/mark-stephens-obit...
duckiec4 days ago
Thats incredibly unfortunate RIP...
tehnoslow4 days ago
Damn, that’s heartbreaking. Rest in peace.
[deleted]
reenorap5 days ago
I immigrated to the US to work in Silicon Valley directly because of Triumph of the Nerds that I watched in PBS. I have a life that I could never have achieved in my home country and I am grateful to Bob Cringely for this. May he rest in peace.
KingOfCoders5 days ago
I loved "I, Cringely"
QuantumAtom5 days ago
May his memory be a blessing
Martin_Silenus5 days ago
Yeah, "Triumph of the Nerds" was a wonderful adventure. Now, "Triumph of the Lamers" is taking over.
RIP
rfcdot4 days ago
Rest in peace bob...
andrewstuart5 days ago
What?
He was only in his early 70’s.
This hits hard. Bob meant a lot to me I exchanged emails with him back in the 1990s and he gave me advice on a software project.
slfisher3 days ago
Stephens.
alizaki4 days ago
I’m very sorry to hear. An old copy of Accidental Empires was one of my introductions technology + capitalism
hoihoihoi4 days ago
RIP..
frrrree5 days ago
Oh no. RIP!!
anaaysampat5 days ago
:(
louiem35 days ago
RIP
Haeuserschlucht5 days ago
That's cringe.
k3105 days ago
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely
```
  Born Mark Stephens 
    January 28, 1953 (age 73)
    Apple Creek, Ohio, U.S.
```
JUST updated. I had 8 minutes left to edit this.
Died October 3, 2026 (aged 73)
tclancy5 days ago
.
Danox5 days ago
RIP…

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49949438