Building Wired Magazine: Kevin Kelly’s Unconventional Path from College Dropout E139
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Why did Kevin Kelly drop out of college and how did that shape his future?
All the co-founders of Wired, all of us were unemployable at that time. We were just making the magazine that we wanted to read.
Kevin Kelly co-founded the Wired Magazine. He is a writer, he's a futurist, he's now co-chair of Long Now Foundation.
I wasn't like anti-college. It was just like, this is not for me. I needed to work on something real. I just could not sit in a classroom. I was a science nerd and an art nerd. And I took all the science and math classes, doubled up, and I took all the art classes. That's all I was interested in. And photography was sort of something that was a combination of those. Technology was not front page news. It was not covered by every single publication like it is now. Why was this own new category that didn't exist? That's good news and bad news. The good news is it had no competition. The bad news is that...
You mentioned that you should have been dead. What was the experience? Why was it profound?
I was given or took on this assignment to live as if I was going to die in six months. I did everything that I could to prepare for dying in six months. And one of the things that came out of it was...
Okay, our guest today co-founded The Wired Magazine, which I bet you all know or heard of. And he is a writer. He's a futurist. He's an incredible optimist. You'll hear it. And he's now co-chair of Long Now Foundation. They're building a a clock and library in the mountain that will last for 10,000 years. My head is like, like, how can you even think about 10,000 years? It's incredible. And I can go on and on and on and endless cool stuff that Kevin is involved with. Kevin Kelly, Tim Ferriss actually called you the most interesting man in the world, if I'm not mistaken. And I can't wait to dive in. So welcome to the show, Kevin.
Oh, it's my pleasure. My honor. Thank you for inviting me.
We're going to geek out. I already told you, like, we are going to geek out. But I have to say, you started, if I'm not mistaken, actually dropped out of college, do not have necessarily a college or university degree. And I want you to take me there. Like, what were you planning to do? Did it scare you? Did it scare your parents? Take me there a little bit.
Yeah, it's worth going back because in 1970, in the 60s, when I was going through high school, everybody went to college. People moved to the town to go to high school, to go to college. And not going to college was a very, very... deliberate act then because there was no gap year. There was no internships. There were no alternatives. It was college or nothing. And when I dropped out, it was kind of like signing up for not having a career.
It's like signing up on failure. How do people take it?
Yeah, so I assumed that, I mean, when I was trading, I was doing a deliberate trade in my mind. I was gonna trade a career that would have money and not even wealth, but just like a livelihood for having control of my time. I was imagining that I would be doing things like building my own house, from scratch, which I eventually did. And other things that I would do with the time. And the part, I have to say, by the time I was graduating, I had the whole earth catalog in hand, which was for me, this alternative possibilities. It was a catalog of possibilities that were alternative to what people were expecting you to do as a career. And it said, here's about a bunch of people who have taken alternative
careers in their lives to build their own homes and all these other kinds of things that I wanted to do. They said it was possible. It was saying there is alternatives or there are alternatives that are possible. And that's what I believed in. I said, yes, there seems to me there are other ways. And I may not have money, but I will have time and I will make my art and I will do my stuff and I will make my things.
Was there a lot of no's from people around you or the family and what are you doing? Now it's a little more common. Now you see a lot more of it. It wasn't as common when you did that.
No, it wasn't. I didn't meet anybody who had gone on to a career that had dropped out until Silicon Valley when people started to do it more often.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why did Kevin Kelly drop out of college and how did that shape his future?
0:00–8:39
2
What sparked Kevin’s decision to hitchhike across Asia and become a photographer?
8:39–18:47
3
How did Kevin transition from photography to writing and publishing?
18:47–28:27
4
What was the origin story behind the first Hacker Conference?
28:27–41:29
5
How did Wired overcome the challenge of creating a brand‑new media category?
41:29–53:21
6
What led to Wired’s split after the dot‑com bust and how did the company survive?
53:21–55:34
Speakers
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