Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died

Posted by paveworld 22 hours ago

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.

785 points | 168 commentspage 3

TuckerBMorgan 22 hours ago|

Reading accidental empires is how i learned that the tech industry even existed

taneq 21 hours ago|

Same, that was my introduction to ‘tech culture’.

WheelsAtLarge 21 hours 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.

JMiao 21 hours ago||

Huge influence on my youth. He seemed like the inconvenient insider of 90s Silicon Valley. Like a PBS-trained version of pud.

dramm 19 hours ago||

Ah man there is a blast from the past. Fucked Company was so interesting and entertaining at the time.

The_Blade 19 hours ago||

RIP

as a non-pure engineer: I, Cringely helped me so much

jimbokun 21 hours ago||

Future generations will have a better understanding of the personalities and history of the personal computer industry because of his work.

jleyank 22 hours 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.

TheGrassyKnoll 5 hours 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.

jofla_net 2 hours 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.

cantrevealname 9 hours 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/

ericflo 18 hours ago||

Damn. I've been re-watching his documentaries recently. He was one of the greats.

eob 10 hours 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.

flowerlad 20 hours 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/

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