Brian Lam (born May 23, 1977) is an American writer, best known for his work with ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' () is a design, technology, science, and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the sub-blogs ''io9'' and ''Earther'', which focus on pop ...

'', a blog focusing on technology; and '' The Wirecutter'', a recommendation website for gadgets.

Early life and education

Lam's parents are ethnically Chinese; his mother was born and raised in Queens and his father is an immigrant from Hong Kong. Lam was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

but moved to the suburbs of New Jersey after his father, a computer engineer for

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, Californi ...

, surprised a burglar who was taking their television. Lam was not fond of his time in New Jersey, noting that his preferences are for "deep urban-ness, or I'm into nature, but I'm not into this gray mushy zone in between, that's kind of what the suburbs were for me." As a child, Lam recalled his parents " et me and my brothersdo whatever we wanted to. It's reflected in the professions of all my brothers. One of my brothers is a musician. Another brother is a furniture maker. That has led to us having not a ton of guidance or structure" but his parents applied pressure " obe myself and do what I wanted to do. It's a lot of responsibility to listen to what yourself and find out what's right for you, without anyone programming you for that." When he was 11 or 12, he began spending summers with his grandparents in Hong Kong, where he discovered the local gadgets were "a lot smaller, cheaper, and better." While attending

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

, he switched majors frequently, taking courses in Philosophy, English, Journalism, Photojournalism, Computer Science, and Business, ending up in business school, after hearing dire stories about the decline of printed news. After college, Lam moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

to work at a small web-development firm in 2000, but was laid off within two months after the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

burst. He then worked at a kickboxing gym he had joined, which was operated by

Alex Gong Alexander James Gong (October 14, 1970 – August 1, 2003) was an American Muay Thai kickboxer. Early life Gong was born and raised in Boston. When he was 8, Alex Gong's parents went through an acrimonious divorce; during a dispute over cust ...

; Lam was present when Gong was shot and killed in 2003 after pursuing a hit-and-run driver that had damaged his car. Lam recalled that he discovered persistence after Gong's death: "I would just work so hard and I got whatever job I wanted eventually, even if I had to apply a few times." This attitude led him to internships at ''

Maximum PC ''Maximum PC'', formerly known as ''boot'', was an American magazine and website published by Future US. It focuses on cutting-edge PC hardware, with an emphasis on product reviews, step-by-step tutorials, and in-depth technical briefs. Compon ...

'' and later ''Wired''.

Career

Lam was a contributor and assistant editor for two years at ''Wired'' magazine before he left to join Gizmodo in 2006 as editor. Gizmodo page views per month increased from 11 million to 42 million in the twelve months following his hiring in July 2006. His apartment in San Francisco served as Gizmodo's headquarters in the city. Lam became editorial director in 2008 and left ''Gizmodo'' in 2011, by which time Gizmodo was receiving more than 220 million page views per month. During his time at Gizmodo, that site obtained and published a story about the

iPhone 4 The iPhone 4 is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the List of iPhone models, fourth generation of the iPhone lineup, succeeding the iPhone 3GS and preceding the iPhone 4s. Following a number of notable leaks, ...

prototype in 2010. Lam was called personally by

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

, who asked for the prototype to be returned, but Gizmodo held out until the prototype was officially recognized by Apple as its property. Lam noted the resulting confrontation ultimately led to his disillusionment with and departure from Gizmodo. Later in 2011, Lam started '' The Wirecutter'', a blog that gave buying recommendations for gadgets. Founding ''Wirecutter'' allowed Lam the time to pursue personal interests with ''The Scuttlefish'', a blog he curated with friends, posting stories about the ocean and aquatic pursuits. In 2013, he started ''The Sweethome'', a similar recommendation website for household goods. By 2015, ''The Wirecutter'' generated US$150 million in e-commerce sales, and the sites had drawn attention for their influential business model: rather than earning money primarily by publishing and updating content frequently to drive site traffic, pageviews, and advertising, they used affiliate links to earn a fraction of the resulting sale. In 2016, The Wirecutter and The Sweethome were acquired by

The New York Times Company The New York Times Company is an American mass media corporation that publishes ''The New York Times'' and its associated publications such as ''The New York Times International Edition'' and other media properties. The New York Times Company's ...

for more than US$30 million. At the time of the acquisition, ''The Wirecutter'' had a staff of roughly 60 employees. In January 2017, The New York Times announced that David Perpich would assume leadership at ''The Wirecutter'' as of March 5.

References

External links

* ** ** {{DEFAULTSORT:Lam, Brian 1977 births Living people American bloggers