Tell HN: Bob Cringely has died
- ID
- 31568
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 04 Oct 2026, 8:50 AM
- Fetched
- 04 Oct 2026, 11:21 PM
- Provider
- Hacker News
- Category
- dev-community
- Original URL
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49949438
- Source URL
- https://hnrss.org/best
Summary
- Score
- 3.0
- Created
- 04 Oct 2026, 11:22 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
Hacker News is mourning Bob Cringely — real name Mark Stevens — who died in his sleep early Saturday, according to a friend of the family posting to the thread (610 points, 122 comments). He was an early Apple employee best known for the PBS documentaries "Triumph of the Nerds" and "Nerds 2.0.1," plus "Plane Crazy: Building a Plane in 30 Days" and the NerdTV interview series. Commenters note he had recently posted that he was going to start writing again, and that his son Cole, 21, had died in April.
Why it matters
This is a memorial, not news you can act on — nothing here changes what you build or buy this week. The one concrete artifact worth pulling from the thread is the NerdTV interview archive, including the Dan Drake (Autodesk co-founder) episode, which commenters cite as a first-hand account of Autodesk's strategy of buying out competitors; it's usable as background viewing, not as research you'd cite.
Discussion angle
Several commenters say "Triumph of the Nerds" is what pushed them into a software career — worth asking who in the room had that same entry point, and whether anything today plays that role for people entering the field.