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.
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.
I hope they're both sitting and reading and learning together now, wherever they may be. I never caught this update but remember thinking about what he was up to some year ago, really sad all around. Rest in peace and I hope they're both remembered for a long time, I sure will.
Jesus. That is gut wrenching.
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.
Wow, I have a hazy memory of seeing this when I was a kid. Shocked I would ever see this again on HN of all places.
Watching now⌠wow what a throw back. Got a kick out of the 90s PBS vibe and the Chicago news! Thanks for posting
thanks for posting <3 this is great
Yup, saw this vid decades ago. It still seems like yesterday.
"Watching him try (and fail) to build a composite airplane "
But the plane did fly.
I was a big fan of this guy's work. Great documentaries. Triumph of the Nerds was a great watch â 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 â I always think of Larry Ellison doing the NYT Crossword puzzle when I read about all the Paramount drama. He'll be missed.
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
I first learned of the concept of âbuffer bloatâ from him, and how artificially limiting your upload bandwidth a bit can avoid huge lag spikes https://www.cringely.com/2011/01/04/2011-predictions-one-wor...
Not to be confused as the other Triumph of the Attack of the Clones and Nerd of the Rings:
Incredibly sad news. I first learned of him and watched his documentaries just a few years ago. Itâs difficult to understate, if you happen to be a tech nerd, how much fun âTriumph of the Nerdsâ and âNerds 2.0.1â are to watch, even nowadays.
"overstate"
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
Interesting! I actually work at Autodesk and my job is mainly to help users of acquired product A move over to (also) acquired product B (product B was previously a competitor of product A). I guess this acquisition culture mustâve been around long before me!
Whatâs that job role titled? Iâm looking for work and that seems like something I could be okay at, and likely in demand enough to offer realistic prospects. Thanks in advance.
Are you the one who cleverly arranged for a ceiling tile to fall on Ton Roosendaal when he was talking about supporting Autodesk, getting brought to court and most certainly losing, and the Blender Foundation owning the Blender code? ;)
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).
Cool story but after doing some digging itâs likely not true.
Everyone should read the above. Cringely had so many stories where he seemed to be part of, or present to witness, significant events in the computer industry - after a while you become suspicious that one person could really do/see all these things. Like he was a 'Forrest Gump' of technology.
Unfortunate, but an excellent moral story about how lies can snowball quickly.
The Jason Arday of technology columnists.
And previously this: https://www.cringely.com/2013/04/07/cringely-comes-back-from...
This is a famous documentary from him: https://youtu.be/toSRmKKiosQ?is=kj1fkHSfpGsLoBVf
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