Ashlee Vance | |
|---|---|
 Vance at a signing for his book,Elon Musk in 2015 | |
| Born | South Africa |
| Education | Pomona College,Claremont, California |
| Subjects | Technology, business |
| Notable work | Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future |
| Website | |
| www | |
Ashlee Vance is an American reporter, writer, and filmmaker. He is known for his 2015 biography ofElon Musk, titledElon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.
Ashlee Vance was born in South Africa, and grew up mostly in the state ofTexas in the United States.[1]
He attendedPomona College inClaremont, California, graduating in 2000.[2]
Vance wrote forThe Register from March 2003[3] to August 2008.[4] He moved toThe New York Times in September 2008[5] and then toBloomberg Businessweek in January 2011.[6]
During his time atThe Register, Vance covered companies such asIBM,HP,Intel, andDell, and also wrote about a wide range of technology topics, including robots,Segway scooters, and theR programming language.[7] In 2007, Vance wrote a book, calledGeek Silicon Valley, on the history ofSilicon Valley.[8] His writing often also appeared in such publications asThe Economist,Chicago Tribune,CNN.com,The Globe and Mail, theInternational Herald Tribune, andCNET.
Vance hosted an audiopodcast calledSemi-Coherent Computing from 2007 to 2008,[9] in which he discussed enterprise computing topics such asdata center cooling andblade servers, and interviewed guests including chip pioneer David Ditzel ofTransmeta,Sun Microsystems, andBell Labs.[10]
In 2015, Vance started writing, producing and hosting the "Hello World" video series for Bloomberg, focusing on the tech scene in various countries.[11][12] The show was nominated for an Emmy in 2016.[13] In 2015, Vance published his biography aboutElon Musk, the CEO ofTesla,SpaceX and other tech companies. The book became an immediate best-seller.[14]
In late 2020, Vance was working on a TV series based on his Elon Musk book for HBO.[15]
In May 2023, Vance publishedWhen the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space within Reach about the rise of commercial space. The book focused onPlanet Labs,Rocket Lab,Astra Space andFirefly Aerospace. It became an immediate best-seller.[16] A documentary inspired by the book,Wild Wild Space was released in July 2024, byHBO.[17][18]
At the beginning of 2025, Vance leftBloomberg to found Core Memory, a new digital media company focused on science and technology.[19] Core Memory has aYouTube show, apodcast, and aSubstack newsletter, but also aims to produce production-qualitydocumentaries, the first of which is onbrain-computer interfaces and was in production as of January, 2025.[19] He is also working on a book onOpenAI, for which he says he has already sold the movie rights.[19]
Vance lives in California with his wife and their two children.[1]
