As Vice President of Editorial, Paul brings 15+ years of experience as a business and technology editor to his role helping Lightspeed tell compelling stories about its founders, investors, and marketplace insights.
However, Paul comes to his work not just with a journalist’s curiosity, but with a technologist’s frame of reference. He has been interested in computers since his older brother convinced their immigrant parents to buy a Commodore 64 way back in the day. Later on, he would lug his tower computer to high school, so he could use it to lay out the school newspaper, where he was co-editor in chief.
That was the first but not the last time Paul’s passions for technology and the written word would converge. Paul studied philosophy, English, and creative writing at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. He was also a self-taught web developer, eventually running digital communications and IT at a trade association before making the leap into journalism.
Paul has written and edited for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fortune, Reuters, Slate, and Quartz, among others. At Reuters and the Times, he also held product management roles, helping develop a new CMS and a digital expansion of the Opinion section, respectively.
Later, he was executive editor at Fast Company, running the digital newsroom, and then founded Marker, an award-winning business publication on Medium. From there, he decided to take his technology and journalism skills in-house, to help business leaders directly share knowledge and insights with rigor, clarity, and sophistication.
At Elastic, an enterprise search, observability, and security company, he served as Editor in Chief and created thought leadership content for top technology executives seeking an edge in the marketplace. He also launched Insights by Elastic, a research-based magazine for IT decision makers.
“There’s insight that comes from being on the inside,” says Paul on joining Lightspeed. “I love hearing how investors think when they evaluate a deal or map a market, and how founders pitch when asking for millions to fund their world-changing ideas. My role is to document the intersection between commerce and creativity, business and belief. Those are the stories that can help aspirational founders understand what they need to bring to the table to succeed.”
When Paul isn’t writing, reading, or editing, he enjoys being outdoors: hiking, snowboarding, knocking the rust off his lifelong tennis habit, or trying something new, like golf and surfing. Most days you can also catch him and his wife Kristin playing fetch in Dolores Park with their two Mexican rescue dogs, Bambi and Katy Perry.
