Linda Stone

Linda Stone is a writer, speaker and consultant, with close to twenty years of experience as an executive in high technology. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, The Economist, Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, and hundreds of blogs. She has spoken at Supernova, the ETech conference, to executives at companies such as Price Waterhouse Coopers and McDonald’s, and at the Medici gathering of positive psychologists, an invitation-only gathering of leaders in this field.

In 1986, she began at Apple, where she had the opportunity to do pioneering work in multimedia hardware, software and publishing. In 1993, Stone joined Microsoft Research. She co-founded and directed the Virtual Worlds Group/Social Computing Group, researching online social life and virtual communities. In 2000, she took a VP role at Microsoft, helping improve industry relationships and contribute to a constructive evolution of the corporate culture. She retired from Microsoft in 2002. She has also taught as adjunct faculty at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program.