Jimmy Soni
BornToulouse, France
Occupation
  • Author
  • columnist
  • editor
NationalityAmerican
Alma materDuke University (BA)
Notable worksA Mind at Play,
The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley,
Rome's Last Citizen

Jimmy Soni is an American author and former managing editor of The Huffington Post.[1][2] He is best known for A Mind at Play, his biography of Claude Shannon and The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley.

Background

Soni was born in Toulouse, France to Indian parents from Rajasthan and was raised in Chicago, Illinois.[3] He attended Duke University and graduated in 2007.[4] During his time at Duke he was chairman of the honors council and vice president of student government.[5][6]

Career

Soni became the managing editor at The Huffington Post in January 2012.[7] Previously he had worked as a strategy consultant at McKinsey and Company, as well as a speech writer at the office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia.[8]

In 2012, Soni was named to AdWeek's "Young Influentials", a list of 20 people under 40 "who are wicked smart and rebooting your world".[2] He was featured at a TEDx event held at Duke University in March 2012.[5][9]

In May 2014, Soni transferred to India where he was in charge of launching the Huffington Post in the country.[10] He left the company before the launch to focus on writing a book.[11] Later, reports surfaced saying more than a book prompted his departure: internal complaints and a sexual harassment investigation of his management style were cited by current and former employees at the time. Arianna Huffington declined to comment on the matter.[12][13]

In 2014, Forbes named Soni one of the 30 people under 30 years of age in the media.[14] That same year the New York Observer listed him as the most "poachable" tech talent.[15] Previously, Soni was named one of Crain Communications' 40 Under Forty talents.[16]

In 2016, Soni worked with Eric Greitens on his successful campaign for governor in Missouri.[17]

In November 2017 Melanie Ehrenkranz wrote an article for Gizmodo detailing Soni's sexual harassment of interns as well as his sexual relationship with an 18 year old intern. It is reported that when asked why Soni's group of fellows was predominantly white, blonde women he answered "Yeah, I'm using it to find myself a wife." It was also reported that he was sent to India because of the allegations of those he supervised.[18]

Written works

Soni has co-authored several pieces with fellow Duke graduate Rob Goodman; their work has been featured in Politico, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, AdWeek, and The Atlantic, among others.[1][2][7][19][20] In 2012, Thomas Dunne Books a division of St. Martin's Press, published their first book, a biography of Cato the Younger, titled Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar.[7][21][22]

In 2017, Simon & Schuster published their biography of Claude Shannon, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age.[23] The book received positive reviews from the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Nature and others.[24][25][26] In an interview with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Soni explained that part of the reason he wrote A Mind at Play was that he was drawn to Shannon's personality and wanted to read a biography about him, but "it turned out there wasn’t one."[27]

The British Society for the History of Mathematics awarded Soni and Goodman their 2017 Neumann Prize for A Mind at Play.[28]

In 2022, his second biography, The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, was published by Simon & Schuster.[29][30]

References

  1. ^ a b Byers, Dylan (January 10, 2012). "Nico Pitney out, Jimmy Soni in at HuffPost". Politico.
  2. ^ a b c "The Young Influentials Adweek picks 20 under 40 who are wicked smart and rebooting your world". AdWeek. March 19, 2012.
  3. ^ Man of Letters Archived 2015-05-30 at the Wayback Machine Vogue India. May 25, 2015
  4. ^ Pompeo, Joe (January 10, 2012). "Top Arianna Huffington Deputy, managing editor Nico Pitney, to leave The Huffington Post". Capital New York.
  5. ^ a b "A Day in the Life of a Day". TEDx.
  6. ^ Soni, Jimmy (May 18, 2010). "WLP Alumni Profile – Jimmy Soni, Class of 2004". Washington Leadership Program.
  7. ^ a b c Lincoln, Kevin (January 10, 2012). "This 26-Year-Old Is About To Become The Managing Editor Of The Huffington Post". Business Insider. Archived from the original on May 3, 2013.
  8. ^ Tate, Ryan (January 10, 2012). "Meet the 26-Year-Old Assistant Now Managing the Huffington Post Newsroom". Gawker.
  9. ^ Lloyd, Glorida (April 2, 2012). "TEDxDuke speakers encourage innovation". Duke Chronicle.
  10. ^ http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2014/05/8545835/huffpost-me-jimmy-soni-transfers-india
  11. ^ "HuffPost Reveals India Launch Details, Calling It a 'Critical Market' for Growth". 21 August 2014.
  12. ^ "Former Huffington Post editor Jimmy Soni investigated for sexual harassment". Politico. 4 September 2014.
  13. ^ "Top Huffington Post Editor Was Investigated for Sexual Harassment". 4 September 2014.
  14. ^ Bercovici, Jeff 30 Under 30: The Next Generation of Media Moguls, Machers and Mavens Forbes. May 25, 2015
  15. ^ Mulshine, Molly, Jordyn Taylor, Jack Smith IV Betabeat's 2014 Most Poachable Tech Talent New York Observer. May 25, 2015
  16. ^ 40 Under Forty Crain's New York Business. May 25, 2015
  17. ^ Erickson, Kurt (20 December 2016). "Former Huffington Post editor on Greitens transition team".
  18. ^ "Arianna Huffington Ignored Sexual Misconduct at the Huffington Post". 14 November 2017.
  19. ^ Soni, Jimmy (May 29, 2012). "National Security As Culture War: Why Civil Libertarians Lose the Argument". The Huffington Post.
  20. ^ Soni, Jimmy (August 10, 2011). "Happy Birthday, Herbert Hoover: The Lost Legacy of a Hated President". The Atlantic.
  21. ^ Goodman, Rob; Soni, Jimmy (16 October 2012). Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0312681234.
  22. ^ "Jimmy Soni on DukeConnect". DukeConnect.
  23. ^ A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age. Amazon. 18 July 2017.
  24. ^ George Dyson (21 July 2017). "The Elegance of Ones and Zeroes". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  25. ^ "The man who paved the way for the information age". Financial Times. 19 July 2017. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  26. ^ Vint Cerf (12 July 2017). "Information technology: A digital genius at play". Nature. 547 (7662): 159. Bibcode:2017Natur.547..159C. doi:10.1038/547159a. S2CID 205094634.
  27. ^ Stephen Cass (27 June 2017). "Meet the Authors of A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 15 August 2017.
  28. ^ "Neumann Prize". British Society for the History of Mathematics. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  29. ^ Jimmy Soni (22 February 2022). The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1501197260.
  30. ^ Alexandra Jacobs (20 February 2022). "Ambitions and Emotions Run Hot in 'The Founders,' a History of PayPal". The New York Times.
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