Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, is leaving the publication at the end of the year to become CEO of his robotics company 3DRobotics, Conde Nast CEO Robert Townsend said in an email obtained by TheWrap on Friday.
Anderson has been at Wired since 2001, overseeing the publication for more than half of its history. Under his tenure, the magazine has won a plethora of awards, including winning the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2005, 2007 and 2009.
“This is an opportunity for me to pursue an entrepreneurial dream,” Anderson said in a statement in the email. “I’m confident that Wired’s mission to influence and chronicle the digital revolution is stronger than ever and will continue to expand and evolve.”
Anderson has written three books, though he was caught plagiarizing in an uncorrected proof of the most recent one, "Makers: The New Industrial Revolution."
He began his career in journalism at a pair of science journals, Nature and Science, before moving to The Economist in 1994. A London native, he has lived in the United States since he was five and studied Quantum Mechanics and Science Journalism at UC Berkeley.
Townsend's full memo is below:
Dear Colleagues,
Today Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired, announced that he will be leaving Condé Nast at the end of the year to become CEO of 3D Robotics, a company he cofounded several years ago. “This is an opportunity for me to pursue an entrepreneurial dream,” Chris said. “I’m confident that Wired’s mission to influence and chronicle the digital revolution is stronger than ever and will continue to expand and evolve.”
Chris joined Wired as editor in chief in 2001. During his tenure, the magazine received eight National Magazine Awards, including the prestigious top prize for General Excellence in 2005, 2007 and 2009. In 2010, Adweek honored Wired as its Magazine of the Decade.
As with every brand that challenges the current times and predicts the future, Wired will now embark on the next phase of its quest to determine “what will matter.” Please join me in thanking Chris for his extraordinary contributions to the Wired franchise. We wish him the best of luck in his new venture and look forward to naming his successor shortly.
