3 ms·

Seems like you want more of a coder of the year. What's more interesting in tech than Snowden right now?

• chc 13y ago
  I don't think that's right. I'm sure people would be willing to accept, for example, Elon Musk as tech person of the year — because what Musk's companies are doing is actually interesting technically. What Snowden did is copy a bunch of files that contain information which is interesting politically and societally. The fact that technology is somewhat involved in the story doesn't make it a technical advancement. There was technology involved in Watergate too (e.g. tape recorders), but I don't think anyone looks back at 1972 and sees Carl Bernstein as a good candidate for tech man of the year.
  • rdl 13y ago
    He's completely changed how people in the non-elite-security world view computers. Certainly his influence isn't limited to tech, but I think his impact on tech, at least IT and communications (god I hate the term "ICT"...) and startups and software and hardware... has been beyond any other single person this year. Or any company (2013 didn't see a lot of interesting products, IMO).
    • derefr 13y ago
      I guess a better way to put it is that Snowden released the tech story of the year. But the story of releasing a story is a story of journalism and politics, not itself technical. Maybe if we had a figurehead in the NSA to point to who approved PRISM et al., it would make sense to call them the "tech person of the year", because of their being in the tech story of the year.