New York Times technology reporter Mike Isaac is leaving the paper to join The Atlantic in December to cover Silicon Valley.
Times technology editor Pui-Wing Tam sent out the following:
Mike Isaac always knew how to make an entrance. At a meeting with our publisher in the San Francisco bureau a few years ago, Mike staggered in late wearing basketball shorts and with plastic film covering his leg. He had just had a new tattoo inked, he announced to the room.
Now, we are sad to report, Mike has decided to make his exit from The Times.
For more than 12 years, Mike has been a backbone of The Times’s tech coverage. From covering “unicorn” start-ups, to Meta’s hits and misses, to the workplace troubles at Uber (which won a Loeb Award and led to a successful book and television series), to the rise of the artificial intelligence era in Silicon Valley, Mike chronicled it all with scoops, insight and rich storytelling.
His reporting was memorable and ahead of the pack. That was driven by Mike’s deep tech sourcing, which partly came from people feeling like they knew him from his stream of self-deprecating social media posts about his many stumbles, his musical passions, his beloved dog and his cooking.
But what Mike brought to coverage extended far beyond his byline. Behind the scenes, he posted news snippets on Slack to flag to colleagues, often needled his editors to go faster, and teamed up with many reporters to get stories over the finish line. Honestly, his haranguing was sometimes annoying. But Mike was pushing us to be on the news and everywhere all at once to give readers the full scope of the booming tech industry – and he was rarely wrong.
Joe Plambeck, interim deputy business editor, remembers working with Mike since the first day he walked in the door at The Times, “back when, out of fear of shocking his co-workers, he still mostly covered his tattoos.” Joe adds, “What I soon learned is how much fun it is to work with him when he smells a good story.”
Well, Mike got over that fear of showing his tattoos. We will miss him and his dramatic entrances. And we will miss his steadfast dedication to being the best in the business.
Pui-Wing and Jim
