Jonathan Taplin
Writer, film producer and scholar
Jonathan Taplin is a film producer, scholar and writer who worked in music and film before turning to writing about technology and culture.
1 summary 26 min of listening
American Born 1947 in Cleveland, United States
About Jonathan Taplin
Jonathan Taplin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947 and graduated from Princeton University in 1969. He started out in music as tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band, and in 1973 he produced Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Between 1974 and 1996 he produced 12 feature films, including The Last Waltz and To Die For, along with 26 hours of television documentaries. He also worked in media mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch and created the first video-on-demand service on the internet. Move Fast and Break Things is his book about how large technology companies came to dominate culture and weaken democracy. His other books include The Magic Years and Outlaw Blues. He is Director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, chairs the Americana Music Foundation, and has written for Rolling Stone.