Tech Brew Ride Home (BNS) Tech:NYC CEO Julie Samuels
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Sep 6, 2025 Julie Samuels, CEO of Tech:NYC and former advocate at EFF, shares her fascinating journey from journalism to tech advocacy. She discusses the vibrant evolution of New York's tech scene, contrasting it with Silicon Valley's culture. Julie emphasizes the importance of civic engagement and how Tech:NYC is dedicated to support the industry locally. She reflects on significant moments in internet history, including the dot-com bubble and the changing landscape of digital rights, highlighting the need for a collective effort in shaping the future of technology.
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From Journalism To NCSA
- Julie Samuels accidentally entered tech as a journalism student via an NCSA communications internship.
- She spent her college years at NCSA writing press releases and hanging out for fast internet access.
Early Newsroom Web Work
- Julie interned at Scripps Howard building basic HTML pages for newspapers in the late 1990s.
- She described the newsroom web team as the newspaper's "bastard stepchildren" in a dark attic-like space.
2009 Shift To Mainstream Tech
- The mainstreaming of iPhone and Facebook in 2009 brought tech to everyday people and their parents.
- That shift made internet policy and digital rights a central, mainstream political issue.