Robert Capps

Robert Capps is a writer, editor, filmmaker, and editorial strategist whose career includes work with major media institutions and brands. His writing has appeared in WIRED, The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, GQ, and other publications. Capps is known for shaping narratives across formats and platforms, contributing to journalism, editorial strategy, and media innovation.

Capps served as editorial director of WIRED, overseeing editorial for the magazine, WIRED.com, and live events. During his tenure, WIRED received 21 National Magazine Award nominations and eight wins. His personal projects were nominated 10 times, with two wins. Capps led guest-edited editions with J.J. Abrams, Christopher Nolan, Serena Williams, and President Barack Obama, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president guest edited a magazine. He also directed programming for live events such as the WIRED Business Conference, WIRED Data | Life health conference, and WIRED x Design creativity retreat.

Capps's journalism has received critical recognition. He wrote the article "Why Things Fail," which won the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. His article "The Good Enough Revolution" was discussed in publications including The Economist and The New Yorker, and was noted by The New York Times as a significant idea. His writing addresses topics such as the future of work and artificial intelligence, explored in pieces for The New York Times.

Previously, Capps was president and partner at GDP, a storytelling studio specializing in narrative journalism, podcasts, documentary film, and non-fiction storytelling. He developed editorial strategies for organizations and executives at Nike, Microsoft, National Geographic, Red Bull, TED, Amazon, and Google. Capps is a principal at ARRAY, a consulting firm, where he provides editorial expertise to organizations navigating high-stakes situations. He is also co-curator and frequent speaker at the annual PopTech ideas conference, and a moderator who has led on-stage interviews and discussions at events including The Global Challenges Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, and President Barack Obama's Frontiers conference in Pittsburgh.