GUY GARCIA

Bio

Guy Garcia is a prize-winning author, multimedia entrepreneur, and futurist whose career spans journalism, fiction and non-fiction books, as well as a co-founder of Internet start-ups and a producer of immersive virtual reality projects. As a consultant and speaker on cutting-edge technology and socio-economic cross-currents, Guy has presented at SXSW, Sundance, the U.S. Census Bureau, numerous Fortune 500 companies, and authored a change.org petition with more than 26,000 signatures worldwide. A PBS-noted “trend tracker,” Guy’s ability to predict and articulate major shifts in the zeitgeist across mixed media platforms, and his gifts as a cultural weathervane and storyteller, have never been more compelling. He is currently working on a book about the Future of Intellectual Property.

Guy is a Co-Founder of the Content Creators Alliance (contentcreatorsalliance.org). In 2017, Garcia directed and produced The Swarm Experience, a virtual reality immersive 360 based on his book, SWARM, that was featured at the Sundance Film Festival VR bar. His work has appeared in Time, the New York Times, The New York Times Sunday magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Interview magazine (Joni Mitchell/David Byrne/Wayne Shorter), The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Times of London, the Daily Mail, and the Financial Times.

A former Time magazine staff writer and contributor to the New York Times, CNN, The Los Angeles Times and the Huffington Post, Guy is recognized for his articles, books and commentaries on socio-economic trends, and has appeared on NPR, ABC World News Tonight, CNBC, PBS, and New York One. As a Co-founder and Director of the pioneering urban website

Total New York, and later at ICQ and AOL International, he oversaw the development of virtual avatar environments, live cybercasting and digital content strategies around the globe. As author of the science-fiction thriller, _SWARM_, he has spawned a mixed reality content platform that includes "A Brief History of Mind Control," "A Declaration of the Independence

of Mindspace,” and a petition to “Regulate Electronic Devices or Other Technologies Designed to Control the Human Mind” on Change.org (to date, 26,000+ signatures worldwide).

As a speaker and consultant, Guy has worked with Time Warner, The Disney Company, SXSW Interactive, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co., Nissan Motors, Fox Entertainment, People en Espanol, MTV Networks, Harvard University and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others. Guy is an Edward Albee Fellow, a member of PEN, and the Executor of the Literary Estate of the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. He lives in New York City.

Early life and education

Garcia was born in Los Angeles, CA. He received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science, where he graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. Garcia later received a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Career

Journalism

As a staff writer at Time magazine for 13 years, Garcia covered business, culture, and international news, as well as star profiles, music, cinema, show business, and reviews. Prior to Time, Garcia was the Executive Editor of Town and Village Weekly (1979-1989), and Editor of FRIDAY Magazine, the arts and politics weekly for the Daily Californian at the University of California, Berkeley.

Garcia has contributed to The New York Times, American Film, The Face, Mas, the Minneapolis Tribune, the LA Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and was featured in Fortune, Vanity Fair, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Journal, Rolling Stone, People, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Spin, Marie Claire, Interview, Premiere Magazine, People en Español, Advertising Age, The Financial Times, the Times of London, ABC, Univision, NPR, CNBC, CNN, PBS, and the Cable Advertising Bureau.

Fiction Novels

_Swarm_ (2017)

In this fast-paced high-tech thriller, Austin-based hacktivst Tom Ayana is already an infamous flash-mob impresario known as "Swarm" when experimental software code is leaked to him from the Defense Department. Tom's enhanced neuro-abilities and his encounter with the shadowy Meta Militia propel his online alter ego into becoming 'the elusive alpha that controls the hive mind' with transformative and potentially lethal effects. As Swarm pursues his quest to jumpstart the next phase of human evolution, he becomes the target for Jack Duggan-a Homeland Security cyber-investigator with a reputation for going rogue. Duggan risks his career to untangle a web of corruption and betrayal that reaches from a military atrocity in Afghanistan and an Edenic video game virtual world to the highest echelons of U.S. government. Duggan soon enlists biologist Cara Park to help him stop Swarm before he ignites a crowd-sourced insurrection with the power to shatter the status quo and rewrite the rules of democracy

Said Kirkus reviews: "Readers are treated to what might be written if the misanthropic author Chuck Palahniuk gave the free-wheeling Thomas Pynchon a blood transfusion...a white-hot ingot of daring, disciplined storytelling."

Spirit of the Maya (1997)

With Walker & Company, Garcia’s third novel, Spirit of the Maya was published and follows a Mayan boy who discovers his ancestors created the pyramids and temples of Palenque, Mexico.

Obsidian Sky (1995)

In 1995, Simon & Schuster published Garcia’s second novel, Obsidian Sky, a story of Chicano graduate student Brian Mendoza discovering Mexico City while researching the sixteenth-century shaman Xotl. Though it received mixed reviews, Publishers Weekly described Garcia’s second novel as one written with conviction and the Library Journal suggested that Garcia “brings to life the Mexican settings, be they Yucatán, Mérida, or Mexico City.”

Skin Deep (1989)

Garcia’s debut novel, Skin Deep, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is a coming of age story about a second-generation Chicano growing up in an America where races and cultures collide.

Anthologies

Garcia contributed to the fiction anthologies Iguana Dreams: New Latino Fiction, published by HarperCollins (1992), Pieces of the Heart: New Chicano Fiction, published by Chronicle Books (1993), and Paper Dance: 55 Latino Poets, published by Persea Books (1995).

Nonfiction Books

Self Made - by Nely Galan with Guy Garcia (2016)

Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way (Random House), became a New York Times best-seller. Hailed by Good Reads as a book "For readers of #GIRLBOSS and viewers of Shark Tank—a global revolution in entrepreneurship is under way, inspiring women to blaze a trail of financial self-reliance and become self-made. What does it mean to be self-made? It’s not just about having money, but financial empowerment is where it begins. It means getting out of survival mode, where you are one problem away from catastrophe. It means changing your mindset from instant gratification to goal orientation. It means being able to sleep at night without worry. It means being rich in every way: rich in money, rich in family, rich in love, rich in time—abundant!"

The Decline of Men (2009)

In 2009, Garcia published The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future (Harper Collins), an analysis of economic, cultural and social malaise afflicting American males. He explored themes of superficial masculinity, self-destructive behaviors and virtual escapism, as well as social isolation and disconnection.

The Decline of Men was published at the height of a larger cultural and media movement. That same year, NPR declared "The End of Macho," noting that 80 percent of jobs that disappeared in the economic downturn belonged to men. An Atlantic article published in July/August 2010 declared "The End of Men," noting women’s rapidly increasing numbers in the workforce for the first time in U.S. History. Newsweek published another article supporting Garcia’s argument with its September 20, 2010 article “Why We Need to Re-imagine Masculinity." Publishers Weekly recognized The Decline of Men as “an astute and well-researched meditation on how men might reclaim their identity and place in modern America and why such a transformation is important to future generations of both men and women.”

The New Mainstream (2004)

In The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer is Transforming American Business, published by Harper Collins, Garcia drew from experience as a journalist and author to write a “business case for diversity.” The New Mainstream drew national attention to emerging demographic, economic and marketing trends in the increasingly multi-ethnic American population. Soundview Executive Book Summaries awarded Garcia with the “Best of 2004” Business Book Award.

New Media, Research and Entrepreneurship

TotalNewYork.com and AOL International

Garcia co-founded Total New York, a Silicon Alley start-up and one of the first urban web sites in the 90’s, where he managed the development of interactive content and virtual environments. He later became the Founding Editor of AOL Digital City, New York.

From 1998-1999, Garcia was Director of Creative & Editorial Development for AOL Interactive Properties, managing programming for ICQ, a web-based instant messaging system with more than 60 million users worldwide. In 1999, Garcia became the Vice President of Content and Programming for AOL Latin America, a joint venture between America Online and the Cisneros Group of Venezuela. While at AOLLA he launched AOL Latino, the bilingual entity of AOL International, encompassing all 2 million of its Hispanic subscribers, and oversaw the development of AOL International, managing content and programming for AOL inititaives in Latin America, Brazil, Spain, Australia, Japan and China. In 2003, Garcia transitioned AOL Music to the AOL Broadband Product and Programming group.

Consulting

In 2009, Garcia became chief consultant to the Warner Bros. Hispanic Marketing Project, The Time Warner Research Council Multicultural Consumer Study, and the PBS/BBC co-production Latin Music USA, a four-hour documentary on Latin Music and Culture. As a PBS “Trend Tracker,” Guy worked with the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau, NBCUniversal, AARP, Time Warner Cable, The Walt Disney Company, Pepsi, Astra Zeneca, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co., Nissan Motors, Fox Entertainment, MTV Networks, Harvard University and The Council on Foreign Relations.

Garcia is currently a speaker and consultant for corporations including Nielsen, Telemundo/NBC Universal, Time Warner, Reebok, The National Ski Areas Association, Kraft Foods, The Coca-Cola Company, Nissan Motors, McKinsey & Co. and the Council on Foreign Relations. Additional clients include Warner Bros., Time Inc., Twentieth Century Fox, CNN, PBS, Turner Broadcasting, AOL, Nissan, Clorox, Hospital Corporation of America, McKinsey & Co., the National Hispanic Corporate Council, the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership, the Association of International Educators, and the National Association of Hispanic Advertisers.

Mentametrix

Garcia became the founder, president and CEO of Mentametrix, Inc. in 2004, where he focused on the concepts and insights of The New Mainstream, and collaborated on consumer marketing projects with Harvard University and the creators of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Mentametrix became a research, marketing and consulting company that combined multicultural consumer insight and online research technologies to produce research and reports that later informed his books.

Ethnifacts

In 2012 Garcia became a partner and President of New Mainstream Initiatives at Ethnifacts, a research and insights consultancy studying evolving cultural identities, and how multicultural groups unite with new technology and social media to influence U.S. consumer markets. EthniFacts produces research on consumer purchasing power and influence on American culture and commerce, and the effect of diverse groups on contemporary life in the U.S.

Using Ethnifact’s Interethnic Proximity Index, Garcia spoke at a press conference in Times Square on August 2014 to announce and updated tipping for a multicultural majority, which he identified as August 22, 2014. The new date for a multicultural majority U.S. was calculated by the EthniFacts Interethnic Proximity, Index (IPI), a proprietary algorithm that takes into account multiracial populations, intermarried couples, cohabiting households, residence proximity and other factors indicating multicultural influence on non-Hispanics whites and American society.

Other Works

Garcia has commented on society and politics for the Huffington Post and the National Journal. He is a contributing producer to NPR’s Latino USA and PBS’s America By the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa, and has appeared on NPR’s Brian Lehrer Show.

Honors and Awards

Garcia is a 3 time Judge for the National Magazine Awards and is a recipient of the Pluma de Plata Award (Mexico). In 2005, his book The New Mainstream was selected among Soundview Executive Book Summaries Top 30 Business Books of 2005. Garcia is a former fellow for the Edward Albee Foundation and a member of PEN American Center.

Career timeline

2008: Publishes The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future (Harper Collins), a critical analysis of the economic, cultural and social malaise afflicting the American male, who is opting, instead, for superficial definitions of masculinity, self-destructive behaviors and virtual escapism, which Publishers Weekly called "an astute and well-researched meditation on how men might reclaim their identity and place in modern America and why such a transformation is important to future generations of both men and women."
2004: The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer is Transforming American Business Harper Collins, a critically acclaimed book about emerging demographic, economic and marketing trends in the increasingly multi-ethnic American population. Wins “Best of 2004” Award from Soundview Executive Books Summaries.
2002–Present: President and CEO of Mentametrix Inc.—A multicultural research and marketing solutions company, focusing primarily on the concepts and insights of The New Maintstream.
2002: Vice President of AOL Broadband Programming/Music—Transitioned AOL Music to the new AOL Broadband Product and Programming group.
2001: Vice President, Content & Programming, AOL International—Australia, Canada, China, Japan and Latin America.
2001: Develops and launches TIME Voices/Voces and Frontiers/Fronteras—A groundbreaking cross-promotional collaboration between AOL Latino and Time Inc., CNN, Time Warner Inc., Time Warner Cable and AOL Mexico.
2000: Subject of a one-on-one interview with Peter Jennings on a special edition of ABC World News Tonight focusing on US Hispanics.
1999–2001: Vice-President, Content and Programming, AOL Latin America—All Latin American markets, including AOL Brazil, AOL Mexico, AOL Argentina, AOL Puerto Rico, and regional portal.
1998–1999: Director, Creative & Editorial Development, AOL Interactive Properties—Programming for ICQ, a web-based instant messaging system with more than 60 million users worldwide.
1998: Writes landmark Sunday New York Times feature on Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, and the social implications of the “second boom” of US Latino culture.
1997–1998: Executive Producer/Founding Editor, Digital City New York—AOL’s Digital Site for New York City.
1997: Publishes Spirit of the Maya (Walker & Company), a real-life story of a Mayan boy who discovers his ancestors created the pyramids and temples of Palenque, Mexico.
1995: Publishes Obsidian Sky (Simon & Schuster), a novel about a Chicano anthropologist who travels to Mexico to investigate his Aztec roots.
1994–1997: Co-Founder, Editor & Content Director of Total New York, Inc.—An award-winning New York City website later bought by AOL Digital City.
1994: Reports and writes the TIME Magazine cover story on the Maya; based on research for second novel Obsidian Sky.
1989: Publishes Skin Deep (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a widely hailed novel about a Harvard-educated Latino lawyer who collides with his East LA roots.
1980–1993: Staff Writer, Time Inc.—Music reviewer and entertainment writer; domestic and International news features; Profiles; Culture; Music; Cinema; People; Showbusiness, Reviews. Authored seminal cover story on rise of U.S. Latino culture and Chicano Actor Edward James Olmos