GIL DURÁN was born in Tulare, California, in 1976. The grandson of Mexican immigrant farmworkers, he got his first taste of work in the fields but took an interest in journalism after winning the local newspaper’s “My mom is the best” contest in the fifth grade. In the 10th grade, his family moved from California to Kentucky, where he dropped out of high school for a year, then returned and befriended an English teacher who encouraged him to apply to college. He graduated from DePauw University in 1998 and started his journalism career at the San Jose Mercury News. As the newspaper industry hit turbulence, he pivoted to politics and spent 10 years as an adviser to politicians including Jerry Brown, Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris. In 2018, he returned to journalism as the California opinion editor of the Sacramento Bee before becoming editorial page editor of the San Francisco Examiner. Now an independent journalist, he publishes two newsletters: The Nerd Reich, focused on extremist tech politics, and FrameLab, focused on political language. He is the author of The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster).
