Daring Fireball

John Gruber
Portrait by George Del Barrio
Born	1973 (age 44–45)
Occupation	Columnist, podcaster
Citizenship	United States
Subject	Design, Technology, Apple Inc.
Notable works	Markdown, Daring Fireball, The Talk Show, Vesper
Spouse	Amy Jane Gruber
Website
daringfireball.net

John Gruber (born 1973) is a writer, blog publisher, UI designer, and the inventor of the Markdown publishing format. Gruber is from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area. He received his Bachelor of Science in computer science from Drexel University, then worked for Bare Bones Software (2000–02) and Joyent (2005–06). Since 2002, he has written and produced Daring Fireball, a technology-focused blog. He hosts a related podcast called The Talk Show. In early 2013, Gruber, Brent Simmons, and Dave Wiskus founded software development firm Q Branch to develop the Vesper notes app for iOS. The venture was not successful, and Q Branch has since shut down.

Gruber has described his Daring Fireball writing as a "Mac column in the form of a weblog". It was partly inspired by kottke.org and Jason Kottke. The site is written in the form of a tumblelog called The Linked List, a linklog with brief commentary, in between occasional longform articles that discuss Apple products and issues in related consumer technology. Gruber often writes about user interfaces, software development, Mac applications, and Apple's media coverage.

In 2004, Gruber began selling memberships, where readers donate an amount of money annually to show support for Gruber's writing and also to gain access to other perks. The perks included more detailed feeds, but Gruber has downplayed the importance of the extra features, comparing them to "PBS tote bags". Daring Fireball logo T-shirts are also sold, which include a membership and a discount on further T-shirts. All of the site's content is freely available, and in August 2007, Gruber made all of the site's feeds freely available as well, and each week the feed features a sponsor.