Carnegie Mellon University
April 25, 2013

Masters of Doom

How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture

Masters of Doom

On the 10th anniversary of his book, Masters of Doom, David Kushner discusses the story of John Carmack and John Romero, the Lennon and McCartney of video games. Together they ruled big business, transformed pop culture, and sparked a national controversy. More than anything, they lived the ultimate digital culture dream: escaping the broken homes of their youth to create games that inspired a generation of programmers and players to come.

David Kushner is a journalist and author. His books include Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America’s Legendary Suburb, Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds, Stormed Las Vegas, and Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture. His next book will be published by Simon and Schuster.

A contributing editor of Rolling Stone, Kushner has written for publications including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and Details. He served as the digital culture commentator for National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday. He has been included in The Best American Crime Reporting and The Best Music Writing. Kushner is an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University.

Thursday, April 25, 4:30 PM
Porter Hall 100