Trebor Scholz was born and raised in East Berlin, Germany. He has lived in Weimar, London, San Francisco (California), Buffalo (New York), Portland (Oregon), and Tucson (Arizona). He interviewed people about whiskey, walnuts and IT for a living, but also helped to run a Buddhist temple and designed websites right until the dot com crash. Scholz is also an author, occasional artist, chair of the conference series The Politics of Digital Culture, and Associate Professor for Culture and Media at the New School. Scholz held a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and has chaired eight major conferences in addition to organizing and chairing The New School’s Politics of Digital Culture conference series. He co-authored From Mobile Playgrounds to Sweatshop City (with Laura Y. Liu) and his book on 21st century labor is forthcoming in 2015. Dr. Scholz is also the editor of several collections including The Internet as Playground and Factory.