American · b. 1959
Neal Stephenson writes novels that make ideas exciting. "Snow Crash" (1992) coined the term "Metaverse" and became a touchstone for Silicon Valley; "Cryptonomicon" (1999) wove World War II codebreakers with 1990s crypto-anarchists. The American author's books run long—"The Baroque Cycle" spans 2,700 pages across early modern Europe—but never drag. Stephenson thinks about technology, money, and history at scale. His influence on tech culture is matched by few living novelists.