Guy Garcia is an American author, multimedia entrepreneur, and futurist whose career spans journalism, writing fiction and non-fiction books, and co-founding the early internet start-ups, Total New York^[1] and AOL Latino. The author of numerous books, including the bestselling Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way ^[2] with Nely Galán, Garcia is currently producing immersive virtual reality projects.

Biography

Garcia was born in Los Angeles, California. He received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Political Science. Garcia later received a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Garcia began his career in journalism as the Executive Editor of Town and Village Weekly. From there, he was the editor of the arts and politics weekly, FRIDAY Magazine. He spent 13 years covering business, culture, and international news for Time. He has contributed to numerous publications, including the New York Times, CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Interview, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

While still working as a journalist, Garcia co-founded Total New York, one of the first urban-focused websites of the nineteen-nineties. While there, he managed the development of interactive content and virtual environments for the Total NY website. In the NY Times, Eric Asimov wrote, "No site is an island," says Guy Garcia, editor of Total New York, who dreams of creating a network of urban websites."^[3]

Garcia later became the Founding Editor of AOL Digital Cities, New York. He worked as Director of Creative & Editorial Development for AOL Interactive Properties before becoming VP of Content and Programming. In 2003, Garcia transitioned to the AOL Broadband Product and Programming group, which included AOL Music.

In 2004, Garcia founded Mentametrix, collaborating on consumer marketing projects with Harvard University and the creators of the Implicit Association Test (IAT).^[4] Mentametrix became a research, marketing, and consulting company that combined multicultural consumer insight and online research technologies to produce research and reports.

That year, he wrote The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer is Transforming American Business. Garcia drew from his journalism experience to make a business case for diversity, and co-presented with the Director of the United States Census, Robert M. Groves. The New Mainstream drew national attention to emerging demographic, economic, and marketing trends in the increasingly multi-ethnic American population.

The New Mainstream was awarded the "Best of 2004" Business Book Award by Soundview Executive Book Summaries. Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons said that The New Mainstream "Provides an incisive look at the demographic, economic, and cultural forces that are redefining and expanding the American Dream."

In 2009, Garcia became chief consultant to the Warner Bros. Hispanic Marketing Project, The Time Warner Research Council Multicultural Consumer Study, and the PBS/BBC co-production Latin Music USA, a four-hour documentary on Latin Music and Culture.

That same year, Garcia wrote The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future, an analysis of economic, cultural and social malaise afflicting American males. He explored themes of superficial masculinity, self-destructive behaviors and virtual escapism, social isolation, and disconnection.

Publishers Weekly recognized The Decline of Men as "an astute and well-researched meditation on how men might reclaim their identity and place in modern America and why such a transformation is important to future generations of both men and women."^[5]

In 2012, Garcia became a partner and president of New Mainstream Initiatives at Ethnifacts, a research and insights consultancy studying evolving cultural identities, and how multicultural groups unite with new technology and social media to influence U.S. consumer markets. EthniFacts produces research on consumer purchasing power and influence on American culture and commerce, and the effect of diverse groups on contemporary life in the U.S.

In 2016, Garcia co-authored the NY Times bestseller, Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way with Nely Galán.^[6]

The following year, Garcia co-founded the Content Creators Alliance and published his fourth novel, _SWARM_. He directed and produced The Swarm Experience, a virtual reality immersive 360, which featured at the Sundance Film Festival VR bar. Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Readers are treated to what might be written if the misanthropic author Chuck Palahniuk gave the free-wheeling Thomas Pynchon a blood transfusion...a white-hot ingot of daring, disciplined storytelling."^[7]

Garcia has appeared on NBC,^[8] NPR,^[9] ABC World News Tonight,^[10] and PBS.^[11]

Bibliography

References